December 8, 2025 • 30 mins
Just because a decision feels good now doesn’t mean it’s the right one for your gym’s long-term success.
In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper breaks down 12 choices that seem smart in the moment but can sabotage a gym's profitability down the line.
He explains how mistakes such as paid-in-full deals and monthly discounts erode value and bleed out revenue, and he shares how short-term conveniences, such as hiring friends or subleasing to trainers, create downstream operational headaches.
You’ll hear how ego-driven decisions to criticize competitors or train to be the best athlete in your gym steal focus from the systems that actually grow revenue.
Coop also discusses retention and pricing errors, and he explains how three major growth traps—expanding too early, trying to serve everyone and buying failing gyms—create more problems than they solve.
Tune in to learn the sustainable strategies top gyms use to avoid these mistakes and make smart decisions that pay dividends for decades.
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1:23 - Discount death spiral
8:07 - Staff and space nightmares
14:40 - Ego-driven mistakes
21:33 - Retention and pricing errors
24:50 - Growth without foundation
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris (00:02):
Some decisions that you make in your gym feel really
good right now, but they'rereally going to cost you later.
I'm Chris Cooper.
This is Run a Profitable Gym.
And it's really easy for us toconvince ourselves that we're
making the right guesses, thatwe're making the right choices,
because we're always in our ownhead.
We're always thinking and we'rethinking really fast, and we
(00:23):
can convince ourselves ofanything.
We know this is true in our gymclients.
We know that if they work hardtoday, eventually those wins
will compound.
They will have short-term painfor long-term gain.
But we struggle sometimes tosee that in our own business.
And we do things that feel goodright now that were actually
(00:44):
going to hurt us long term.
We affect our own health andlongevity of our gym business by
making decisions that seem goodright now, but they're going to
hurt us long term.
Today I'm going to walk youthrough about 10 of those
decisions that I've seen.
I'm going to share some storiesabout how they have hurt gyms
in the long run.
And I think this is reallytimely right now because let's
(01:05):
face it, there are a lot ofbusiness coaches in the fitness
space now.
And some of them are giving youadvice that they just don't
have the experience to know isactually going to hurt you long
term.
Some of them just don't care.
But the reality is that most ofthem just haven't been around
long enough to know that this isa bad idea.
So let me start with an easyand obvious one.
This is paid infull discounts.
(01:26):
A lot of gyms, especiallycoaching gyms, when they open up
their doors, they think like,oh, I need cash really badly.
I'm going to sell some lifetimememberships.
But they don't actually do themath on these memberships and
realize that somebody's buying alifetime membership that's
worth, you know, a couple ofthousand bucks.
But 12 years down the road, notonly are you paying them for
(01:48):
free, but your service will haveupgraded multiple times.
Your pricing will bedramatically different, probably
twice as much.
And really what they boughtwasn't, you know, pay covered in
what they paid.
There's another short-termexample of this, too.
So uh using a Black Fridaysale, this gym that had three
locations out west, they were akind of a flagship gym for the
(02:11):
CrossFit brand.
What they would do is everyBlack Friday they would run this
paid and full discount.
And so you could pay for 10months in a row up front, and
you would get the last twomonths of the year for free.
So, you know, starting inJanuary, you would pay for 10
months and you'd stop payingbasically in October.
And November and December wouldbe free.
(02:32):
This seems like a good idea atthe time.
And a lot of people took themup on it, like 30 or 40.
And so they had all kinds ofcash in January.
And February looked prettygood.
And by June, they were startingto say, Oh, we better pay close
attention here.
And by July, they were like,uh-oh, what do we do?
And then in October, those 30people were no longer paying and
the gym was out of money.
So, of course, what did theydo?
(02:53):
They offered the same discountagain, except this time they ran
out of money in July.
And then they said, Oh, whatare we going to do?
And by the time I spoke tothem, they had run this
promotion three times.
They were absolutely broke, andthey couldn't afford to run the
gym for a year to fulfill onthe memberships they had already
sold.
Now, this is really common inthe fitness industry.
(03:14):
And this is why in a lot ofstates, you are required to have
a bond so that you don'tpre-sell a bunch of memberships
and then close down before youcan fulfill on them.
It's very common.
None of us thinks it's evergoing to happen, but it happens
quite a bit.
Short term, you get a big lumpof cash that feels pretty good.
Long term, it actually can putyou out of business because
(03:35):
you'll run out of money.
Now, you always think like, I'mjust going to get more clients,
more clients, more clients, andthey'll backfill for the
clients that I'm not makingmoney on anymore.
That is called a pyramidscheme.
Let's keep that out of thefitness industry.
Instead, you need to set yourrates to be what they should.
You need to provide a highvalue and confidently sell that
value instead of trying to dosome kind of weird paid in full
(03:59):
discount thing that's going toput you out of business later.
You're not just going to makeit up with more clients.
The second big mistake that alot of gym owners make that
seems good at the time, butcauses them long-term pain are
other discounts, recurringmonthly discounts.
So a lot of gyms will confusediscounting with marketing.
They think like, well, if Ioffer a 10% discount or a 15% or
(04:21):
a 20, I will get all the firstresponders.
I will get all the teachers,all the nurses, or whoever
they're applying this to.
And trust me, I did this.
I know.
The reason that you're doingthat is because you're scared of
actually asking for the dollarvalue that you're charging.
And so when somebody comes inand you're presenting your
product, here it is, it's $150,$205 a month, $400 a month.
(04:45):
You don't have the confidenceto sell that.
And so instead you say yousoften the offer.
You say, okay, it's $200 amonth, but, and that but is you
backing down, hiding, butthere's a 20% discount for first
responders like you.
So the number one reason thatgyms offer discount is because
we're first-time entrepreneurs.
We don't know how to coachsomebody to buy yet, and we're
(05:07):
not confident in our pricesbecause we couldn't afford it
ourselves.
The second reason that we offerthese discounts is because we
think it's marketing.
Well, if I give that policeofficer a discount, he'll bring
all the other police officers.
If I offer a 20% discount tothat new corporation that just
opened across the street,they'll all want to come in.
But that's not true.
(05:28):
Police officers will want tocome to your gym because you
will save their life.
The corporation across thestreet will want to come to your
gym because you're across thestreet from them.
The discounting is just youhiding from actually presenting
your value.
So here's the problem.
Let's say that you give a nurse20% off your price.
(05:48):
Everybody loves nurses.
Everybody knows that nursesneed a break.
They have the worst job in theworld.
I would, I couldn't last 10minutes as a nurse.
It's tempting to want to helpthem by giving them a big
discount.
But here's the problem theymight get excited about the
discount in the beginning, orthey might not, but they're not
going to turn it down.
Three months in, the discounthas become the norm.
(06:11):
This is just how we're wired.
Things that are novel now arenormal later.
Novel, normal.
Six months in, that's just whatthey pay.
They forget that they'regetting a discount at all.
And so eventually these thingsadd up.
They compound 20% off $200 amonth is $40 a month.
And after six months, that's$240.
And after a year, that's $480out of your pocket.
(06:34):
You're still delivering thesame service.
You have all the same costs,but you've given up $480 to
somebody who didn't need it anddoesn't appreciate it anymore.
What's worse is that when youremove that discount because you
realize your mistake, they'reprobably going to think you're
raising their rates on them.
And so these things compoundand just get harder and harder
to remove over time.
They hurt you.
(06:55):
You know, $500 times 10 membersis $5,000 a year.
By the way, that's straight outof profit.
If you really want to see theeffect of this yourself, ask
yourself, would I take $40 outof my wallet right now and slide
that across the table tosubsidize this person's
membership?
In other words, if yourmembership is 200 bucks a month
(07:16):
and uh you want to offer thatnurse or police officer or
fireman a discount, askyourself, my business can't
discount.
Am I willing to subsidize thisperson?
Am I willing to charge them$160 and take $40 out of my
wallet every month and put thatin their business account?
That's how you should treatthis because when you discount
(07:36):
people, you're not reducing yourexpenses.
The landlord doesn't take 20%off your rent because you're
giving a 20% discount to firstresponders.
You're taking it from yourprofit.
That's your wallet.
That's the money that buys yougroceries and puts shoes on your
kids' feet.
You have to ask yourself Am Ireally willing to do that?
And am I really willing to dothat forever, every single
month?
Here's 40 bucks for Bill,here's 40 bucks for Susan,
(07:58):
here's 40 bucks.
And you're subsidizing allthese people.
Or should you maybe work with amentor and get comfortable
selling your actual value?
The third short-term gain forlong-term pay mistakes that a
lot of gym owners make is hiringyour friends.
Now, some of you just rolledyour eyes.
Some of you said, not me, notSally.
She's my BFF.
(08:19):
And some of you laughed outloud when I said that.
This is probably the one commonmistake that I can confidently
say every gym owner has madebecause it feels good to help
your buddy.
You feel like you're givingthem a winning lottery ticket, a
new chance at life, a chance todo what they love with you in
this fun and creativeenvironment, and you're going to
be successful together.
Trust me, 90% of the peoplethat I've hired started as my
(08:42):
friends.
Maybe that number is lower now,but especially when I first
started, I was hiring friends,family.
And what happens?
Well, long term, you get theseblurred boundaries.
When am I your friend and whenam I your employer?
You have a tough timeevaluating them and improving
their performance because youcan't give them feedback without
harming the friendship.
Or likewise, you can't be theirfriend because they're not
(09:04):
doing a good job at work.
So you avoid the toughconversations, you avoid the
evaluations.
And then not only do you losethem as a staff person, but you
also lose them as a friend.
Trust me, the amount of timesthat hiring your friend turns
into an amazing employee and anamazing friend is less than 1%
of the time.
The more likely reality is thatyou will ruin your staff
(09:29):
relationship and you will lose agood friend unless you set
clear business boundaries upfront.
And even then, it's extremelyhard.
You know, my sister is anamazing HR professional.
She's she's able to work withsome friends, but it doesn't
have, it's not withoutchallenges.
And she has this conversationwith her staff up front, like,
hey, when we're here at theoffice, you are my staff person
(09:51):
and I'm gonna treat you like astaff person.
But likewise, when we're out atthe pub, I'm not gonna talk to
you like a staff person andwe're not gonna talk about work
and I'm not gonna do aperformance evaluation on you
when we're out at dinner.
And I'm gonna work really,really hard to maintain those
boundaries.
And I'd like you to do the samething.
We're also gonna tell eachother when we're crossing those
boundaries.
Does that make sense?
(10:11):
Does it feel like uh you're noteven a friend if you got to
talk like that?
Yes, it should, because theyare not your friend when you're
paying them money, right?
You're not paying them to beyour friend, you're not hiring
people to like you.
The reason that you're givingsomebody a job is because
hopefully they are the best inthe world for that position or
(10:32):
the best person that you canfind.
If they're also friendly,that's great.
But you have to understand thatwhen you hire your friends,
there's a chance you're gonnalose both your staff and your
friendship.
It also means that this isgonna stop your business from
growing.
Because let's face it, whowants to have a conversation
with their best friend aboutdoing a better job at work?
Who wants to fire their buddy?
Nobody does.
And so you wind up putting upwith stuff way too long until
(10:55):
you can't take it anymore.
Then you just react with kindof this over-the-top response
that ruins your friendship.
There's a thousand ways thiscan go wrong.
I'm sure you've got your ownexamples, but if it hasn't gone
wrong for you yet, do yourself afavor and just like have
friends and have staff and trynot to mix them.
The fourth mistake that I seecommonly, not in two-brain gyms,
but in in gyms ingymownersunited.com, is
(11:19):
subleasing to other trainers.
So you take the big risk andyou open up your gym, and it
might be a coaching gym, itmight be like an access gym, and
you say, okay, how can I makemore money?
I need to make more money.
Oh, there's a trainer thatwants to rent for me.
I will just charge them acertain fixed amount per month.
Maybe that's 500 bucks a month.
That sounds good, right?
It sounds like found money.
(11:40):
But think about this out of thegym setting.
Okay.
Think about owning a restaurantand letting somebody else sell
their food in there, likeletting the hot dog vendor, you
know, bumpity bumpy brings hiscart up the steps and he pushes
it down the aisles and he'sselling his hot dogs in your
restaurant.
Would you let that happen?
Of course not.
Would you let the Girl Scoutssell their cookies in your
(12:02):
cookie restaurant?
Of course not.
The reason that you don't letother trainers sublease space
from you is because fitness iswhat you're selling.
And if your clients needcoaching, you should be the one
to provide that.
You have built this amazingplatform for fitness.
You have taken the lease on thespace, you have taken the loan
on the equipment, you are payingthe taxes, you've you're
(12:24):
insured, you've set up thebanking, you've gone out and
you've recruited clients.
Letting a trainer come in forthree or 500 bucks a month or
anything less than like $2,000 amonth and benefit from all of
that really is giving them thewinning lottery ticket.
Let me reverse roles for you.
Let's say that you didn't ownthe gym and you came into the
gym and you could get your ownclients or you could recruit
(12:48):
from clients who were alreadythere.
You could charge whatever youwant.
They would pay you whatever youwanted.
You could hold your owninsurance, and all you had to
pay was $500 a month or even athousand to not have to do any
marketing ever again and to havea high affinity, trusting
audience who sees you doing yourjob every single day.
I would pay that in aheartbeat.
(13:08):
And frankly, if that option hadbeen open to me, I would never
have even started a gym.
Imagine having a gym, havingaccess to all these clients,
training them, charging them fortraining, and all of your
expenses are $500 a month,covering your rent, your payment
gateway, your marketing, yoursales, everything.
Come on.
Like you, you need to offerthis service.
(13:31):
You know, of the top gyms inthe world right now, you really
need to understand like most oftheir revenue is coming from
training.
Even the access gyms, like thebig gyms from Golds, they are
not going to let somebody comein and subly space.
It seems like found money toyou, but it's actually stopping
you from capitalizing on thelarger opportunity and a
(13:52):
responsibility.
Because here's the thing anytrainer that comes into your
place of business and worksthere is going to be associated
with your brand.
If a client has a badexperience with that trainer,
what's going to happen?
Are they going to keep comingto your gym anyway?
Probably not.
Are they going to complain tothat trainer and then fire the
trainer?
No, they're going to complainto you because that trainer was
(14:13):
working at your gym.
Anyone that's doing anybusiness inside your business is
part of your business and needsto be treated this that way so
that you can set the standardfor delivery.
You can set here's how we wantpeople to be treated.
You can keep the clients whowill quit when this subleasing
trainer pisses them off.
Trust me, it seems like foundmoney, like mailbox money, like
(14:33):
easy money when you startsubleasing the trainers, but
you're missing out on thelong-term gain here.
The fifth thing is running downother gyms.
Look, this is a trap that I'lladmit I fell into.
I was so unsure about my ownvalue, lacking confidence,
terrified, broke, that I hadthis scarcity mindset.
And I am embarrassed to evenadmit it now.
(14:55):
But if somebody would bring upanother gym in town, my
immediate knee-jerk response wasslam those, slam that gym, run
them down, you know, belittlethem, talk about how the owner
doesn't know anything, or evenjust roll your eyes, let your
body language give it away.
It took me years to get overthis.
And honestly, until I wassuccessful myself, I was not
generous to other gym owners atall.
(15:17):
Now it's different.
Now I host the other gym ownersin town every month for lunch.
I want us all to grow.
I want us all to collaborate.
I think the whole can be morethan the sum of its parts.
But even back then, thisactually hurt me.
And so when somebody would say,Oh, my best friend has this
trainer that she really loves, Iwould immediately want to run
down that other trainer.
Now, they don't know as much asI do.
(15:38):
Now, I've heard bad things.
No, that trainer, blah, blah,blah.
And what would happen is myclient would be like, Whoa,
Chris really is not sure ofhimself.
Nobody wants to be around thatperson that's running down other
people.
Nobody wants to be around thegossip, you know, because you
know as soon as you leave theroom, they're saying bad stuff
about you.
And so it felt like I waswinning points, like I was
(16:00):
convincing my clients to staywith me and selling them on my
gym over everybody else, but Iwas actually doing long-term
reputational damage.
There are still other trainersin town that won't talk to me.
And while I do have a goodrelationship with most of the
gym owners, the reality is thatsome of the other gym owners
still ascribe to this beliefthat running down the other gyms
is what's going to keep clientsin there.
So I hope that that doesn't uhdescribe you because word always
(16:26):
gets around.
You know, your reputation isnot just what you control, it's
the conversation from one personto another, too.
The sixth thing that gyms dothat feel good in the moment but
cause long-term pain aretrading memberships for
coaching.
And so what happens a lot ofthe time is you'll see somebody
in your in your membership who'sa great person, they're willing
(16:47):
to learn, or maybe they're agreat mover, or maybe they're
always helping people, maybethey're even looking for a job.
And so you offer themsomething, you offer them a
coaching job.
And hey, here's how we can allsave on taxes.
I'll trade you for membership.
If you coach, let's call it aclass a week, I'll give you a
free membership.
The mistake that we make isthat we never do the math on
this.
Now, I believe that cash wascreated, money was created to
(17:11):
normalize trade, to help peopletrade of equivalent value.
And that's why I trade mycoaches for membership and they
buy or I trade them for money, Ipay them and they buy their
membership with what's leftover.
When you do trades, the problemis there's no scoreboard, like
money keeping track of how muchvalue they bring and how much
value you bring.
(17:32):
So the first problem is that ifyou've got three coaches doing
trades, one of them is probablygetting a better deal than the
others.
If I'm coaching one class aweek at your gym and that free
membership that I'm getting isworth 200 bucks, I'm getting 50
bucks an hour.
Are you making that?
But what if somebody else iscoaching six classes a week?
They're making 40 bucks anhour.
(17:53):
What if somebody is coachingtwo, you know, two classes a
week and now they're doing eighta month for the same membership
that's worth 200 bucks?
Well, now they're earning about25 bucks an hour and I'm
earning 50.
You know, does that make sense?
What happens if a coach wantsto take time off and somebody
else has to step in and coachtheir classes?
Well, they're not gettingcompensated anymore for that.
(18:15):
It's it's not fair.
And the reality is that mostpeople are dramatically
overpaying their coaches becausethey think that trades are free
instead of calculating thevalue of that trade against the
client's membership and workingthat out.
So if you don't want toexchange money because you know
you don't want to do the payrolltaxes and all that stuff, I
understand the motivation there.
(18:36):
I do.
I, you know, I don't alwayslove paying taxes.
I love generating money so thatI can pay taxes.
I don't like how my taxes arespent always.
But the reality here is that ifyou're trying to save money and
you think that you can trade,you need to actually calculate
what you're giving away in valueversus what you're recouping.
If you can pay somebody 25bucks an hour to coach a group
(18:57):
class, but you're giving away a$200 a month membership to
somebody who only coaches fourclasses, you're basically
overpaying them by $100 a month.
You know, you could do waybetter.
So long term, you need to paypeople and have them buy
memberships for you or at leastdo the calculation every single
month.
Make sure that people are doingan equitable job because your
(19:19):
top performers, they'll go aboveand beyond, right?
They'll coach extra classes,but they're also noticing that
the bottom performers are notdoing nearly the same amount of
work for their free membership.
It devalues their role whenthat happens.
It creates unmotivated staffand it weakens their
professionalism because whyshould they do extra?
Why should they try hard?
The seventh mistake that gymowners make because it causes
(19:41):
them like short-term goodfeelings, but long-term pain, is
training to be the best athletein their gym.
I thought for many years I hadto be the strongest in the
powerlifting gym, I had to bethe most crossfit in the
CrossFit gym, I had to be thebest athlete in whatever class I
was in, or people wouldn'trespect me as a coach.
After all, why would they wantto do what I tell them if
(20:03):
they're fitter than I am?
Right.
And you get this kind of egoboost.
But long term, what that doesis it takes time and energy away
from leadership.
It means that you're focusingon the wrong things because, you
know, people don't really thinkthat way.
Uh, they don't think that youhave to be the fittest person to
coach them, hopefully, or youdon't want them in your gym.
You'll never be the fittestperson for very long anyway.
(20:25):
That training takes you awayfrom marketing, it takes you
away from business growth.
It does not inspire otherpeople, or not very much.
You know, the people who winthe CrossFit games or the local
triathlon or the local 5K arenot automatically recruiting
people away from other gyms orinspiring new people to
exercise.
They might get a few of theircompetitors to show up, but are
(20:46):
those competitors really yourbest clients anyway?
Training to be the best athletein your gym is a massive uh
commitment of time and energyand focus.
And you really can't afford toput your business in second
place.
Let's face it, you know, if ifyou're training to compete in
something, you're probablyspending two hours a day
training.
Next comes your family, thencomes your nutrition and your
(21:10):
rest.
And you know, your gym comesforth.
That's why your gym is notgrowing.
It's a matter of priorities.
Ask yourself this like if I wonthe biggest prize on earth at
this event, would that help growmy gym?
The answer is always going tobe no.
So why are you training so hardto compete at the local events
before you build your business?
Build your business, then withthe extra time and money that
(21:30):
you have, go back to training ashard as you want to.
The eighth mistake that causeslong-term pain for a lot of gyms
is chasing high-ticket saleswithout retention.
Especially a couple of yearsago, right before COVID, a lot
of gyms were chasing this ideaof high-ticket sales, charging
people like $2,000 for amembership up front.
Before that, they were doingthat with gym launch.
(21:51):
And before that, they weredoing that with the New You
Challenge.
And gym owners were suddenlyable to sell something that was
$300,000, $400, $2,000 up front.
And they thought, like,hallelujah, this is the answer.
But like a lot of trends infitness, in the fitness
business, it's not the answerfor very long.
I guess that's also true infitness.
So what would happen is thesegyms would take training and
(22:12):
they would do sales reps andthey'd get good at sales and
they'd build this complicatedpackage worth $2,000 and they
would sell it.
And good for them.
They'd make two grand, right?
And their gym revenues would goup.
But the long-term effect ofthis was churn because the
clients would say, like, nah,this isn't worth it.
I'm paying $2,000 for this.
Those people are paying $120 amonth.
(22:32):
Like, I don't really see adifference here.
And so they wouldn't be able tomake recurring revenue and
they'd have this treadmill ofconstantly selling.
I mean, if you were around in2018, you started to see this
with the ad agencies that wereselling ads on Facebook.
You'd have these people comein, they would sign up and
they'd churn out.
Come in, sign up, churn out.
And every time this happened,the leads would get colder, the
(22:53):
sales process would get harder,the clients would stay even
shorter, and you had this kindof downward spiral going all the
time to the point where a lotof gyms failed.
And that's because they werechasing a high-ticket sales
without any matching retention.
The ninth mistake that peoplemake in the gym business is
avoiding rate increases.
And you do it because rateincreases feel painful in the
(23:14):
short term, but they create alot of long-term gain.
You're avoiding anuncomfortable conversation.
You'll say, Oh, the time is notright.
I'm gonna wait till January.
Well, I got all these newpeople, I'm busy, I'm gonna wait
till March.
Well, I heard somewhere thatyou shouldn't raise your rates
in September, whatever.
You procrastinate, you avoidthat tough conversation.
Oh, if I raise rates, Sallymight leave, Billy won't be able
(23:36):
to afford it, let alone thatyou can't afford to not raise
your rates, right?
The reality here is that it'sonly gonna be painful for a
minute.
It's painful when you sit downin front of your clients who
might quit and you have theconversation, but it's only
painful for 30 seconds.
It's painful when you send theemail, but it's just painful
waiting over the weekend for theresponses.
(23:58):
Long term, this is what's gonnaset you up for success.
And especially if you'redramatically undercharging, this
is the thing that's gonna keepyou afloat.
Because every month that goesby that you're undercharging,
you erode your margin, you runmore and more and more out of
money, you get more and more andmore burned out, you pay
yourself less and less and lessless because your expenses are
(24:21):
going up.
Your staff is being asked toaccept an unfair wage or they're
working for far less thanthey're worth.
Every month that you kick thiscan down the road, you're
hurting them, you're hurtingyourself, and you're hurting
your business.
Yeah, it's painful right now,and you have to do it.
You know, it's just liketelling your client they need to
do a 200-meter sprint at theend of every you know, 20
(24:43):
thrusters.
Yeah, it's painful right now.
Long term, you will thank me.
And that's the same with rateincreases.
The 10th thing uh that makespeople feel good in the moment,
but hurts them long term, isexpanding too early.
So they've they've got a gym,they opened it up, they were the
first one in their town, theysaw a lot of really quick
growth.
Awesome.
(25:04):
I'm good at business, theythink.
I'm gonna go open another gym.
I'm gonna buy out that failinggym.
I'm better at this than theyare.
And then something happens.
Another gym opens in town andit dramatically hurts their gym.
Or there's this big new thing,right?
P90X was it for me?
Hyrocks might be it.
It's going to a gym down theroad.
(25:24):
Everybody's going over there.
Uh-oh, maybe I'm not as good atbusiness as I thought.
And I was capitalizing on goodfortune when I opened.
Maybe I got the timing right,but now that the times have
changed, my business is introuble.
And so what should actuallyhappen is you should grow your
business to the point where itcan pay you $100,000 a year
consistently, and you know that.
(25:45):
Not just one good month or onegood quarter, not just a great
projection from the ad agencythat's trying to get you to buy
more ads, but actually payingyou $100,000 for a year.
That means that your system isworking for one person.
You are the crash test dummyand it's working for you.
When that system is working foryou and the gym can run without
(26:08):
you for at least a week, that'swhen you can start looking at
expansion and scale andduplicating your process.
Instead, what happens issomebody makes 30 or 40 grand a
year from their gym.
They think that they'resuccessful.
And the best way to make 30 or40 more grand is to buy another
gym.
And what they do is they buysomebody else's mistakes.
They buy 100 clients who willnot pay what the gym is worth.
(26:30):
And so now they've got thismassive problem.
They got bad staff, they've gota maybe a horrible culture.
They're trying to change theprogramming and the paint and
the branding, and they wind upchanging all the clients and
really regretting the secondpurchase anyway.
When you expand too early, allyou're doing is duplicating
problems and doubling expenses.
You are going harder into thelearning curve with a smaller
(26:54):
chance of success.
So expanding too early is amassive problem that actually
kills a lot of gyms becausewhile you're over there trying
to grow the new flock, yourgolden goose is back here dying.
The 11th thing that feels goodin the moment, but kills gym
long term is trying to beeverything to everyone.
So, short term, when you firstopen, this might attract a few
(27:15):
extra clients.
You run a few Facebook adstalking about weight loss, you
get some weight loss clients.
Then you put out some socialposts about your legends
program, you get a few olderclients.
And then you maybe run a kids'class in the summer and you get
a few kids in, right?
Short term, you attract someextra clients.
But long term, it creates allkinds of complexity because now
you've got 30 differentprograms, 90 different price
(27:36):
points.
It confuses clients.
Uh, what do I buy again?
Like imagine they're looking atyour website and there's 12
different options.
They're not going to pick anyof them.
You can only present threeoptions at a time to a client.
And this also burns out theowner because, you know, the
person who's coaching the kidsgroup is not going to be great
at coaching the legends group orthe hockey team or whatever.
So now you've got way too manystaff doing way too few things.
(27:59):
You're trying to clump them alltogether, you're trying to keep
all these plates spinning.
And it's because you're tryingto be everything to everyone.
Instead, you should get reallyclear on who your best client is
and give them exactly what theywant and duplicate them over
and over and over again insteadof just trying to be a
catch-all.
By the way, that perfect clientis probably somebody who can
afford your service.
So if you're trying to makeyour service valuable but also
(28:22):
affordable at the same time, youare chasing two rabbits and
you're not going to catcheither.
My my 12th thing that a lot ofpeople do is one that I kind of
already covered, which is buyingout a failing local gym.
This comes up at this time ofyear because this is when leases
get signed.
So short term, it looks like ashortcut.
It looks like a quick path tobuying more members, buying more
(28:43):
money.
I can spend $50,000 right nowand I will get $50,000 back
forever.
But what you're actually doingis buying their mistakes.
Like there's a reason that theyfailed.
And the clients like theirmistakes.
They like paying too little.
They like the bad programming.
They like the free open gym.
They like the free classes,they like the 12 coaches, all
those mistakes the clients like.
(29:04):
And when you try and changethat, you change the culture.
You lose the clients, you losethe spark plugs, you lose the
coach.
When you go in and try andbuild new systems where there
were no systems before, you'retrying to make order out of
chaos and people leave.
They hate that.
And so you've got these clientswho are already conditioned to
quit walking out the door.
And soon you realize, like,I've sucked my whole leg in
quicksand here.
(29:25):
So I know it's tempting to tryand save a gym.
And you know, something thatGreg Glassman said to me for the
CrossFit gyms is you know, theweakest gym should fail, and
their coaches will go get betterjobs at the better gyms, and
the owner will get a better jobas a coach, and the clients will
go to the better gym.
And like, this islibertarianism in action.
But the truth is that that onlyworks over you know dozens and
(29:46):
hundreds of years.
That doesn't work in the microtime frame that we have right
now.
Unfortunately, when gyms go outof business, there's usually a
reason, right?
And it's never lack of passion,it's never the pro.
Programming.
If you buy their mistakes, youwill just welcome that disease
into your body and you'll reallystruggle to fix it yourself.
(30:09):
And it'll probably infect allthe other businesses that you
own too.
Anyway, these are all likesugar hives for your business,
right?
It's quick energy that leads toa crash and creates diabetes
over time.
So instead of chasing quickwins all the time, build slow,
steady, sustainable systems.
That's how you create long termprofit and freedom.
If you're not sure, book a callwith my team, talk to a mentor,
(30:30):
and say, this seems like a goodidea now.
How will this affect me in thelong term?
I'm Chris Cooper.
This is Run a Profitable Gym.
And I want you to be around forthe long term.
So let's not do things that aregoing to kill you in the short
term.
Some decisions that you make in your gym feel really
good right now, but they'rereally going to cost you later.
I'm Chris Cooper.
This is Run a Profitable Gym.
And it's really easy for us toconvince ourselves that we're
making the right guesses, thatwe're making the right choices,
because we're always in our ownhead.
We're always thinking and we'rethinking really fast, and we
(00:23):
can convince ourselves ofanything.
We know this is true in our gymclients.
We know that if they work hardtoday, eventually those wins
will compound.
They will have short-term painfor long-term gain.
But we struggle sometimes tosee that in our own business.
And we do things that feel goodright now that were actually
(00:44):
going to hurt us long term.
We affect our own health andlongevity of our gym business by
making decisions that seem goodright now, but they're going to
hurt us long term.
Today I'm going to walk youthrough about 10 of those
decisions that I've seen.
I'm going to share some storiesabout how they have hurt gyms
in the long run.
And I think this is reallytimely right now because let's
(01:05):
face it, there are a lot ofbusiness coaches in the fitness
space now.
And some of them are giving youadvice that they just don't
have the experience to know isactually going to hurt you long
term.
Some of them just don't care.
But the reality is that most ofthem just haven't been around
long enough to know that this isa bad idea.
So let me start with an easyand obvious one.
This is paid infull discounts.
(01:26):
A lot of gyms, especiallycoaching gyms, when they open up
their doors, they think like,oh, I need cash really badly.
I'm going to sell some lifetimememberships.
But they don't actually do themath on these memberships and
realize that somebody's buying alifetime membership that's
worth, you know, a couple ofthousand bucks.
But 12 years down the road, notonly are you paying them for
(01:48):
free, but your service will haveupgraded multiple times.
Your pricing will bedramatically different, probably
twice as much.
And really what they boughtwasn't, you know, pay covered in
what they paid.
There's another short-termexample of this, too.
So uh using a Black Fridaysale, this gym that had three
locations out west, they were akind of a flagship gym for the
(02:11):
CrossFit brand.
What they would do is everyBlack Friday they would run this
paid and full discount.
And so you could pay for 10months in a row up front, and
you would get the last twomonths of the year for free.
So, you know, starting inJanuary, you would pay for 10
months and you'd stop payingbasically in October.
And November and December wouldbe free.
(02:32):
This seems like a good idea atthe time.
And a lot of people took themup on it, like 30 or 40.
And so they had all kinds ofcash in January.
And February looked prettygood.
And by June, they were startingto say, Oh, we better pay close
attention here.
And by July, they were like,uh-oh, what do we do?
And then in October, those 30people were no longer paying and
the gym was out of money.
So, of course, what did theydo?
(02:53):
They offered the same discountagain, except this time they ran
out of money in July.
And then they said, Oh, whatare we going to do?
And by the time I spoke tothem, they had run this
promotion three times.
They were absolutely broke, andthey couldn't afford to run the
gym for a year to fulfill onthe memberships they had already
sold.
Now, this is really common inthe fitness industry.
(03:14):
And this is why in a lot ofstates, you are required to have
a bond so that you don'tpre-sell a bunch of memberships
and then close down before youcan fulfill on them.
It's very common.
None of us thinks it's evergoing to happen, but it happens
quite a bit.
Short term, you get a big lumpof cash that feels pretty good.
Long term, it actually can putyou out of business because
(03:35):
you'll run out of money.
Now, you always think like, I'mjust going to get more clients,
more clients, more clients, andthey'll backfill for the
clients that I'm not makingmoney on anymore.
That is called a pyramidscheme.
Let's keep that out of thefitness industry.
Instead, you need to set yourrates to be what they should.
You need to provide a highvalue and confidently sell that
value instead of trying to dosome kind of weird paid in full
(03:59):
discount thing that's going toput you out of business later.
You're not just going to makeit up with more clients.
The second big mistake that alot of gym owners make that
seems good at the time, butcauses them long-term pain are
other discounts, recurringmonthly discounts.
So a lot of gyms will confusediscounting with marketing.
They think like, well, if Ioffer a 10% discount or a 15% or
(04:21):
a 20, I will get all the firstresponders.
I will get all the teachers,all the nurses, or whoever
they're applying this to.
And trust me, I did this.
I know.
The reason that you're doingthat is because you're scared of
actually asking for the dollarvalue that you're charging.
And so when somebody comes inand you're presenting your
product, here it is, it's $150,$205 a month, $400 a month.
(04:45):
You don't have the confidenceto sell that.
And so instead you say yousoften the offer.
You say, okay, it's $200 amonth, but, and that but is you
backing down, hiding, butthere's a 20% discount for first
responders like you.
So the number one reason thatgyms offer discount is because
we're first-time entrepreneurs.
We don't know how to coachsomebody to buy yet, and we're
(05:07):
not confident in our pricesbecause we couldn't afford it
ourselves.
The second reason that we offerthese discounts is because we
think it's marketing.
Well, if I give that policeofficer a discount, he'll bring
all the other police officers.
If I offer a 20% discount tothat new corporation that just
opened across the street,they'll all want to come in.
But that's not true.
(05:28):
Police officers will want tocome to your gym because you
will save their life.
The corporation across thestreet will want to come to your
gym because you're across thestreet from them.
The discounting is just youhiding from actually presenting
your value.
So here's the problem.
Let's say that you give a nurse20% off your price.
(05:48):
Everybody loves nurses.
Everybody knows that nursesneed a break.
They have the worst job in theworld.
I would, I couldn't last 10minutes as a nurse.
It's tempting to want to helpthem by giving them a big
discount.
But here's the problem theymight get excited about the
discount in the beginning, orthey might not, but they're not
going to turn it down.
Three months in, the discounthas become the norm.
(06:11):
This is just how we're wired.
Things that are novel now arenormal later.
Novel, normal.
Six months in, that's just whatthey pay.
They forget that they'regetting a discount at all.
And so eventually these thingsadd up.
They compound 20% off $200 amonth is $40 a month.
And after six months, that's$240.
And after a year, that's $480out of your pocket.
(06:34):
You're still delivering thesame service.
You have all the same costs,but you've given up $480 to
somebody who didn't need it anddoesn't appreciate it anymore.
What's worse is that when youremove that discount because you
realize your mistake, they'reprobably going to think you're
raising their rates on them.
And so these things compoundand just get harder and harder
to remove over time.
They hurt you.
(06:55):
You know, $500 times 10 membersis $5,000 a year.
By the way, that's straight outof profit.
If you really want to see theeffect of this yourself, ask
yourself, would I take $40 outof my wallet right now and slide
that across the table tosubsidize this person's
membership?
In other words, if yourmembership is 200 bucks a month
(07:16):
and uh you want to offer thatnurse or police officer or
fireman a discount, askyourself, my business can't
discount.
Am I willing to subsidize thisperson?
Am I willing to charge them$160 and take $40 out of my
wallet every month and put thatin their business account?
That's how you should treatthis because when you discount
(07:36):
people, you're not reducing yourexpenses.
The landlord doesn't take 20%off your rent because you're
giving a 20% discount to firstresponders.
You're taking it from yourprofit.
That's your wallet.
That's the money that buys yougroceries and puts shoes on your
kids' feet.
You have to ask yourself Am Ireally willing to do that?
And am I really willing to dothat forever, every single
month?
Here's 40 bucks for Bill,here's 40 bucks for Susan,
(07:58):
here's 40 bucks.
And you're subsidizing allthese people.
Or should you maybe work with amentor and get comfortable
selling your actual value?
The third short-term gain forlong-term pay mistakes that a
lot of gym owners make is hiringyour friends.
Now, some of you just rolledyour eyes.
Some of you said, not me, notSally.
She's my BFF.
(08:19):
And some of you laughed outloud when I said that.
This is probably the one commonmistake that I can confidently
say every gym owner has madebecause it feels good to help
your buddy.
You feel like you're givingthem a winning lottery ticket, a
new chance at life, a chance todo what they love with you in
this fun and creativeenvironment, and you're going to
be successful together.
Trust me, 90% of the peoplethat I've hired started as my
(08:42):
friends.
Maybe that number is lower now,but especially when I first
started, I was hiring friends,family.
And what happens?
Well, long term, you get theseblurred boundaries.
When am I your friend and whenam I your employer?
You have a tough timeevaluating them and improving
their performance because youcan't give them feedback without
harming the friendship.
Or likewise, you can't be theirfriend because they're not
(09:04):
doing a good job at work.
So you avoid the toughconversations, you avoid the
evaluations.
And then not only do you losethem as a staff person, but you
also lose them as a friend.
Trust me, the amount of timesthat hiring your friend turns
into an amazing employee and anamazing friend is less than 1%
of the time.
The more likely reality is thatyou will ruin your staff
(09:29):
relationship and you will lose agood friend unless you set
clear business boundaries upfront.
And even then, it's extremelyhard.
You know, my sister is anamazing HR professional.
She's she's able to work withsome friends, but it doesn't
have, it's not withoutchallenges.
And she has this conversationwith her staff up front, like,
hey, when we're here at theoffice, you are my staff person
(09:51):
and I'm gonna treat you like astaff person.
But likewise, when we're out atthe pub, I'm not gonna talk to
you like a staff person andwe're not gonna talk about work
and I'm not gonna do aperformance evaluation on you
when we're out at dinner.
And I'm gonna work really,really hard to maintain those
boundaries.
And I'd like you to do the samething.
We're also gonna tell eachother when we're crossing those
boundaries.
Does that make sense?
(10:11):
Does it feel like uh you're noteven a friend if you got to
talk like that?
Yes, it should, because theyare not your friend when you're
paying them money, right?
You're not paying them to beyour friend, you're not hiring
people to like you.
The reason that you're givingsomebody a job is because
hopefully they are the best inthe world for that position or
(10:32):
the best person that you canfind.
If they're also friendly,that's great.
But you have to understand thatwhen you hire your friends,
there's a chance you're gonnalose both your staff and your
friendship.
It also means that this isgonna stop your business from
growing.
Because let's face it, whowants to have a conversation
with their best friend aboutdoing a better job at work?
Who wants to fire their buddy?
Nobody does.
And so you wind up putting upwith stuff way too long until
(10:55):
you can't take it anymore.
Then you just react with kindof this over-the-top response
that ruins your friendship.
There's a thousand ways thiscan go wrong.
I'm sure you've got your ownexamples, but if it hasn't gone
wrong for you yet, do yourself afavor and just like have
friends and have staff and trynot to mix them.
The fourth mistake that I seecommonly, not in two-brain gyms,
but in in gyms ingymownersunited.com, is
(11:19):
subleasing to other trainers.
So you take the big risk andyou open up your gym, and it
might be a coaching gym, itmight be like an access gym, and
you say, okay, how can I makemore money?
I need to make more money.
Oh, there's a trainer thatwants to rent for me.
I will just charge them acertain fixed amount per month.
Maybe that's 500 bucks a month.
That sounds good, right?
It sounds like found money.
(11:40):
But think about this out of thegym setting.
Okay.
Think about owning a restaurantand letting somebody else sell
their food in there, likeletting the hot dog vendor, you
know, bumpity bumpy brings hiscart up the steps and he pushes
it down the aisles and he'sselling his hot dogs in your
restaurant.
Would you let that happen?
Of course not.
Would you let the Girl Scoutssell their cookies in your
(12:02):
cookie restaurant?
Of course not.
The reason that you don't letother trainers sublease space
from you is because fitness iswhat you're selling.
And if your clients needcoaching, you should be the one
to provide that.
You have built this amazingplatform for fitness.
You have taken the lease on thespace, you have taken the loan
on the equipment, you are payingthe taxes, you've you're
(12:24):
insured, you've set up thebanking, you've gone out and
you've recruited clients.
Letting a trainer come in forthree or 500 bucks a month or
anything less than like $2,000 amonth and benefit from all of
that really is giving them thewinning lottery ticket.
Let me reverse roles for you.
Let's say that you didn't ownthe gym and you came into the
gym and you could get your ownclients or you could recruit
(12:48):
from clients who were alreadythere.
You could charge whatever youwant.
They would pay you whatever youwanted.
You could hold your owninsurance, and all you had to
pay was $500 a month or even athousand to not have to do any
marketing ever again and to havea high affinity, trusting
audience who sees you doing yourjob every single day.
I would pay that in aheartbeat.
(13:08):
And frankly, if that option hadbeen open to me, I would never
have even started a gym.
Imagine having a gym, havingaccess to all these clients,
training them, charging them fortraining, and all of your
expenses are $500 a month,covering your rent, your payment
gateway, your marketing, yoursales, everything.
Come on.
Like you, you need to offerthis service.
(13:31):
You know, of the top gyms inthe world right now, you really
need to understand like most oftheir revenue is coming from
training.
Even the access gyms, like thebig gyms from Golds, they are
not going to let somebody comein and subly space.
It seems like found money toyou, but it's actually stopping
you from capitalizing on thelarger opportunity and a
(13:52):
responsibility.
Because here's the thing anytrainer that comes into your
place of business and worksthere is going to be associated
with your brand.
If a client has a badexperience with that trainer,
what's going to happen?
Are they going to keep comingto your gym anyway?
Probably not.
Are they going to complain tothat trainer and then fire the
trainer?
No, they're going to complainto you because that trainer was
(14:13):
working at your gym.
Anyone that's doing anybusiness inside your business is
part of your business and needsto be treated this that way so
that you can set the standardfor delivery.
You can set here's how we wantpeople to be treated.
You can keep the clients whowill quit when this subleasing
trainer pisses them off.
Trust me, it seems like foundmoney, like mailbox money, like
(14:33):
easy money when you startsubleasing the trainers, but
you're missing out on thelong-term gain here.
The fifth thing is running downother gyms.
Look, this is a trap that I'lladmit I fell into.
I was so unsure about my ownvalue, lacking confidence,
terrified, broke, that I hadthis scarcity mindset.
And I am embarrassed to evenadmit it now.
(14:55):
But if somebody would bring upanother gym in town, my
immediate knee-jerk response wasslam those, slam that gym, run
them down, you know, belittlethem, talk about how the owner
doesn't know anything, or evenjust roll your eyes, let your
body language give it away.
It took me years to get overthis.
And honestly, until I wassuccessful myself, I was not
generous to other gym owners atall.
(15:17):
Now it's different.
Now I host the other gym ownersin town every month for lunch.
I want us all to grow.
I want us all to collaborate.
I think the whole can be morethan the sum of its parts.
But even back then, thisactually hurt me.
And so when somebody would say,Oh, my best friend has this
trainer that she really loves, Iwould immediately want to run
down that other trainer.
Now, they don't know as much asI do.
(15:38):
Now, I've heard bad things.
No, that trainer, blah, blah,blah.
And what would happen is myclient would be like, Whoa,
Chris really is not sure ofhimself.
Nobody wants to be around thatperson that's running down other
people.
Nobody wants to be around thegossip, you know, because you
know as soon as you leave theroom, they're saying bad stuff
about you.
And so it felt like I waswinning points, like I was
(16:00):
convincing my clients to staywith me and selling them on my
gym over everybody else, but Iwas actually doing long-term
reputational damage.
There are still other trainersin town that won't talk to me.
And while I do have a goodrelationship with most of the
gym owners, the reality is thatsome of the other gym owners
still ascribe to this beliefthat running down the other gyms
is what's going to keep clientsin there.
So I hope that that doesn't uhdescribe you because word always
(16:26):
gets around.
You know, your reputation isnot just what you control, it's
the conversation from one personto another, too.
The sixth thing that gyms dothat feel good in the moment but
cause long-term pain aretrading memberships for
coaching.
And so what happens a lot ofthe time is you'll see somebody
in your in your membership who'sa great person, they're willing
(16:47):
to learn, or maybe they're agreat mover, or maybe they're
always helping people, maybethey're even looking for a job.
And so you offer themsomething, you offer them a
coaching job.
And hey, here's how we can allsave on taxes.
I'll trade you for membership.
If you coach, let's call it aclass a week, I'll give you a
free membership.
The mistake that we make isthat we never do the math on
this.
Now, I believe that cash wascreated, money was created to
(17:11):
normalize trade, to help peopletrade of equivalent value.
And that's why I trade mycoaches for membership and they
buy or I trade them for money, Ipay them and they buy their
membership with what's leftover.
When you do trades, the problemis there's no scoreboard, like
money keeping track of how muchvalue they bring and how much
value you bring.
(17:32):
So the first problem is that ifyou've got three coaches doing
trades, one of them is probablygetting a better deal than the
others.
If I'm coaching one class aweek at your gym and that free
membership that I'm getting isworth 200 bucks, I'm getting 50
bucks an hour.
Are you making that?
But what if somebody else iscoaching six classes a week?
They're making 40 bucks anhour.
(17:53):
What if somebody is coachingtwo, you know, two classes a
week and now they're doing eighta month for the same membership
that's worth 200 bucks?
Well, now they're earning about25 bucks an hour and I'm
earning 50.
You know, does that make sense?
What happens if a coach wantsto take time off and somebody
else has to step in and coachtheir classes?
Well, they're not gettingcompensated anymore for that.
(18:15):
It's it's not fair.
And the reality is that mostpeople are dramatically
overpaying their coaches becausethey think that trades are free
instead of calculating thevalue of that trade against the
client's membership and workingthat out.
So if you don't want toexchange money because you know
you don't want to do the payrolltaxes and all that stuff, I
understand the motivation there.
(18:36):
I do.
I, you know, I don't alwayslove paying taxes.
I love generating money so thatI can pay taxes.
I don't like how my taxes arespent always.
But the reality here is that ifyou're trying to save money and
you think that you can trade,you need to actually calculate
what you're giving away in valueversus what you're recouping.
If you can pay somebody 25bucks an hour to coach a group
(18:57):
class, but you're giving away a$200 a month membership to
somebody who only coaches fourclasses, you're basically
overpaying them by $100 a month.
You know, you could do waybetter.
So long term, you need to paypeople and have them buy
memberships for you or at leastdo the calculation every single
month.
Make sure that people are doingan equitable job because your
(19:19):
top performers, they'll go aboveand beyond, right?
They'll coach extra classes,but they're also noticing that
the bottom performers are notdoing nearly the same amount of
work for their free membership.
It devalues their role whenthat happens.
It creates unmotivated staffand it weakens their
professionalism because whyshould they do extra?
Why should they try hard?
The seventh mistake that gymowners make because it causes
(19:41):
them like short-term goodfeelings, but long-term pain, is
training to be the best athletein their gym.
I thought for many years I hadto be the strongest in the
powerlifting gym, I had to bethe most crossfit in the
CrossFit gym, I had to be thebest athlete in whatever class I
was in, or people wouldn'trespect me as a coach.
After all, why would they wantto do what I tell them if
(20:03):
they're fitter than I am?
Right.
And you get this kind of egoboost.
But long term, what that doesis it takes time and energy away
from leadership.
It means that you're focusingon the wrong things because, you
know, people don't really thinkthat way.
Uh, they don't think that youhave to be the fittest person to
coach them, hopefully, or youdon't want them in your gym.
You'll never be the fittestperson for very long anyway.
(20:25):
That training takes you awayfrom marketing, it takes you
away from business growth.
It does not inspire otherpeople, or not very much.
You know, the people who winthe CrossFit games or the local
triathlon or the local 5K arenot automatically recruiting
people away from other gyms orinspiring new people to
exercise.
They might get a few of theircompetitors to show up, but are
(20:46):
those competitors really yourbest clients anyway?
Training to be the best athletein your gym is a massive uh
commitment of time and energyand focus.
And you really can't afford toput your business in second
place.
Let's face it, you know, if ifyou're training to compete in
something, you're probablyspending two hours a day
training.
Next comes your family, thencomes your nutrition and your
(21:10):
rest.
And you know, your gym comesforth.
That's why your gym is notgrowing.
It's a matter of priorities.
Ask yourself this like if I wonthe biggest prize on earth at
this event, would that help growmy gym?
The answer is always going tobe no.
So why are you training so hardto compete at the local events
before you build your business?
Build your business, then withthe extra time and money that
(21:30):
you have, go back to training ashard as you want to.
The eighth mistake that causeslong-term pain for a lot of gyms
is chasing high-ticket saleswithout retention.
Especially a couple of yearsago, right before COVID, a lot
of gyms were chasing this ideaof high-ticket sales, charging
people like $2,000 for amembership up front.
Before that, they were doingthat with gym launch.
(21:51):
And before that, they weredoing that with the New You
Challenge.
And gym owners were suddenlyable to sell something that was
$300,000, $400, $2,000 up front.
And they thought, like,hallelujah, this is the answer.
But like a lot of trends infitness, in the fitness
business, it's not the answerfor very long.
I guess that's also true infitness.
So what would happen is thesegyms would take training and
(22:12):
they would do sales reps andthey'd get good at sales and
they'd build this complicatedpackage worth $2,000 and they
would sell it.
And good for them.
They'd make two grand, right?
And their gym revenues would goup.
But the long-term effect ofthis was churn because the
clients would say, like, nah,this isn't worth it.
I'm paying $2,000 for this.
Those people are paying $120 amonth.
(22:32):
Like, I don't really see adifference here.
And so they wouldn't be able tomake recurring revenue and
they'd have this treadmill ofconstantly selling.
I mean, if you were around in2018, you started to see this
with the ad agencies that wereselling ads on Facebook.
You'd have these people comein, they would sign up and
they'd churn out.
Come in, sign up, churn out.
And every time this happened,the leads would get colder, the
(22:53):
sales process would get harder,the clients would stay even
shorter, and you had this kindof downward spiral going all the
time to the point where a lotof gyms failed.
And that's because they werechasing a high-ticket sales
without any matching retention.
The ninth mistake that peoplemake in the gym business is
avoiding rate increases.
And you do it because rateincreases feel painful in the
(23:14):
short term, but they create alot of long-term gain.
You're avoiding anuncomfortable conversation.
You'll say, Oh, the time is notright.
I'm gonna wait till January.
Well, I got all these newpeople, I'm busy, I'm gonna wait
till March.
Well, I heard somewhere thatyou shouldn't raise your rates
in September, whatever.
You procrastinate, you avoidthat tough conversation.
Oh, if I raise rates, Sallymight leave, Billy won't be able
(23:36):
to afford it, let alone thatyou can't afford to not raise
your rates, right?
The reality here is that it'sonly gonna be painful for a
minute.
It's painful when you sit downin front of your clients who
might quit and you have theconversation, but it's only
painful for 30 seconds.
It's painful when you send theemail, but it's just painful
waiting over the weekend for theresponses.
(23:58):
Long term, this is what's gonnaset you up for success.
And especially if you'redramatically undercharging, this
is the thing that's gonna keepyou afloat.
Because every month that goesby that you're undercharging,
you erode your margin, you runmore and more and more out of
money, you get more and more andmore burned out, you pay
yourself less and less and lessless because your expenses are
(24:21):
going up.
Your staff is being asked toaccept an unfair wage or they're
working for far less thanthey're worth.
Every month that you kick thiscan down the road, you're
hurting them, you're hurtingyourself, and you're hurting
your business.
Yeah, it's painful right now,and you have to do it.
You know, it's just liketelling your client they need to
do a 200-meter sprint at theend of every you know, 20
(24:43):
thrusters.
Yeah, it's painful right now.
Long term, you will thank me.
And that's the same with rateincreases.
The 10th thing uh that makespeople feel good in the moment,
but hurts them long term, isexpanding too early.
So they've they've got a gym,they opened it up, they were the
first one in their town, theysaw a lot of really quick
growth.
Awesome.
(25:04):
I'm good at business, theythink.
I'm gonna go open another gym.
I'm gonna buy out that failinggym.
I'm better at this than theyare.
And then something happens.
Another gym opens in town andit dramatically hurts their gym.
Or there's this big new thing,right?
P90X was it for me?
Hyrocks might be it.
It's going to a gym down theroad.
(25:24):
Everybody's going over there.
Uh-oh, maybe I'm not as good atbusiness as I thought.
And I was capitalizing on goodfortune when I opened.
Maybe I got the timing right,but now that the times have
changed, my business is introuble.
And so what should actuallyhappen is you should grow your
business to the point where itcan pay you $100,000 a year
consistently, and you know that.
(25:45):
Not just one good month or onegood quarter, not just a great
projection from the ad agencythat's trying to get you to buy
more ads, but actually payingyou $100,000 for a year.
That means that your system isworking for one person.
You are the crash test dummyand it's working for you.
When that system is working foryou and the gym can run without
(26:08):
you for at least a week, that'swhen you can start looking at
expansion and scale andduplicating your process.
Instead, what happens issomebody makes 30 or 40 grand a
year from their gym.
They think that they'resuccessful.
And the best way to make 30 or40 more grand is to buy another
gym.
And what they do is they buysomebody else's mistakes.
They buy 100 clients who willnot pay what the gym is worth.
(26:30):
And so now they've got thismassive problem.
They got bad staff, they've gota maybe a horrible culture.
They're trying to change theprogramming and the paint and
the branding, and they wind upchanging all the clients and
really regretting the secondpurchase anyway.
When you expand too early, allyou're doing is duplicating
problems and doubling expenses.
You are going harder into thelearning curve with a smaller
(26:54):
chance of success.
So expanding too early is amassive problem that actually
kills a lot of gyms becausewhile you're over there trying
to grow the new flock, yourgolden goose is back here dying.
The 11th thing that feels goodin the moment, but kills gym
long term is trying to beeverything to everyone.
So, short term, when you firstopen, this might attract a few
(27:15):
extra clients.
You run a few Facebook adstalking about weight loss, you
get some weight loss clients.
Then you put out some socialposts about your legends
program, you get a few olderclients.
And then you maybe run a kids'class in the summer and you get
a few kids in, right?
Short term, you attract someextra clients.
But long term, it creates allkinds of complexity because now
you've got 30 differentprograms, 90 different price
(27:36):
points.
It confuses clients.
Uh, what do I buy again?
Like imagine they're looking atyour website and there's 12
different options.
They're not going to pick anyof them.
You can only present threeoptions at a time to a client.
And this also burns out theowner because, you know, the
person who's coaching the kidsgroup is not going to be great
at coaching the legends group orthe hockey team or whatever.
So now you've got way too manystaff doing way too few things.
(27:59):
You're trying to clump them alltogether, you're trying to keep
all these plates spinning.
And it's because you're tryingto be everything to everyone.
Instead, you should get reallyclear on who your best client is
and give them exactly what theywant and duplicate them over
and over and over again insteadof just trying to be a
catch-all.
By the way, that perfect clientis probably somebody who can
afford your service.
So if you're trying to makeyour service valuable but also
(28:22):
affordable at the same time, youare chasing two rabbits and
you're not going to catcheither.
My my 12th thing that a lot ofpeople do is one that I kind of
already covered, which is buyingout a failing local gym.
This comes up at this time ofyear because this is when leases
get signed.
So short term, it looks like ashortcut.
It looks like a quick path tobuying more members, buying more
(28:43):
money.
I can spend $50,000 right nowand I will get $50,000 back
forever.
But what you're actually doingis buying their mistakes.
Like there's a reason that theyfailed.
And the clients like theirmistakes.
They like paying too little.
They like the bad programming.
They like the free open gym.
They like the free classes,they like the 12 coaches, all
those mistakes the clients like.
(29:04):
And when you try and changethat, you change the culture.
You lose the clients, you losethe spark plugs, you lose the
coach.
When you go in and try andbuild new systems where there
were no systems before, you'retrying to make order out of
chaos and people leave.
They hate that.
And so you've got these clientswho are already conditioned to
quit walking out the door.
And soon you realize, like,I've sucked my whole leg in
quicksand here.
(29:25):
So I know it's tempting to tryand save a gym.
And you know, something thatGreg Glassman said to me for the
CrossFit gyms is you know, theweakest gym should fail, and
their coaches will go get betterjobs at the better gyms, and
the owner will get a better jobas a coach, and the clients will
go to the better gym.
And like, this islibertarianism in action.
But the truth is that that onlyworks over you know dozens and
(29:46):
hundreds of years.
That doesn't work in the microtime frame that we have right
now.
Unfortunately, when gyms go outof business, there's usually a
reason, right?
And it's never lack of passion,it's never the pro.
Programming.
If you buy their mistakes, youwill just welcome that disease
into your body and you'll reallystruggle to fix it yourself.
(30:09):
And it'll probably infect allthe other businesses that you
own too.
Anyway, these are all likesugar hives for your business,
right?
It's quick energy that leads toa crash and creates diabetes
over time.
So instead of chasing quickwins all the time, build slow,
steady, sustainable systems.
That's how you create long termprofit and freedom.
If you're not sure, book a callwith my team, talk to a mentor,
(30:30):
and say, this seems like a goodidea now.
How will this affect me in thelong term?
I'm Chris Cooper.
This is Run a Profitable Gym.
And I want you to be around forthe long term.
So let's not do things that aregoing to kill you in the short
term.
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