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.
Chris Spealler was the underdog of CrossFit, competing against men weighing up to 70 lb. more than him and holding his own. That's what made him relatable—that and his big heart and tremendous work ethic.
"Speal" is an eight-time CrossFit Games competitor (7 individual, 1 master). He stood on the podium three times during his individual career. Time after time, he won fans' hearts and earned their cheers as he struggled against heavy weight, the last man standing on the floor.
He retired to a standing ovation in 2014 and now focuses on his affiliate, CrossFit Park City in Utah, running the Icon Athlete online training program, and using his fitness to enrich his life outside the gym with his wife and children.
You'll get to hear about some of the memorable moments from Chris' competitive career, how he transitioned from training for competition to training for life and what good programming looks like.
Links:
Two-Brain Business Free Tools
Icon Athlete Programming
Contact:
Instagram: @cspealler
Timeline:
1:40 – Athletics before CrossFit: a little bit of everything.
2:54 – Why Speal loved wrestling.
3:34 – Learning work ethic from wrestling, “the hardest sport in the world.”
4:54 – After wrestling, finding purpose in CrossFit.
6:21 – Why wrestlers make the best CrossFit athletes.
7:16 – Competing at the first CrossFit Games in 2007.
8:57 – How his training changed as the Games evolved.
10:13 – The dog sled in 2011: It wasn’t the shoes’ fault.
11:52 – Qualifying out of the 2012 Regional: “old-school CrossFit to a T.”
13:45 – On missing the Games in 2013—and deciding to try one more time.
15:24 – The “elder statesman” of 2014.
16:53 – The 2014 CrossFit Games: a farewell tour.
19:04 – On being the underdog.
20:27 – Dealing with intimidation.
22:01 – On being the strongest man in the world—according to the sixth-graders at his son’s school.
23:34 – Why go masters in 2017?
24:31 – Trading training for competition to training for life.
27:22 – Starting Icon Athlete.
30:27 – The difference between good and bad programming: volume.
31:56 – Advice for aspiring competitors.
32:54 – How to train well as a masters athlete.
35:06 – Lessons learned from 13 years of CrossFit.
Mike Warkentin is writing his memoir, and he needs a new pen to do it. Can Mateo Lopez give him the perfect pitch?
Your prospective clients probably don't need pens, but they do need fitness—and in this episode of Two-Brain Radio, Mateo will show you what an effective sales pitch looks like. You'll learn what to say and when, how to get in touch with the client's "why" and why your programming and community aren't going to seal the deal.
You'll also get to observe an effective sales funnel in action as Mike opts in for more info on two gyms' websites live on air.
Links:
Building a Sales Engine
Book a Free Call
Two-Brain Business Free Tools
"Help First"
Make More Money: The Secrets of Ad Targeting
Forever Fierce
Contact:
mateo@twobrainbusiness.com
mike@twobrainmedia.com
Timeline:
2:57 – Putting real lead funnels to the test.
5:40 – Who’s checking your notifications?
7:29 – Jack Wheeler’s automated texts.
8:57 – It’s not enough to be a great coach—you have to learn how to sell.
10:30 – Current vs. desired situations.
12:41 – You’re not selling community.
14:07 – After the desired situation is achieved.
15:31 – Julie Johnston and the double dial.
19:00 – You need to constantly re-evaluate the desired situation.
20:22 – How Jack Wheeler builds a sales-friendly environment.
25:43 – Matep Lopez’s sales process: Step one—build rapport.
27:16 – Take the lead.
28:23 – Find the “why.”
29:14 – Connecting past obstacles with what your program has to offer.
30:23 – Kicking the bruised knee.
32:19 – Offering the solution.
35:03 – Identifying obstacles and filling the void.
38:06 – Sell results, not programming.
41:24 – Dealing with objections.
45:00 – How to get better at sales.
46:24 – Selling the pen.
You opened a gym because you wanted to help people improve their lives with fitness.
But lately, you've been more stressed than passionate. The gym is short-staffed and you've been working 12-hour days. You lie awake at night worrying about cash flow and coaching feels like a chore. What used to be a source of joy now feels like a burden.
How did you get here? And how do you get happy again?
Psychotherapist Bonnie Skinner will tell you in this episode of Two-Brain Radio.
Links:
Book a Free Call
Contact:
Bonnie Skinner
Timeline:
0:53 – The connection between physical fitness and happiness.
1:36 – The long-term effects of exercise on happiness.
3:52 – The best workout for depression? Just move.
5:01 – Anxiety and depression: imbalances of input and output.
6:09 – The difference between situational and long-term anxiety.
8:18 – Depression and the mental bank account.
10:25 – Increased output during the holiday season leads to increased anxiety.
12:13 – Defining depression: What is your brain responding to?
16:26 – Managing anxiety.
19:50 – Prioritize meaning and engagement.
21:45 – What to do when the thing that brings you meaning is also the thing making you anxious.
23:31 – Paying attention to the cues your body is sending.
25:33 – Check your baseline.
27:37 – Practice self-awareness with regular personal check-ins.
31:36 – Balancing your flywheel.
Matt Chan has done a lot of things.
He's taken second at the CrossFit Games, owned a gym, traveled the country in an Airstream trailer, survived a nearly deadly mountain-biking accident—oh, and that time he sharted 5 minutes before his heat at Regionals.
In this episode of Two-Brain Radio, Matt tells Sean Woodland all about those experiences and more, reflecting on his six-year CrossFit Games history, his programming company, Train for the Win, and how fitness enables him to experience life to the fullest.
Links:
Train FTW
Two-Brain Business Free Tools
"Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief"
"Two-Brain Business"
"Two-Brain Business 2.0"
"Help First"
Contact:
Instagram: @matt1chan
Timeline:
1:55 – Finding CrossFit through firefighting.
4:12 – Becoming a competitor.
5:33 – The early days of the Games at the ranch in Aromas.
7:38 – Taking second in 2012.
8:57 – The importance of having a supportive partner while competing.
10:06 – On being the oldest individual to podium at the CrossFit Games.
11:22 – Sportsmanship and breaking ground in competitive CrossFit.
14:03 – Starting Train for the Win.
15:32 – Reflecting on the evolution of the CrossFit Seminar Staff and the Level 1 course.
20:30 – Top mistakes aspiring competitors make today.
24:08 – Training as a master.
26:06 – Selling his house, moving into an Airstream and becoming “trailer trash.”
29:50 – How Matt qualified for the 2013 Games out of the Airstream trailer.
31:18 – The crop-dusting incident.
32:43 – Taking fitness outside the gym.
34:42 – The bike accident that almost killed him and the sickness-wellness-fitness continuum.
37:00 – The next stages in Matt’s fitness career.
Facebook marketing. You know you need it, but that's about all you know.
Should you target your ads as widely as possible in the hopes of reaching more people? Should you tighten the focus on certain demographics? What's more important, gender or age?
Digital-marketing expert Mateo Lopez is on Two-Brain Radio to demystify Facebook ad targeting and teach you which net you need to catch the fish you're looking for.
Links:
Free Tools
Book a Free Call
Healthy Steps Nutrition
Contact:
mateo@twobrainbusiness.com
mike@twobrainmedia.com
Timeline:
2:27 – Narrow or broad targeting: Which is better?
5:26 – Sorry, but you’re probably not as smart as the computer.
8:00 – Geographics: Why you might not want to target by radius.
10:37 – You already know your target market—it's your current clients.
12:10 – Don’t get too specific.
14:25 – Ad sets by gender.
16:26 – Let Facebook do the work for you.
17:50 – You might not always want to target to your own postal code.
19:50 – Want to become a digital-marketing expert?
20:42 – First steps for the ad-targeting newbie.
22:08 – Costs and competition.
24:47 – The moral of the story: Experiment, track and revise.
25:40 – The strategy Mateo is too chicken to try.
There's just more than a week left of 2019. Have you thought about where you want your business to go next year?
With or without you, the fitness industry is changing. More gyms are embracing the functional-fitness model—and charging less for it—and technology is evolving to provide even more opportunities for service.
In this episode of Two-Brain Radio, Chris Cooper discusses the state of the fitness industry and what you can do to ensure success in 2020.
Links:
Building a Sales Engine
The Flywheel: How to Build Momentum and Achieve Wealth
Don't Fear the Cyber
The 6 Best Gym Management Software Platforms: Our Unbiased Review for 2019
The 7 Best Fitness Coaching Software Platforms: Our Unbiased Review for 2019
Training Coaches: Scope of Practice
"How to Start a Gym" guide and other Free Tools
Phases of Entrepreneurship test
Free Retention guide
Book a free call with a mentor
Contact:
chris@twobrainbusiness.com
Timeline:
00:31 – The state of the fitness industry.
3:00 – Where the data comes from.
5:25 – Why we don’t trust surveys.
8:10 – Trends from 2019 and what they mean for your gym.
9:48 – Why you need to produce content.
11:15 – All about retention.
12:15 – The competition you don’t know about.
13:30 – The soft skills of coaching.
14:59 – Why you need to get better at selling.
16:37 – Your business flywheel.
18:00 – Building your brand.
21:00 – Should you become—or stay—a CrossFit affiliate?
21:50 – Should you buy a franchise?
23:34 – Turning obstacles into opportunities.
25:18 – Tools you need—and the ones you don’t.
32:03 – Turning your competition into your on-ramp.
33:44 – The disappearing middle.
35:42 – How to set your business up for success in 2020.
There have been three major evolutions in fitness training: First, personal training in gyms was introduced. Next, trainers left the big-box gyms to open microgyms of their own. Now, the industry is shifting to online training.
Jonathan Goodman is the founder of the Personal Training Development Center, the largest community of fitness professionals in the world. He offers the first certification for online fitness trainers, and he's here to explain how online training can be just as personal, effective and profitable—if not more—than coaching in a brick-and-mortar gym.
Jonathan and Chris talk about how online training can help coaches make more money in less time, how to get your first clients, what to do if your client doesn't have access to traditional gym equipment and how to use technology to prioritize the personal interactions that really matter.
Links:
The Personal Trainer Development Center
Ignite the Fire
Contact:
Instagram: @theptdc
Timeline:
1:26 – Working too hard for too little money.
3:36 – Learning to be an “infopreneur.”
6:37 – The evolution of the fitness industry.
9:22 – How online training solves some of the problems of brick-and-mortar personal training.
11:11 – What online training looked like in 2013.
13:18 – Do the math—then use technology to scale your ability to have a personal touch.
15:25 – How to offer unlimited online support without being available 24/7.
18:56 – The myth of expertise and the reality of accountability.
20:00 – When to automate and when to support clients in real time.
21:52 – Where to start? Get clients before you’re ready.
24:46 – Create a compelling offer.
26:43 – Permission to embrace imperfection.
29:26 – How do you train people without equipment?
33:28 – The best software for online personal training (the answer might surprise you).
37:25 – What happens after you get your first five clients: mentorship and certification.
When should you eat carbs? How important is that post-workout shake? What's the best diet for general health?
E.C. Synkowski, founder of OptimizeMe Nutrition, fields questions like these every day, and on today's episode of Two-Brain Radio, she shares the answers with Sean Woodland.
You'll learn about her decade of experience on the CrossFit Seminar Staff, why she left CrossFit to pursue a career in nutrition and how she defines good nutrition.
E.C. also shares some of her top tips for choosing a nutrition plan, surviving the holidays and sticking with good habits for the long term.
Links:
OptimizeMe Nutrition
Two-Brain Business Free Tools
"Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief"
"Two-Brain Business"
"Two-Brain Business 2.0"
"Help First"
Contact:
Instagram: @optimizemenutrition
Timeline:
1:06 – Intro to E.C. Synkowski.
2:26 – Finding her people in CrossFit.
4:02 – How E.C. got on the CrossFit Seminar Staff: “I just kept showing up.”
5:28 – Leaving environmental consulting to work for CrossFit.
6:23 – Her role as a program manager for CrossFit.
8:42 – The power of simple messaging in nutrition.
9:44 – Starting OptimizeMe Nutrition.
11:32 – Defining good nutrition.
12:12 – Where to start when dialing in your nutrition.
13:08 – The most common nutrition mistakes people make.
16:13 – Replacing bad habits with good ones.
17:13 – The 800-gram Challenge.
19:08 – The Consistency Project.
20:18 – Nutrition and sleep.
22:20 – Surviving the holidays without undoing all your progress.
23:32 – Overcoming the biggest obstacles to starting a nutrition plan.
24:34 – Supplements: Yea or nay?
25:59 – What if you love protein shakes?
27:54 – How to maintain good nutrition when you hate cooking and don’t have time to meal prep.
29:05 – The biggest misconception about nutrition.
30:33 – How to help loved ones improve their nutrition.
The best digital ad in the world is only as good as what happens after you click it.
Do people get sent to your website? To an opt-in form? To a landing page?
In this episode of Two-Brain Radio, digital marketing expert Mateo Lopez breaks down why you need a landing page and what information it should contain to get the most conversions.
You'll learn about the benefits of third-party page builders, how to organize page information to hold viewers' interest, what NOT to do on your landing page and lots more.
Links:
Incite Tax
Free Tools
Two-Brain Radio: How to Turn Prospective Clients Into Paying Clients
Two-Brain Radio: Killer Creative—How to Test Photos Photos for Facebook Ads That Convert Like Crazy
Contact:
mateo@twobrainbusiness.com
mike@twobrainmedia.com
Timeline:
3:35 – What should happen after someone clicks an ad?
4:29 – Third-party builders vs. DIY.
5:09 – Why you need a landing page.
7:31 – Why your website isn’t enough.
9:14 – Designing a call to action.
10:22 – Combating short attention spans.
12:04 – Long vs. short-form landing pages.
12:53 – Always be testing.
13:58 – What should go “above the fold.”
16:40 – Experimenting with subheads.
17:48 – When to hire an expert to create your media.
21:12 – Below the fold: What visitors should see when they start scrolling.
24:33 – How to get social proof.
25:51 – Outlining the client journey.
28:26 – Highlight the benefits of your offer.
30:08 – Show authority.
30:18 – Incentivize with scarcity.
33:10 – Kisses of death: What NOT to do.
36:16 – Don’t forget to collect contact info.
You probably know Jason Khalipa as a CrossFit Games legend. You might know him as the owner of NCFIT, formerly NorCal CrossFit. But did you know that he oversees more than 20 gyms and 150 employees worldwide under the NCFIT umbrella?
Jason began as many gym owners do. He opened his first gym in a 1,500-square-foot space with no credit and a shallow bank account. He coached classes, handed out flyers and did the books. Sometimes he spent the night on the gym couch.
At Two-Brain Business, we call that Founder Phase, and Jason didn't stay there long. By treating his gym as a business instead of a hobby—prioritizing sales and marketing, putting the right staff in the right seats and tapping into new markets—he turned his tiny gym into a global fitness empire.
In this episode, Jason is here with Two-Brain Business mentor Jay Williams to share how he did it and answer your questions, from payroll to whether or not to affiliate to how to start a corporate wellness program.
Links:
NCFIT
Free Tools
Contact:
Join the NCFIT Collective (Two-Brain Business customers get 50% off the first month!)
Timeline:
1:27 – How Jason got involved in the fitness industry.
2:14 – Opening his first gym.
4:13 – Getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
6:12 – Bridging coaching and community with sales and marketing.
7:10 – The secret to growth: Master the fundamentals (and pick up the phone).
9:10 – More is not always better.
10:50 – Overcoming the icon problem.
12:52 – On hiring: 1099 vs. W2.
14:11 – Focus on your strengths.
17:29 – Business success: It’s not about the Games.
19:55 – The biggest mistake gym owners are making today.
21:50 – What he’d do differently if he could start all over.
25:53 – When is it time to expand?
26:17 – The attitude that sets NCFIT apart.
27:50 – The one skill every gym owner must learn in order to level up.
28:50 – All about the NCFIT Collective.
30:41 – Expansion and quality control.
32:00 – Triaging your time.
33:46 – Do you need outside funding to start a gym?
37:44 – On offering 30- and 45-minute classes.
40:24 – How to serve both elite athletes and the general population.
41:34 – Managing client relationships.
43:04 – Creating opportunities for staff.
44:11 – When to affiliate with CrossFit Inc. (and when not to).
45:02 – How to get into corporate wellness.
45:33 – Payroll and the big picture.
47:08 – The future of the fitness industry.
48:41 – The NCFIT Collective: how to join and why.
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