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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.
In this week's morsel, Greg Strauch encourages you to answer this question:
What are you more passionate about—being a gym owner or being a business owner?
Both answers are OK. The point is to think critically about the answer and decide if what you're doing is moving you closer to wealth—the freedom to choose how you spend your time.
Two-Brain Radio: Paying Attention to Mental Health With Colm O'Reilly
Colm O'Reilly owns CrossFit Ireland in Dublin and recently celebrated the gym's 12th anniversary. But he's not here to talk business; he's here to talk mental health and entrepreneurship.
When Colm was 17, he attempted to end his own life. Since then, he's dedicated years to understanding his own psyche and how his response to outside events affects his inner emotional state.
In this episode of Two-Brain Radio, Colm explains why business owners and entrepreneurs are especially susceptible to depression and anxiety and shares techniques for rewiring the brain according to a positive, self-compassionate growth mindset.
Links:
https://crossfitireland.ie/
https://www.levelmethod.com
https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Connections-Uncovering-Depression-Unexpected/dp/163286830X
Contact:
colm@crossfitireland.ie
Timeline:
2:47 – From Nestle employee to CrossFit affiliate owner.
5:04 – Surviving attempted suicide and lessons learned from self-reflection.
7:48 – Why open a gym?
10:22 – Business owners and depression: a loss of identity, security and connection.
12:53 – Don’t go to failure.
15:41 – Have self-compassion.
16:36 – Recognize the Bright Spots.
20:42 – The inner vs. outer worlds.
22:35 – Finding happiness and strength in the inner world so that you can tackle the outer world.
24:51 – Just as in your business, establish systems—work on yourself—before you try to fix anything else.
29:21 – Don’t let stress about one issue cloud everything else.
29:55 – Tackling the outer world, piece by piece.
31:37 – Step one: Take time for yourself each day.
32:26 – Forgive yourself.
Two-Brain Radio: Getting Through Tough Times Using CrossFit With Carleen Mathews
On this episode of Two-Brain Radio, Sean Woodland talks with four-time CrossFit Games athlete Carleen Mathews. She took second overall in the 35-39-year-old division at the 2019 Reebok CrossFit Games following a three-year career as an individual Games athlete.
Carleen shares her experience being addicted to drugs and alcohol and how CrossFit helped her transform her life after she got sober, ultimately leading to her career as a competitive CrossFit athlete.
She and Sean talk about what it was like to become a Games athlete, her first Masters experience in 2019 and her plans for the future. Carleen also talks about what she is currently doing to help people who are dealing with addiction and how friends and family can help them, too.
Links:
http://crossfitsainthelens.com/
https://www.amazon.com/Founder-Farmer-Tinker-Thief-Entrepreneurs-ebook/dp/B07QH85HSX
Contact:
Instagram: @teamcarleen
Timeline:
1:10 – The CrossFit Games Masters experience.
1:52 – Training for the Masters competition and coming out with a silver medal.
4:13 – Why go Masters?
6:41 – Falling into the world of addiction.
7:43 – The turning point.
9:43 – How Carleen got sober.
12:32 – Insight on addiction.
13:41 – How online dating led her to CrossFit.
17:07 – CrossFit: a healthier addiction.
19:22 – Becoming a competitor.
22:07 – Carleen’s debut CrossFit Games: A lesson in discomfort.
25:13 – Injury and burnout.
26:46 – Why competing at the Games level doesn’t necessarily indicate peak health.
28:39 – Second place is cool, but the real reward is showing people they can change.
29:11 – Setting an example and helping other addicts through CrossFit.
34:30 – What the future holds.
36:07 – Lessons from the journey: “It’s OK to be uncomfortable.”
Two-Brain Radio: Partnerships With Ashkan Amirsoleymani
In this episode of Two-Brain Radio, we hear from your host Mateo's business partner Ashkan Amirsoleymani. The pair co-own CrossFit Rittenhouse in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
They'll take you down memory lane as they share how they got their start in a free park workout, eventually using that same concept to bring new members into the gym when they took over.
Then, Ashkan discusses what it takes to present a unique offering in a competitive market—there's another CrossFit gym a mere eight feet from Rittenhouse's doors—and how to fire members and employees who don't jive with your business' vision and values. He also shares how he starts the relationship-building process in the No-Sweat Intro and why you should avoid the quick hire in favor of the right one.
Links:
https://crossfitrittenhouse.com/
https://www.meetup.com
https://www.levelmethod.com
Contact:
info@crossfitrittenhouse.net
Timeline:
5:02 – Meeting future business partners in a free park workout.
7:52 – Meet-Up: Free targeted advertising.
11:53 – How to build a great community and a unique offering in a competitive market.
12:49 – A coach’s perspective on building community: Building relationships.
14:26 – An owner’s perspective on building community: Establishing vision and values.
17:22 – What to do when a member isn’t a good fit.
22:26 – A membership fee isn’t worth cancer in the locker room.
24:01 – What to do when a staff member stops being a good fit.
28:42 – The sales process at CrossFit Rittenhouse.
30:23 – The No-Sweat Intro: Prioritize relationship-building over the hard sell.
36:15 – The key to success: Take the time to build the right team.
Food for Thought Friday - Part 2 of Who Are You Listening To?
In this week's morsel, Greg Strauch explains the meaning behind the three questions you should be asking your top clients:
1. What do you like best about my business?
2. What do you dislike about the fitness industry in general?
3. What is the biggest challenge you face outside of the gym?
Two-Brain Radio: The Golden Goose With Jeff Burlingame
In this episode of Two-Brain Radio, we're treating you to another prime talk from the 2019 Two-Brain Summit.
Jeff Burlingame is a senior Two-Brain Business mentor and the owner of Friction CrossFit in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A couple years ago, Jeff took a 30-day break from running his gym—and he never came back. How was that possible? He'd found his golden goose (or in this case, geese). After trusting the wrong person with his business and nearly losing everything, Jeff learned to put the right people in the right seats to grow his business without him.
In this talk, he'll teach you how to spot people with the potential to become golden geese, how to determine which roles they might perform well, how to slowly expand those roles and how to evaluate them. He'll also tell you what you can do to keep your golden geese happy and provide opportunities for growth so they don't fly the coop.
Links:
https://frictioncrossfit.com/
https://fortimedesign.com/
Contact:
jeff@twobrainbusiness.com
Timeline:
4:55 – What’s a golden goose?
6:50 – Golden geese aren’t born; they’re made.
7:47 – Trust, faith and responsibility.
9:16 – Identify their likes, dislikes, strengths and weaknesses.
11:08 – A lesson in what not to do.
13:13 – In hindsight: Mentorship might have prevented disaster.
15:22 – Grow them into responsibility; don’t begin with everything at once.
17:45 – Take a 30-day test run and then evaluate: objectively and subjectively.
19:48 – You might have the right person but the wrong seat. So change seats.
24:28 – Over-communicate: Find out what your staff wants.
26:18 – To get the right people in the right seats, you need to mentor them.
28:10 – What do you need to do to meet their needs?
29:53 – An example of gradual role progression.
33:22 – Part of progressing your staff means stepping out of roles you don’t love.
35:22 – The vacation test: Does your business grow when you’re not there?
37:11 – Homework: Identify your golden-goose candidates, discover their goals and ambitions and identify which roles they could take on.
38:36 – Pay structures and meta-roles.
40:13 – What does it mean to have an abundance mindset?
41:43 – How to keep a golden goose in the coop: Show potential.
45:32 – Take staff progression step by step.
Two-Brain Radio: CrossFit Memes With John Wooley
You’re probably more familiar with his work than you are with him. John Wooley is the man behind the most popular CrossFit meme page on Instagram, "Make Wods Great Again."
After finding CrossFit nine years ago, John decided to put his keen sense of humor to work on social media, and the rest is history. He and Sean talk about how the page got started, what makes a good CrossFit meme and what it’s like to meet the targets of some of his good-natured humor in person.
Links:
https://makewodsgreatagain.com
https://www.amazon.com/Founder-Farmer-Tinker-Thief-Entrepreneurs-ebook/dp/B07QH85HSX
Contact:
Instagram: @makewodsgreatagain
Timeline:
1:13 – Banker by day, comedian by early morning.
1:36 – "It's like P90x, but harder."
2:48 – The birth of “Make WODs Great Again.”
5:38 – From 0 to 10,000 followers in one month.
7:15 – Powered by coffee and ADD.
8:16 – What makes a good meme?
10:01 – Dealing with controversy.
11:45 – Where do you draw the line?
14:11 – Meeting Mat Fraser—and other meme targets.
17:32 – Becoming an accidental CrossFit celebrity.
19:25 – How the memes get made.
22:34 – More than just a laugh: Bringing the community together.
24:24 – Breaking new ground with podcasting.
25:48 – Interviewing Greg Glassman.
27:22 – Gold mine or labor of love?
28:47 – Keeping it fresh.
Two Brain Radio: How Jill Glasenapp Turned $650 Into $8,400 Through Advertising
Jill Glasenapp joined the Cobra Command CrossFit team as a coach at the gym's two-year mark and bought in as a partner six months later.
Though she'd already put systems in place before joining the Two-Brain family, she knew she needed help growing the business. The lessons she learned in the Incubator, she said, helped her learn how to step out of low-value roles and start working on the business instead.
Now in its fourth year, Cobra Command has a well-refined sales and lead-nurture system in place and has grown its membership from around 150 to 200-plus members.
Links:
https://cobracommandcrossfit.com
https://fortimedesign.com
Contact:
jill@cobracommandcrossfit.com
Timeline:
4:25 – Gym names and comic-book nerds.
5:10 – The journey from coach to co-owner.
6:36 – Negotiating a buy-in.
7:32 – Why mentorship?
8:21 – Discovering the Kingmaker Equation.
9:20 – Learning how to target the right audience.
10:43 – Standing apart as a famiy-centric gym.
11:56 – The lead-nurture process.
13:39 – Training your staff for sales: role playing is key.
16:15 – How to turn a facility tour into a sales strategy.
18:26 – Pitching the best fit for the client.
20:02 – From two or three No Sweats a week to 20.
21:16 – Maximizing location.
23:16 – The key to success? Stocking the team with the right people.
Two-Brain Radio: Converting More Clients With John Franklin and Mateo Lopez
In this episode of Two-Brain Radio, we're taking you inside the 2019 Two-Brain Summit with a talk given by digital marketing mentors John Franklin and Mateo Lopez.
The theme of the talk is this: Know your numbers. John and Mateo will walk you through how to calculate a marketing budget, what it costs to acquire a new member and what to do when you have that information.
They discuss the concept of losing money to make more money, the advantages of digital marketing and the secret "get-rich-quick" tactic most gym owners are leaving on the table.
Links:
https://foreverfierce.com
Timeline:
2:41 – What is good marketing?
5:30 – An effective marketing funnel in action.
7:51 – The era of “build it and they will come” is over.
11:29 – A glance at marketing trends in other industries.
12:53 – In the fitness industry, we have to spend more to compete.
14:54 – How Netflix, Dollar Shave Club and the grocery store lose money to make money.
22:19 – ClassPass and Groupon: Why discounted leads aren’t the best strategy in the long run.
28:13 – Doing the math: What do you need to pay to get a new customer?
29:35 – Calculating your marketing budget.
30:22 – Calculating the lifetime value of a client.
31:57 – What’s your target profit?
32:51 – What are your expenses per client?
35:00 – As you grow, you can spend more on marketing.
36:44 – The effectiveness of digital marketing.
39:32 – The One Weird Trick to Get Rich Quick!
44:16 – Speed matters.
52:29 – You’re never done nurturing.
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