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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.
Today we are joined by Vaughn Vernon, owner of Affiliate Guard. Affiliate Guard is an industry-specific company that provides insurance coverage for affiliates. Founded by Vaughn in 1999, Affiliate Guard insures 2,500 gyms across the world today. Join us as we talk about Vaughn's growth as a business and as an entrepreneur.
This episode is NOT about insurance. But Affiliate Guard is an official TwoBrain partner, which means they uphold the TwoBrain standard of excellence and care.
Don’t Forget! Find out what stage of entrepreneurship you are in by taking the exclusive Two Brain test here: https://twobrain.com/test/ or schedule your free mentoring call by clicking here!
Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vaughn-vernon-b6517087/
Timeline:
0:25 – Introduction to Vaughn Vernon
1:55 – Vaughn’s experience growing a major insurance company
6:11 – Growing a business within a niche
8:29 – What is the structure of Affiliate Guard? What can we learn about the structure of other businesses from AG?
9:40 – Keeping communication open while running a family business
10:52 – Realizing that you cannot be everything to everybody
12:48 – Determining the seed clients necessary to start an insurance company
15:27 – How complacency can cause problems in your business
16:05 – What does a typical day look like for Vaughn?
18:15 – Insight into the Affiliate Guard hiring process
23:57 – Two Brain Stories with Matt Koym
Why Most Businesses Are Just Houses Made of Cards
The scientist Bertrand Russell once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how earth orbits the sun, and the forces holding our galaxy together. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady stood up in the back of the theater and said,
"What you've just told us is rubbish. The world is a flat plate, resting on the back of a giant tortoise."
Russell asked, "What is the tortoise resting on?'
The old lady replied, "You're very clever, sir. Very clever. But it's turtles all the way down."
When a gym owner books a free callwith me, I spend the first ten minutes asking questions. I want to know their story; I want to see if I can help them. And I want to find their bedrock.
So I ask about their Perfect Day. I ask them to tell me the story of their business. I ask, "Who's helping you with this?" But what I'm really trying to find is their foundation: the systems on which their business runs. When I discover a lack of systems, I want to know their goals. And if they can't clearly state their goals--their giant, big WHY IN THE SKY--then I ask about their values. I'm looking for their foundation.
Knowledge--in science, in myth, and in your business--requires a foundation of absolute truth.
If I ask your staff, "Why do we open at 9am?" are they likely to say, "Because that's the time we've always opened"?
If so, and I asked, "Why have you always opened at that time?", what answer would they give?
"Well, that's what time everyone opens on this street"?
And if I asked, "Why does everyone on this street open at 9am?"--what answer would I get then?
But if, to the first question, your staff answered, "We polled our best clients, and they prefer to start visiting at 9am" or "Traffic patterns on this block show that people arrive around 9:30am", then I would know that your business had a solid foundation of data.
When I worked in a treadmill store years ago, a traveling rep subjected ME to such questions.
"Why do you open Monday to Friday from 9 until 5; then open for a half-day on Saturday, and stay closed all day on Sunday?"
My answer: "Because that's when people come in."
He asked, "What other times have you tried?"
I backpedalled: "Well, no one else in this mini-mall is open on Sunday. We'd be the only one."
He asked, "Why do they all close on Sundays?"
Finally, exasperated, I answered, "Well, I'm not going to work seven days a week! I need my Saturday afternoons and Sundays off!"
His point: most people don't buy treadmills between 9am and 5pm, because they're at work. They buy treadmills between 5pm and 9pm, and on the weekends, because they're not at work. So why open during those other times at all? Why not run wide open for two weeks, track when people wanted to visit most, and then close for the rest of the time?
As he asked me those questions, I realized that I had no bedrock. I didn't have REAL reasons for doing things the way I did. It was turtles all the way down. My business was a house of cards, and each card was just a guess.
Here's how we build foundations at TwoBrain:
We start with your values. What's your PERSONAL non-negotiable bedrock? What are you not willing to sacrifice? For example, I believe in transparency and fairness, so I don't offer discounts at my gym.
Then we follow with goals. What's YOUR Perfect Day? Where are we heading?
Next, we build playbooks so that staff find it EASY to do things the way you want them done. The playbooks become THEIR bedrock.
Finally, we examine the gold standards in your industry and ask, "What are the BEST doing? What's a ten out of ten?" and work to improve all of it.
Just as you can't add weight to a house of cards, you can't grow a business without a foundation. Myths and science alike fail when a f
"10:19pm. Leaving the gym. Missed my girls, but my 5am class will have clean floors. All about the hustle!"
"I don't care if this gym ever pays me. I love the community and I'll fight like hell to keep this box open!"
"A bunch of members quit when this new box opened down the road. They've got daddy's money and all the toys. But I'm just going to keep coaching my clients even better even if it means my wife has to go back to work."
Scroll through the Instagram and Facebook pages of gym owners for an hour today, and I guarantee you'll find one of these. I know, because that's where I found all three.
All came from excellent coaches who are changing their clients' lives.
All came from coaches who had thousands of followers on Social Media.
All came from coaches who deserve better. All came from dads whose kids deserve to see them at bedtime. All came from husbands whose wives deserve to live without stressing over the grocery bill.
This has to stop.
Here are the myths that lead to martyrdom, and what to do about them:
Martyrs aren't typically known for extravagant lifestyles. But nearly all of them share one luxury: their hardline actions don'
I spent New Year's Eve with a friend named Matt. Matt's a farmer.
We sat at his handmade kitchen table drinking Mad Jack, both of us stifling yawns: I'd been up since 4am. Matt had been up all night, fixing power lines in -30 weather for his "real job". Matt works for the power company, but he's still a farmer.
Our wives were talking about a mutual friend who'd won the lottery in 2017. Half a million isn't enough to retire on, but it pays a lot of bills, and I asked Matt what he'd do with it.
"I'd farm until it was gone," he said.
Most farms lose money. If you calculated the value of a farmer's time, each hour worked would be worth pennies or less. And yet Matt wears a shirt with a tractor on it. His kids' toys are all tractors. Look out any window in his two-story house, and you'll see farm.
Matt doesn't farm to make money. Matt makes money so he can be a farmer.
I know a lot of coaches like Matt: if they won the lottery today, they'd still show up to coach the 6am class tomorrow. In fact, it's one of the questions on our Gym Checkup, and almost everyone gives the same answer.
All of us receive something greater than money from coaching. And many of us take "day jobs" to support our coaching habit. But that's where the similarities end.
We NEED our businesses to thrive. Our clients depend on our ability to make the business work. Our coaches deserve success. Our kids deserve to see us at bedtime.
We need to balance our "right brain" (emotion and care) with our "left brain" (systems and processes) to provide the best gym. Being excellent doesn't mean "just caring more"--it means being excellent at business, and providing an excellent service. It means wearing CrossFit t-shirts to your New Year's party, but it also means buying the wine.
We have the unique entrepreneurial opportunity to start with almost nothing and scratch out a business that changes the lives of our clients. It's our responsibility to be successful, and then help the next guy do the same. Do you think the world will have another shot at this? If all the microgyms go, will they ever be replaced?
If you own a box, you understand the plight of the farmer. Small gyms--like small farms--are constantly battling high-volume corporate brands. We're outgunned and outfinanced, but quality keeps us in the game. Many of us would spend our lottery winnings to prop up a failing gym, if it came to it. Passion is not the problem. Profit is. We have to be profitable now.
Matt looks exhausted until we talk about chickens. He hates chickens. But he's a farmer, so he'd rather talk about chickens than about his "day job". I get it. I used to hate "the business side" of my business--but it was my business, so I got excited about it when someone asked. Now that it's very profitable, I get excited about it all the time.
Matt might never get the chance to go all-in on farming. You and I have that chance. It's now or never. 2018 is the year: succeed or fail. But if you're counting on passion for coaching to make your business a success, you might as well buy lottery tickets.
Do you have any idea how special you are?
Over the last 72 hours, half a million people did the same crazy workout and then shared their score in public. Most of those people didn't win first place. Most of them didn't even want to compete.
They didn't do it because Dave Castro made a workout so compelling that it made everyone jump off their couches and start exercising. They didn't do it because Greg Glassman's 2002 Journal articles made them want to exercise until their hands ripped or they felt like vomiting. And they sure didn't do it because they read this blog and wanted to make up an Intramural team of their own.
They did it because you quit your job, took the second-largest loan of your life, or spent all your savings on a cold cinderblock space and some barbells that almost nobody really wants to use.
They did it because they see you at 5am, and they know you're still there at 9pm when they're at home watching Shark Tank.
They did it because you've put everything on the line for them, and they're willing to cross this one little line for you. For YOU, coach.
They did it because they trust you to say "good job", and for dozens of others to follow in your exact example.
They did it because you told them they COULD, and you're probably the only person in their life who says that.
They did it because Betty-Lou from the noon group said, "Will you play for my team?" and nobody's ever done that, even in third grade. They got picked, coach. They got chosen. Because of you.
They're not posting their pictures on Instagram because they're hoping to win a new pair of Reeboks. You made them a celebrity. You made them a first-round draft pick. You made them famous, wanted, cheered. You did.
The things their parents wanted to give them--security, health, and friendships--you gave them those things. Their husbands wanted to put them on a pedestal--and you gave them a podium. You gave them the respect of their children and the love of their spouse. You.
On some days, when the risk seems heavy; when the debt seems long; when the stress makes even the barbell too heavy; when it feels as if your vow of service was really a vow of poverty, I beg you to remember this:
You gave up a "job" to start a business helping people.
You spent tens of thousands of dollars with no guarantee of return, let alone reward.
You give your clients a longer, healthier life. No one else can.
On any given hour of any given day, you can change a person's life forever.
And you do.
Thank you, Coach.
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