Don’t Hire a Gym Business Mentor Until You Listen to This

Many gym owners hire the wrong mentor for the wrong reasons.

They pick the cheapest option or someone who “really cares.” But "cheap" doesn't mean "effective" and caring isn’t enough.

You need results when you invest in mentorship.

Today on “Run a Profitable Gym,” Chris Cooper walks you through the Mentor Match exercise, a step-by-step process for identifying exactly the right mentor for you.

The exercise reveals which coaching styles have actually worked for you in the past: Some people respond to drill sergeants, while others need questioners or explainers.

The key is finding the style that matches your personality.

Chris also covers the three non-negotiables when choosing a mentor: They’ve done what you want to do, they’re objective (not just supportive), and the investment is uncomfortable enough to ensure you do the work.

Every coach needs a coach. Use the Mentor Match exercise to find the right fit.

Download the free Mentor Match worksheet in Gym Owners United, linked below.

Links

Gym Owners United

Book a Call

1:45 - Mentor Match exercise

13:01 - Find the expert

16:17 - Non-negotiables

19:48 - Do your due diligence

20:51 - A reality check

Transcript

Chris 0:02

I've been mentoring gym owners for a decade now, and I've also worked with many mentors and coaches throughout my career. Today I want to share what I've learned about finding the best mentor for you, and more importantly, how to actually work with them to get results. I'm Chris Cooper. This is Run a Profitable Gym, and today we're talking about how to find and work with a mentor best. Many gym owners hire the wrong mentor for the wrong reasons. They're looking for the cheapest option, or they pick somebody based on a Google review that says this person really cares, or they take the free advice that they're getting from their software company. But the reality is that just caring about you is not enough. You need somebody who's going to get results. The mentorship at TwoBrain is done one-on-one. We do coaching in small group sessions that run nearly every day. And I'll be honest with you, sometimes I just show up for the coaching calls, which again are available nearly every day on top of your one-on-one mentor calls. And I just turn off the camera and I do work. I like being in a room with other gym owners. It motivates me. I know what I have to do thanks to my mentor, but I like coming to the coaching calls because I feel like I have an appointment with myself to get the work done. Now, you know this as a fitness coach. Your clients need a program and a nutrition plan. But to actually execute, they need coaching and filtering and simple steps to succeed. They need to show up. They need to see you. And the same thing applies to business mentorship. I can't just give you a program and say, here you go. I mean, I do that for free every single day. I do that in 10 different business books. What's really important is that your mentor breaks the plan down step by step for you and then, together with other coaches, coaches you to actually get it done. Let's figure out what kind of mentorship style actually works best for you. So this is the mentor match exercise. You've probably seen personality tests out there like Myers Briggs and Colby and Strengths Finder. They're interesting, but they don't actually tell us how to get work done. So I'm gonna give you an exercise to help you figure out the kind of mentor that's gonna get you results. You personally, this person might be very different from the mentors that get me results. There are six steps to finding the best mentor for you right now. Now I've got a worksheet for this. You can download it through um gymownersunited.com, find me on Facebook and just say, Coop, can I have the mentor match exercise? But if you want to just draw this on a piece of paper right now while you're listening or watching, you can do that too. So pull out a pencil, draw two vertical lines and two horizontal lines. Like you're creating uh an X's and O's game. Okay. At the top of the first column, write wins. At the top of the second column, write coach. And at the top of the third column, write lever. So here we go. Step one. Think back to a time in your life when you were really proud of yourself. What had you just accomplished? Was it sports related? Did you get an A on your report card? Did you win the big game? Did you strike out the key batter? Or was it school related? Did you hand in a project that you really loved or make a painting that everybody thought was really great? Was it something outside of school and sports? Did you build a treehouse with your mom and dad? Did you finish a puzzle? Did you earn admission to college or complete a piece of art? Write something? Did you set up a window display at your first retail job that you really loved? Maybe it was fitness-based. Did you hit a PR in a certain lift or do your first competition or complete a high ROX for the first time? Or maybe it happened in the military or at home. You you drywall to wall yourself, or something at work. Did you achieve sobriety? Were you accepted into your church, baptized? List these things in the first column under wins. What's really fun about this is that when you start doing this, your goal is to find three wins. But a lot of people start doing it and they just can't stop listing things they're proud of. And that's great. Because if you thought of more than one instance when you were really proud of something that you've accomplished, awesome, amazing. If you can only think of one right now, that's okay. But let's say that perhaps you won the state championship in high school for something, or maybe you got college acceptance, right? That just happened with my son a couple months ago and I saw how proud he was. So I'm gonna write that down. Um, I'm also gonna write down senior thesis because I can remember back when I went to college, literally 30 years ago, turning in something that I was really proud of. So go ahead and write down three to five things you can remember where you thought, I'm proud because I accomplished this thing or I did a really great job. Okay, that's the first step. Step two is while you're thinking about those accomplishments, I want you to answer a couple of questions. First, who was your primary coach? Who was the person that helped you get there? Uh, who told you what to do, who gave you corrective feedback, who said this is the deadline. Okay. Who is your model? Who are you trying to emulate? Oh, I'm gonna do it like him. Uh, boy, I really want to turn in a piece of work just like him. I want to write like that person, paint like that person, I want to play like that person, I want to lift like that person. Who was the first person that you called up and told about your victory? You know, who are you trying to impress? Now, there could be more than one person, but I know that in every single win you've ever had that you were especially proud of, there was a coach or a teacher or a mentor or a parent or a model that you copied and wanted to follow, impress, or be like. So write those names down under that second heading, coach. And it's okay to write down a few for each accomplishment. You know, I wanted to ride my bike like this person, and I finished first in this race. And the first person I called was my wife, et cetera. Okay. So maybe you won the state championship under Coach McGrath. Now you don't have to think about what made Coach McGrath amazing because that might be hard. But just think about who the mentor or coach was for you at that point for each individual achievement that you're proud of. You know, for college acceptance, who are you most proud to tell? Could be your parents, absolutely. I'm gonna write down it when I do mine, Miss LaRue, a guidance counselor. She really believed, and even though my high school grades were not amazing, she knew that I wasn't really applying myself. I wasn't motivated, I had no incentive. And so she was especially proud when I did a grade in college. Um, you know, and maybe for that senior thesis project in college, Dr. Wingate really helped me. I didn't want to do it at all, and he coached me to break it down into tiny steps and make it achievable. So write down who your primary coach was, who you're trying to impress, or who you were happy was impressed when you actually got that result. The third step is to look at the list of names in that second column, the coach column. These are the people who have mentored or coached you to successful action in the past. Now, maybe they didn't have the name coach or mentor. Maybe you paid them, maybe you didn't, but these are people who actually got you to do something and be successful at it. They're not just somebody who taught you something interesting or wrote your favorite book or hosted your favorite podcast. These are the people who got you a result that you're proud of. Now, third column is lever. I want you to write down their coaching or leadership style. Write down what you remember about them. You don't have to be formal about this. Just write down the first word that comes to mind when you think of that person. Were they kind of an authoritarian, like a drill sergeant? Do this, or were they a good listener? Were they a cheerleader? Were they Socratic? Were they asking you questions until you came to the answer yourself? Were they a drill sergeant, literally or figuratively? You know, use your own words, write down one word to describe each of those people, or maybe two words. That's the lever that they use to help you get that result. So for me, thinking back, you know, to hockey, Coach McGrath was a real authoritarian. There was no room for doubt. You show up on time, you're laced up at this time, et cetera. You do this right now. If you don't make practice, you're benched. And for college acceptance, I'm going to put down Ms. LaRue because she was a questioner. You know, she helped me figure out what I wanted to do in college almost like a therapist. You've got this high school kid who doesn't know what he wants to do. And both his parents are teachers, his grandparents are farmers, his uncles work at the steel mill. And so she just kept asking questions until it came to me what I thought I wanted to do. And Dr. Wingate in college was more of a scientist, but I'm also going to ask a questioner there too, because he was a great teacher who led me to the answer by asking better and better and better questions. Now, whatever it is, write it down for yourself. It doesn't have to be my terms, like authoritarian or Socratic. Use your own words. Find one, two words to describe their coaching style, right? That's their lever on you. Just put the first word or two that come to mind. Step four, you're gonna go down this list of levers and you're gonna find commonalities. Which names and levers appear more than once? You've probably been guided in your life by different types of people at different times and different things worked at different times. So here's what's interesting. If if I'm thinking back to like the coach category, right? And I think Coach McGrath, while we did win a provincial championship, he was actually uh, you know, maybe not the reason or not the thing that helped me the most. The the trainer I bonded with most closely on that team was named Mark. Now I was young and I was new to hockey. The other kids had a few years on me of practice, and so they were ahead of me, and I kept going offside. So I would cross the blue line before the puck did, and the ref would blow the whistle and I'd be like, What, what? And so the kids would like roll their eyes and the coach would be like, Chris, come on, you've gone offside three times in this game, right? I just didn't know. So we'd be bringing the puck down the ice and the ref would blow the whistle. Chris, you're offside again. And, you know, after three times, the coach was like, What are you doing? Get on the bench. But it was actually Mark who walked down the bench and he said, Chris, do you know what offside is? And I said, No. So I was getting upset and frustrated and paralyzed and penalized because I didn't know what I was doing wrong. And so he pulls like a dime and a nickel out of his pocket and he sets them on top of the boards and he said, Okay, you're the nickel and the dime is the puck. And when the dime crosses the blue line first, you're good. When you grow across the blue line first and then the puck comes across after you, that's offside, and the ref blows the whistle. Now, I was only about eight years old. The other kids have been playing since they were about five. Of course they knew that, but nobody thought to ask if I knew it. And Mark asked the question and then he explained it to me in very simple terms, and I got it. I probably didn't go offside again all season. So, what I'm actually gonna do here on my sheet is I'm gonna cross off Coach McGrath because the longer I think about this, it wasn't him. He got us to the championship, but it was Coach Mark who helped me do the thing that made me proud. And his lever was Explainer. He was good at breaking things down. A lot of my heroes, Greg Glassman, they are genius at taking something complicated and making it simple and understandable. You know, the old nickel and dime on the boards, they're that good at making something simple and sticky so that I get it and then I'm good. Now, Mark didn't explain by handing me a rule book or reading me the rule book. He explained it by taking the dime and the nickel out of his pocket and saying, here's how this works. He was good at breaking things down into language that I understood and telling me point by point. My favorite business authors do this. I strive every single day to get better and better and better at this. Our head editor, Mike Workington, is amazing at this. Good writers are great at this. Uh, you know, I've mentioned Greg Glossman, but this is sign of genius, and I really respect it. So identify what these levers all have in common. Look for the words that show up more than once on your chart. Also, do you have the same coach in three different places? Then circle the things these people had in common because this is gonna tell you a lot about yourself and what you respond to as a person. A lot of us think that we need this drill sergeant mentor. And maybe that works for a little while, but long term, you want to find people who do things the way that has always worked for you. You know, when people come into TwoBrain and they're talking to my team on the phone for the first or the second time, and we're saying, like, what kind of mentor do you want? They almost always say, somebody will hold me accountable, but that's not always the best. You need to think of yourself as a science experiment and look back and say, what has actually worked for me in the past? Because that is what's gonna really work for you. Okay. Now, maybe you do want the drill sergeant mentor, and maybe that even works for a little while, but long term you want to find people who do things the way that are gonna work for you. And for me, that questioner, that's a good one. That's something people have had in common when they're coaching me successfully. Another great one is scientific. I want to know that they know what they're talking about. They're not just guessing or making things up. My cycling coach is a very scientific guy, and he'll say you're doing this on Tuesday for this reason, this on Wednesday to help you with this, etc. Another great one for me is explainer, somebody who knows the topic so well that they don't have to memorize, you know, the textbook. They can answer my questions, but also break it down into tiny steps and explain it another way. They're not just reading me the rule book, in other words, they've done it and they can they've done it well enough that they understand it enough that they can explain it a different way or break it down into tiny steps for me. That's what works for me, and that's what I look for in a mentor. So the fifth step is to actually find the expert. So you have to start by asking yourself, what do I want to achieve next year? And then you need to dig deeper. Why do I want to achieve that? So let's say that you want to get your gym to$300,000 in revenue next year. You want to ask yourself, why? Well, because, you know, I want to take home at least$70,000 myself. Why? Well, because I know that if I make$70,000 a year, then I'll feel like I'm contributing to my family and not just living off my wife's income. Why do I care about that? Well, honestly, because I felt a little guilty that she's bearing all the burden. Well, I love my job, but I'm only making a third of what she makes. And that is what really happened to me back in 1999. I went down these questions, why, why, why? And that's what led me to open a gym. So that's why I wanted to make 70K a year. So now you say, okay, well, who has actually achieved this specific thing? You want to find the person who has achieved the thing that you're trying to achieve, paying themselves 70K, building the actual revenue. Okay. So identify some people who've actually achieved that, not necessarily the people who've done it the way that you think it should be done. You don't just want to say, I need 300 members, so I'm going to find somebody who used to have 300 members five years ago at their gym. You need to go through the exercise of actually asking yourself why. Then you can say, okay, I need to find somebody who makes over 70K a year take home from their gym because they wanted to carry more of the financial load at home. So that means I probably want somebody who's married, maybe somebody with kids, maybe somebody who had to figure this out or has gone through the same journey instead of just automatically winning. And this is a really important point because in the fitness industry, we often chase the tactical experts instead of the people who are truly successful. We think 300 members is the way to make money, right? I've solved it. I got so then we pay the marketing agency to help us get to 300 members, but we miss the actual goal and don't even wind up accomplishing the thing that we wanted to accomplish in the first place. So list two or three people in your industry who've achieved the actual goal. A great place to start is this podcast. Listen to the guests. Have they achieved what you want to achieve? Listen to their lifestyle right now. If you're a you know married 50 like me, two grown kids, you might not want to talk to the mentor who's 21 and just grinding and hustling and growing his gym really quick. That's okay. We have a wide variety of mentors in Tube Rain. Reach out to them on Facebook, ask them questions. Go to gymownersunited.com. That's 11,000 of the best gym owners in the world. We filter for personality because we want humble, helpful people in there. And that now step six is to call the expert. The only way to find out if the expert can get you results is to call them. Maybe they actually have been successful themselves. That doesn't mean that they can help you be successful. You have to find out can this mentor actually help me get where I want to go instead of just telling me what they're doing? Ask them how they would approach your problems. Ask how they have overcome your specific challenges themselves. Ask how they've helped other people overcome those challenges when their gyms might be a little bit different. Does that person possess the levers, all the things that are necessary to actually guide you to getting the best result? The things you know you've gotten results from in the past, or are they just selling a tactic? So now let's talk about what to look for when you're actually choosing a mentor. And this is finding the best mentor for you. It is probably not the same mentor that I would pick for me. When you're looking for a mentor, there are some non-negotiables, right? These are the must-haves for everybody. You can't skip these. And then you turn to the levers that are specific to you. So must-have number one, non-negotiable, they've done what you want to do. Your mentor has to have actually achieved what you want to achieve. And it doesn't have to be in the same industry. My first business mentor was named Dennis Turcott. He was the CEO of a massive steel mill. And what he had done is systemize his business to the point where he could focus on growing it through partnerships and marketing. I was able to do that thanks to his guidance. He didn't know anything about the fitness industry, but he was able to mentor me to turn my gym around back in 2008. The key is that they've done the thing themselves. Dennis came into a struggling steel mill. He took stocks and a salary of$1, turned the thing around in about three years, and exited and chose to mentor some local entrepreneurs instead. The key is that they've done what you want to do and they've been where you are and they've they've gotten to where you want to go. They understand the journey, not just the outcome and not just a theory. The second non-negotiable is objectivity. And this is why you can't just turn to a client in your gym who has business experience and ask their advice. It's why you usually can't lean on a family member. And this is why your friends don't really work as mentors because they might have some good ideas, but ideas are not the same as objective advice. When you hire a mentor, you're buying objectivity. They're going to solve your problems without taking on your panic or your paranoia or your pessimism. They're probably going to ask you questions that frustrate you. And that's because we all make assumptions and convince ourselves that our assumptions are true. We feel like we've solved the puzzle in our head. But these are usually feelings and not facts. A mentor is going to penetrate that wall that's holding you back, and that can get painful. So many times, thousands of times, people have come into TwoBrain and said, I just need more clients. And the mentor will say, why? And they'll say, I need more revenue. Why do you need more revenue? Because I need to take home more money. Why do you need to take home more money? And that's a painful process because it feels like the mentor is questioning your logic, questioning your smarts, questioning, you know, what you've already figured out. But the reality is that the mentor is trying to get to the root problem and solve that instead of just taking for granted that what appears to be the solution is actually the solution. It's that objectivity that you're buying for. The third non-negotiable is an appropriate investment. You should be looking for a mentor that requires an appropriate investment. This might mean your time and it might mean your attention, but it usually means money. You should be a bit uncomfortable with the investment. You don't save up until you can afford it. You invest when it causes you pain. And that's how you know that you'll do the work. If you're out there shopping for the cheapest mentor, you might as well just throw your money in the wood chipper. Sure, I know you're a good student, but when you're told to do something that you don't want to do, raise your rates, fire this coach, you will not do it unless you have something to lose. The pain of taking action has to be less than the pain of wasting your money. And hey, this should go without saying, but don't expect a refund. The mentor is going to tell you things you don't want to hear. I promise you that's going to happen. If you think you can just back out and not do it and get your money back, then you are not ready for a mentor. So the next step is to do your due diligence. Ask specific questions. When you're talking to other gym owners about a potential mentor, don't ask open-ended questions like, hey, did you like them or what was your experience? Ask specific questions. What did you change? How did they help you manage that change? What were the measurable outcomes from working with this mentor? Google reviews about coaches and mentors are good, but they're usually subjective. If you read them, you'll rarely see she helped me achieve X or he helped my business grow from A to B. It's usually something like, oh, this person really cares a lot, or they really gave me a lot of time, or they're very responsive on the phone. You do not need a train mentor for any of those things. You need to ask other people in your niche specific questions, other gym owners, so that you're making decisions objectively, just like a mentor would do. Go to gymownersunited.com. It's a group that we contribute to for free every single day. When people ask questions about mentors, we just let those conversations uh take their course instead of stepping in. So let me give you a reality check here. There are a lot of mentors and coaches in business. Some of them have a proven system, like Two Brain. Some are good listeners, some have experience, some are after an easy buck. It's sad but true. The gym industry is struggling. And unfortunately, there's a lot of fakery, wild guesses, and bullshit among the business coaches in fitness. I'm here to put a stop to that by being a beacon of truth, objectivity, and rational thinking. And I built TwoBrain to solve these problems. The reason it sounds like I'm making a case to hire TwoBrain is because I am, but not just because I want your money. We give things away for free every single day and we have for over a decade. Tens of thousands of people have benefited from the work of TubeBrain without paying a dime. I actually want you to be successful. We collect data because the best mentors in the world understand data and use that to make decisions. We work one on one because the best mentors in the world work one on one on your unique problem. We have a high frequency coaching model. You can get on a call with a coach just about any day because the best mentors in the world can respond to you quickly, even if you're one on one. Mentor can't respond to your email right this second, you can jump on a coaching call and get some help right away. And we we have these group coaching calls and they augment your one-on-one mentorship. We require months of training for our new mentors, and we hire truly successful people to help you implement the two-brain program because that's what the best mentors do. We're not saying, well, these are the best practices because it's what we do. We do these things because they're the best practices. Look, I firmly believe that every coach needs a coach. If you're trying to win the CrossFit games, trying to win the HIROC championship, you need a coach to help you do those things, even if you're a coach yourself. If you're trying to be successful at business, you need a coach for business. And if you don't have a coach, it's going to be really hard to convince your clients at your gym that they also need a coach. And that's true for fitness, it's just as true for business. If you really want to be successful at anything in life, a coach is the person who's going to be the fastest route to get there. Anytime I start something new, the first question I ask is who can coach me to get good at this really, really fast? That's why I have a cycling coach, I have a nutrition coach, I have business coaches. If you're ready to talk about mentorship, book a call with my team. The call is free. It's not high pressure. We might choose each other. Hopefully we can be there for each other. But even if you don't work with TwoBrain, I hope this exercise guides you into picking a mentor so that you can grow your business and help more people. I'm Chris Cooper. This is Run a Profitable. Jim, thanks for listening.