Stay ConnectedWe’ve already helped 3,000 gym owners become more profitable, and we’re the #1 gym mentorship program in the world.
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.
When COVID hit, we pushed the Two-Brain Summit 2020 from June to September. Then we made it a digital/small group hybrid. But make no mistake—this year's summit is going to be one of the best ever.
You'll work with Seth Godin, one of the world's top storytellers in business. You'll hear from Chris Voss, an ex-FBI hostage negotiator, on how to handle tough conversations. Risha Grant will answer difficult questions about race and show you how to make your gym more diverse. Cameron Herold will make fuzzy concepts like vision and mission directive. Jen Broxterman will show you how to connect your story to your audience and change lives with nutrition.
The best part? You can do all this alongside your neighbors in the fitness business at one of our 30 Regional Meetups, completing directive exercises on the spot and helping each other make your businesses stronger.
Links:
Register for the Two-Brain Summit 2020
Wodify
AGuard
Seth Godin
Risha Grant
Chris Voss
Cameron Herold
Jen Broxterman
Timeline:
1:21 – The Two-Brain Summit 2020 at a glance.
2:55 – Chris’ dream presenter: Seth Godin.
6:02 – Risha Grant, diversity and your gym.
9:04 – Chris Voss: Handling difficult conversations.
12:47 – Jen Broxterman: Two-Brain’s registered dietician, athlete, cancer survivor and storyteller.
15:37 – Cameron Herold: “The CEO Whisperer.”
Julie Johnston once made $18,000 in front-end revenue from paid ads in a single month. But there was a problem: She didn't like how those ads represented her business. Yes, they helped her close sales, but the clients weren't good fits.
Tired of the turnover and of feeling icky, Julie quit paid ads—and her business didn't die. In fact, she's actually grown her gym by 41 percent since then by fixing what was wrong in her business, identifying her ideal client and marketing to that client for free.
Tune in to learn how you can do it, too.
Links
Camp Rhino
Gym Lead Machine
Forever Fierce
Google My Business
Free Tools
Book a Free Call
Timeline:
4:42 – Making money with paid ads—but feeling gross about it.
8:34 – Learning from mistakes.
11:02 – Get your mission and your client avatar right.
13:18 – Build systems based around serving your client avatar.
17:50 – Get a mentor.
18:30 – Solve your clients’ problems.
21:24 – Your secret weapon: “Google My Business”
25:04 – Commit to making one post per day.
26:30 – The snowball and the long game.
30:40 – Getting attention from local media outlets.
35:36 – Content creation: Passion is better than perfection.
39:14 – Building a following.
Average gym owners play things by ear; the best ones make plans. And this is a bad time to be average.
The COVID crisis is far from over. Even if your gym has reopened, there's a very real chance you'll be forced to close again eventually. But if you make detailed plans for reopening and reclosure and everything in between, you'll come out of this crisis stronger than ever.
Here, Chris Cooper breaks down Two-Brain Business' data-driven, step-by-step plan for reopening. You'll learn how to adapt your services to what your clients need, how to manage partial reopenings and restrictions, what to charge for hybrid services and how to tackle marketing when you reopen.
Links:
How to Reopen Your Gym: A Step-byStep Guide
How to Add Online Training in 24 Hours
Affinity Marketing: The Two-Brain Business Guide to Acquiring High-Value Clients for $0
How to use MyFitnessPal as a Coach
COVID awareness posters
How to Lead in a Crisis
Free Tools
Contact:
chris@twobrainbusiness.com
Timeline:
2:44 – The three levels of planning.
4:13 – Why you should listen to Two-Brain Business’ advice.
6:41 – How to retain clients while your gym is closed.
9:30 – How to price online services.
12:27 – Flex training in small groups.
15:53 – How to price flex training.
17:16 – Running outdoor classes.
20:08 – How to fully reopen with restrictions.
22:52 – Survey results: What clients are saying about reopening.
27:11 – Don’t use your gym to make political statements.
27:38 – Do you need a new waiver?
28:42 – Retention and potential new revenue streams.
35:28 – How to decide whether to reopen.
40:25 – The disappearing average—and how not to be part of it.
Ever been frustrated because someone just doesn't get what it's all about?
Maybe you want beginners to feel comfortable in class, but the competition team hijacks the equipment and space. Maybe you want your gym to be a place for people to let off steam after work, but that drill-sergeant coach is stressing clients out.
Guess what? It's not them; it's you.
Strong gyms have solid vision statements that staff and clients understand and support, and Certified Two-Brain Mentor Kaleda Connell is here to teach you to write one. Bonus: You don't need stuffy, flowery language—just an idea you care about.
Links:
Gym Lead Machine
Forever Fierce
"Vivid Vision"
"Your Vision Statement Sucks"
Join the Gym Owners United group on Facebook
Free Tools
Book a Free Call
Timeline:
1:58 – Why your business needs a vision statement.
5:55 – You don’t need to perfect it before you start.
9:50 – How your vision statement affects every other aspect of your business.
10:56 – Step one: Write down words that mean something to you.
13:20 – Keep it simple.
16:16 – How to implement your vision statement in your business practices.
21:26 – Personality, vision and solving the icon problem.
24:30 – Hiring according to your vision statement.
28:30 – Can’t you just teach thrusters and call it a day?
30:56 – What Kaleda’s clients are doing to implement their vision.
34:13 – Communicating your vision to clients in the onboarding process.
39:37 – How vision statements can help eliminate weed clients.
43:03 – Characteristics of businesses with strong vision statements.
When was the last time you brainstormed with the gym owner across town? Or referred a client to a local chiropractor? Or took the local physiotherapist out to lunch?
"Networking" is a corporate buzzword, but building a network—an ecosystem—is you how you can grow your business faster and help your clients more—without paid advertising.
Here, Chris Cooper shares real examples of how supporting his local ecosystem helped him grow his business and put him in a strong position to give back and help more.
Links:
Gym Lead Machine
Forever Fierce
"The Go-Giver"
What Is Wealth?
Join the Gym Owners United group on Facebook
Free Tools
Two-Brain Summit
Timeline:
1:13 – Building your local ecosystem.
7:11 – How investing in your ecosystem can yield returns later on.
14:26 – Your ecosystem can also be a safety net.
16:09 – Learning from others in your ecosystem.
22:54 – Before you can give back to your community, you need a solid foundation.
Adding new programs to your gym is a great way to increase revenue. But there's only so much an owner can do.
So how do you add programs without getting burned out? If you hire staff to run them for you, how do you pay them and still make a profit? And how do you find the right person to make a program successful?
Peter Brasovan is a co-owner of NapTown Fitness, an Indiana gym with multiple revenue streams that together gross over $1 million a year. The key, he says, is intrapreneurialism: when one rock-star staff member starts a program under the mother business' umbrella.
Here, Peter—a Certified Two-Brain Mentor—unpacks the system. You'll learn how intrapreneurialism differs from entrepreneurialism, how to choose your champion intrapreneur, what you should—and shouldn't—do to ensure success and how intrapreneurialism can help you make more money.
Links:
NapTown Fitness
The $1 Million Gym Built by Two Guys Who Once Rationed Paper Towels
Wodify
AGuard
Join the Gym Owners United group on Facebook
Free Tools
Book a Free Call
Timeline:
2:22 – What is an intrapreneur?
6:21 – How intrapreneurialism benefits employees and employers.
14:17 – From yoga class to $190,000 yoga empire: NapTown Fitness’ first experiment with intrapreneurialism.
21:25 – What not to do: going too big too fast.
25:19 – Why your intrapreneur’s values need to be aligned with your gym’s.
27:07 – How intrapreneurialism turned NapTown’s long-unsuccessful kids program into a $60,000 success.
30:44 – The importance of defining—and redefining—success.
34:17 – Characteristics of rock-star intrapreneurs.
42:17 – It’s not autopilot: The importance of mentorship, leadership and communication.
49:23 – Taking off the training wheels—and letting go.
51:54 – Work backward to set the right financial goals.
54:14 – Three simple steps to starting an intrapreneurial program at your gym.
Think you need a gym to make a living as a coach? Think again.
In this episode of Two-Brain Radio, Chris Cooper delivers a crash course on how to make a living as a gymless trainer. Maybe you offer digital coaching. Maybe you train clients in their homes or workplaces. Maybe you train them from someone else's gym.
Whichever path you choose, you'll need to make smart decisions about pricing, audience-building and operations. Learn from Chris' past mistakes now to make sure you don't make the same ones later.
Links:
Wodify
Forever Fierce
Join the Gym Owners United group on Facebook
Free Tools
Book a Free Call
Contact:
chris@twobrainbusiness.com
Timeline:
1:40 – How to move your coaching business online.
8:03 – What to figure out before coaching off-site.
11:14 – The policies you need to establish for off-site coaching.
13:04 – Coaching team athletics.
16:40 – How to run a corporate fitness program.
19:17 – Training clients out of someone else’s gym.
How long do clients stay at your gym? A year? Two?
Gym owner, chiropractor and Certified Two-Brain Mentor Brian Strump has retained clients for up to 10 years, and even the short end of his average length of engagement is double that of most—or more.
Here, Brian shares how cultivating a great gym culture, developing skilled staff and communicating with members regularly can help you create 10-year clients.
Links:
Live Active Charlotte
Gym Lead Machine
Free hiring plan and job descriptions
"The Power of Moments"
Join the Gym Owners United group on Facebook
Free Tools
Book a Free Call
Timeline:
1:59 – The 10-year client: fact or fiction?
8:14 – Length of engagement (LEG) is a long game.
12:07 – For great client LEG, you need great staff LEG.
18:33 – Creating the right environment for your market.
22:09 – Cultivating long-term clients from Day 1 and the importance of the client success manager.
28:47 – What to do when a client wants to leave.
38:30 – How diversifying your offerings helps keep clients engaged for the long haul.
We get it: You got into the fitness business because you want to help people, not sell snake oil.
But here's the thing: You can't help people if you can't keep the lights on, and you don't have to sell snake oil to be a salesperson. In fact, good selling is all about helping.
Here's Chris Cooper on selling without selling, hiring and training salespeople and the difference between sales and marketing.
Links:
The Goal Review Session
"Help First"
The Prescriptive Model
Our free done-for-you hiring plan
Chris Cooper's series on wealth
AGuard
Forever Fierce
Join the Gym Owners United group on Facebook
Free Tools
Book a Free Call
Contact:
chris@twobrainbusiness.com
Timeline:
0:46 – Selling without selling.
7:09 – Who should handle sales at your business?
10:44 – How to hire, train and compensate sales staff.
17:05 – Why affinity marketing should come before paid advertising.
How to you get a client to stay with you forever? Wow them at the very beginning.
Brian Zimmerman is a Certified Two-Brain mentor and the owner of CrossFit Jungle Gym. He says average revenue per member and length of engagement are both tied back to a client's onboarding process.
In this episode, he joined Mike Warkentin to talk about the critical steps you need to take when onboarding a new client for the best possible long-term outcomes.
Links:
CrossFit Jungle Gym
The Icon Problem
Join the Gym Owners United group on Facebook
Free Tools
Book a Free Call
Wodify
Timeline:
1:45 – What is onboarding?
4:12 – What a great onboarding session means to the client.
8:53 – How great onboarding leads to new business opportunities.
14:08 – The worst ways to onboard a new client.
20:47 – The gold standards of onboarding.
30:22 – Onboarding and the emotional connection.
40:02 – How to measure onboarding success.
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