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This channel (presented by Two-Brain Business) is packed with business tools for gym owners and CrossFit affiliates. We provide actionable, data-backed business advice for all gym owners, including those who own personal training studios, fitness franchises, and strength and conditioning gyms.
Semi-private training is one of the most talked about revenue plays in the fitness industry, but there’s rarely a clear roadmap for adding it to an already packed group training schedule.
In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” John Franklin sits down with Jamie Warren, CEO of Iron Tribe Fitness, who took his gyms from nearly 100% group training revenue to a 50/50 split with small group—without blowing up his schedule or losing his culture in the process.
Jamie explains how he made the change: identifying which coaches and clients to beta test with, protecting the schedule with a “do no harm” approach, and using client demand to decide which class slots to convert.
He also shares real stats, including how average revenue per member nearly doubled and why net margins ended up roughly twice as high even with a similarly-sized member base.
Tune in to learn how to build a semi-private, small group training program that adds real value for clients and for your business.
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How much revenue does your gym generate per session? Measure your RPS against the healthy $200 benchmark and find out what to change if you’re not there yet: https://twobrain.co/4wv2VDk
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0:00 - Why Iron Tribe added semi-private
4:15 - Building the beta test with existing coaches
9:40 - The webinar launch and first 100 members
16:20 - Protecting the schedule during the transition
22:05 - The revenue and margin results
28:30 - Advice for gym owners on the fence
Some gyms are struggling to break even on their HYROX affiliation. Others are generating 15X or even 89X return on their affiliation fees.
In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” John Franklin sits down with Lisa Palmer, a Two-Brain mentor and HYROX affiliate in London.
The U.K. is one of the most mature HYROX markets in the world, roughly three years ahead of North America.
Lisa walks through how she layered HYROX onto her CrossFit schedule, replacing low-attendance classes instead of adding new ones, and how the move became an unexpected retention machine, dropping her gym’s churn from 14% to under 5%.
She and John dig into the full playbook: building race-prep courses around official HYROX events, running simulations that pull in thousands of dollars, using HYROX to catch members who need a lower-impact option, and turning that same funnel into CrossFit upgrades.
Lisa also shares what she’d do differently if she were starting over and how gyms of any size can find an entry point.
Tune in to learn how to build a HYROX program that actually pays for itself many times over.
Want to generate more revenue from HYROX? Check out our HYROX toolkit, linked below!
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0:00 - Why some HYROX affiliates never make money
1:12 - Should you add HYROX to your gym?
3:20 - The unexpected benefit that changed everything
5:58 - Free HYROX resource for gym owners
6:16 - The HYROX growth strategy she'd use today
10:25 - Turning HYROX into multiple revenue streams
13:01 - How top gyms market their HYROX program
19:08 - The hidden retention advantage of HYROX
25:05 - Is HYROX right for every gym?
HYROX is everywhere right now, and your gym doesn’t necessarily have to become an affiliate to cash in on the trend.
In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain Business CEO John Franklin breaks down the “mini sim,” a scaled-down HYROX-style competition any gym can run without paying affiliation fees or buying new equipment.
John walks through the exact blueprint: cutting the running volume, running it as a doubles event to build in referrals and setting a financial target (Two-Brain gyms have made $2,500-$6,000 from their first event).
He covers the week-by-week promotion plan, including real examples of gym posts that sold out events fast.
He also details race-day logistics (staffing, heats, avoiding bottlenecks) and how to turn one-time event revenue into new recurring members.
Tune in to get a complete playbook for running your first HYROX-style event and building an ongoing program members love.
Use the link below to access our complete HYROX toolkit for gym owners!
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0:00 - Why every gym should pay attention to HYROX
1:02 - The low-risk way to test the HYROX trend
2:09 - The hidden growth opportunity most gyms miss
4:06 - Planning your first HYROX-style event
5:46 - Where your first participants will come from
7:00 - Real gym marketing examples that worked
8:40 - The promotion mistake that kills event sales
9:26 - Race day secrets for a smooth event
13:35 - The email every gym owner should send
17:02 - Turn one event into long-term members
Summer hits gym owners hard.
Revenue drops, leads dry up and members cancel.
In this episode, Chris Cooper shares five strategies gym owners can use to generate revenue during the slow summer months.
Coop knows the pain firsthand. In 2009, he was juggling two locations and the summer slump almost put him out of business.
He swore he’d never let that happen again.
Now, after working with over 3,000 gym owners through Two-Brain Business, he knows exactly what works.
The summer slump is predictable. But that means it’s beatable.
Tune in to hear the plan smart gym owners follow to stay profitable all summer long.
Want to earn $100,000 a year from your gym while working under 20 hours a week? Click the link below to access the free training.
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0:00 - The summer slump that almost killed my gym
1:13 - The September revenue strategy
3:41 - A seasonal offer that brings in new clients
5:22 - The most overlooked summer revenue source
6:48 - Why members cancel in the summer
8:57 - The vacation plan most gyms never offer
11:05 - The real reason gyms don’t survive summer
Braeden Cordts bought a struggling gym with $300,000 in debt, no marketing knowledge and everyone telling him it wouldn’t work.
Today on “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain CEO John Franklin sits down with Braeden, who was just certified as a net-worth millionaire.
They talk about Braeden’s five-year journey from a 28-member gym losing money to a 230-member gym generating over $55,000 every month.
Braden opens up about a rough stretch in college and how finding CrossFit—and eventually buying a gym—changed his trajectory.
He breaks down the order of operations that got his gym to where it is today:
- A year of consuming free content before he could afford mentorship
- Putting real systems in place
- Pouring into his team and promoting his first full-time coach
- Building out personal training and semi-private as major revenue streams
He also opens up about how mentorship gave him clarity on his finances outside the gym—turning two accidental rental properties into a real wealth-building strategy, diversifying into syndications and buying into another gym.
If you’re a gym owner in the thick of it right now wondering if any of this is actually possible, Braeden’s story is proof that it is.
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0:00 - They Told Him Not to Buy This Gym
1:09 - From Train Wreck to Gym Owner
5:37 - The Risk That Changed Everything
8:18 - The First Breakthrough
9:38 - The Difference a Mentor Made
11:31 - The Systems That Fueled Growth
13:21 - The Move That Changed the Business
17:39 - The Revenue Stream Most Gym Owners Miss
21:34 - How Gym Owners Build Real Wealth
24:05 - The Growth Formula Most Owners Ignore
27:26 - The Question Every Gym Owner Must Answer
29:28 - His Message to Struggling Gym Owners
Learn how to build all four marketing funnels with our Never-Ending Leads training for gym owners, linked below.
Nearly 15% of gym owners don’t contact their leads at all. The interest is there. The hands are raised. But nobody sends the message.
In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper explains why your DMs might be the most underused sales channel your gym has, and how to use them without sounding pushy or salesy.
He shares a real story of how a comment on an old photo turned into a member walking back through his doors, and one about a post that didn’t land as intended and how he fixed things with a simple conversation.
Chris introduces a simple eight-step framework for turning casual DM conversations into booked consultation, and also gets into why the slowest leads sometimes become the most loyal clients and how to keep warm leads from going cold without a fancy system.
Tune in to turn your next follower, like or comment into a real gym lead.
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00:00 - Why Your Gym’s Social Media Isn’t Turning Into Members
01:06 - How One Instagram Comment Brought Back a Former Client
03:28 - The Missing Link Between Social Media and New Members
05:46 - The DM Framework That Builds Trust (Without Being Salesy)
08:08 - The 8-Step Process for Turning Followers Into Clients
10:01 - How to Nurture Warm Leads Who Aren’t Ready to Buy
11:59 - The Post That Almost Cost Chris a Client
This episode contains several visual examples. For the best experience, head to our YouTube channel "Run a Profitable Gym."
Get a comprehensive, AI-powered audit of your gym’s Instagram at GymIG.com.
Joe Strada just won Two-Brain Business Gym of the Year. Here’s exactly how he built one of the best content strategies in the gym industry.
In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain CEO John Franklin sits down with Joe Strada of Unleash’d Strength to break down his content playbook.
They cover everything from his early TikTok trend-hopping days to the storytelling and conversion-focused content that’s growing his gym today.
Joe walks through real examples from his own feed, including the meme-style video that got him five million views but zero followers and the carousel that finally broke his streak of flops and brought in nearly 200 new followers.
He also shares his exact process for using AI to script and edit videos for his gym based on viral videos he admires.
John and Joe dig into the difference between content that goes viral and content that actually converts, why getting your community involved in your videos pays off in ways views never will, and why finding the content style you genuinely enjoy making is the only sustainable way to stay consistent.
Tune in, steal Joe’s best ideas and adapt them for your own gym.
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00:00 - Why Most Gym Owners Never Post Content
00:51 - Meet the Viral Gym Owner of the Year
02:50 - How Joe Started Creating Content Before Opening His Gym
05:08 - The Trend-Hopping Strategy That Got Millions of Views
07:54 - Brand Positioning: Why "Strength Is for Everyone" Works
09:14 - Top-of-Funnel Content vs. Content That Sells
11:31 - Meme Content: Turning Members Into Creators
12:47 - Viral Content: How to Repeat a Winning Format
16:27 - Educational Content: Build Authority With Simple Tips
18:22 - Community Content: Show the Personality Behind Your Gym
21:18 - Content Planning: Never Run Out of Ideas Again
24:23 - AI Content: Adapting Trends for Your Audience
28:49 - Interview Content: Let Your Members Tell the Story
31:20 - Conversion Content: The Carousel That Added 200 Followers
36:44 - Storytelling Content: Create a Pin Post That Converts
42:26 - How to Start Creating Content Consistently
Before you spend another dollar on ads, listen to this episode. Chris Cooper is getting more leads from free Facebook posts than almost any other marketing channel.
Today on “Run a Profitable Gym,” Coop shares how he writes Facebook posts that start real conversations, bring back lapsed members and attract new clients.
The core idea is simple: Start capturing what’s already happening in your gym. The breakthroughs, the mistakes, the 6 a.m. class where only three people showed up and everyone crushed it anyway.
Chris also challenges you to make your clients the star of your content—just a good photo and two to four sentences that make everyone who knows them stop scrolling. These posts cost nothing and don’t require a social media manager or a fancy content strategy.
You’ll also hear about the posts that kill organic reach (like unfiltered rants) and why protecting your reach matters more than making a point.
Your gym’s best Facebook content is already happening in front of you every day. It’s time to start capturing it.
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0:00 - Intro
0:50 - Why organic Facebook still works
4:04 - Capture, don’t create
5:57 - The posts that perform best
6:45 - What kills your organic reach
7:20 - Make your clients famous
9:40 - How personal posts juice the algorithm
This episode contains several visual examples. For the best experience, head to our YouTube channel "Run a Profitable Gym."
Is your gym’s Instagram converting members? Audit it with our custom AI tool: https://GymIG.com/
If you stripped your gym’s name and logo from your website and social media, would anyone know what makes you different? For most gym owners, the honest answer is no.
In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain CEO John Franklin lays out the five steps gym owners need to take to become the obvious choice online in 2026
He walks through real-world examples of gyms that have nailed their online positioning, including a gym serving underrepresented women in fitness, a bodybuilding facility that hunts down and restores rare equipment, a performance center that built its reputation entirely around baseball players with shoulder injuries and a personal training gym that targets exclusively the 50-plus crowd.
Each example illustrates the same core principle: a specific promise to a specific type of person beats generic messaging every time.
John also explains why simplifying your service offering is just as important as clarifying who you serve, and he outlines how your Google Business Profile, website and Instagram should all tell the same consistent story to turn curious searchers into booked consultations.
Tune in to learn how to make your gym impossible to ignore online.
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0:00 - Intro
0:38 - Be the "obvious choice" online
1:00 - Real gym example—underrepresented women
2:19 - Real gym example—world-class equipment
4:35 - Real gym example—baseball niche
6:04 - Real gym example—personal training
7:51 - Get clear on who you serve
9:55 - Simplify your service offering
11:50 - GBP, website and Instagram consistency
13:49 - Show undeniable proof
Big news: CrossFit is not for sale. Bruce Edwards, the new CEO made that a condition of taking the job.
At the 2026 Two-Brain Summit in Chicago, Chris Cooper sat down live on stage with Bruce for a wide-ranging conversation about the future of CrossFit.
Bruce isn’t a newcomer to CrossFit. He was an original client of Greg Glassman in the late 1990s, one of the early guinea pigs who helped shape the methodology. He later owned CrossFit Aptos, served as COO of CrossFit and has now returned as CEO with a clear mandate: Fix the perception problem, rebuild affiliate value and bring the movement back to its roots.
In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Chris asks the big questions affiliate owners are asking, and Bruce shares his honest vision for what comes next for CrossFit.
Tune in to hear a candid conversation about CrossFit’s future under Bruce’s leadership.
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0:00 - Intro
0:20 - Why Bruce almost said no to the CEO role
6:43 - CrossFit’s North Star
8:46 - The Games vs. the affiliate story
13:22 - The future of CrossFit media
15:00 - Do GLP-1s have a place in fitness?
20:25 - Bruce's stance on partnerships
28:15 - A message to de-affiliated owners
30:07 - What affiliates should do right now
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