August 28, 2025 • 36 mins
Think you need a huge gym and hundreds of members to make serious money? These gym owners proved that wrong by generating $600 average revenue per member (ARM) in just 1,400 square feet.
In this episode of "Run a Profitable Gym," Mike Warkentin sits down with Jake Parton and Jenser Gomes from Evolver Fitness in Connecticut, who made Two-Brain's Top 10 leaderboard for net owner benefit (owner take-home) with only 90 members.
Jake and Jenser reveal how they built a high-ticket, high-touch personal-training model that keeps overhead low and maximizes profit.
They share their bootstrap approach to opening during the pandemic and explain how they lost 85 percent of their clients before rebuilding with systems that now allow them to work fewer hours while earning more.
Also up for discussion: their referral-based marketing strategy that eliminates the need for expensive ads and their extraordinary retention system that keeps clients for years.
Tune in to hear how these gym owners worked with a mentor to create the systems that transformed their business and allowed them to build a team of trainers to deliver high-quality service.
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1:27 - Key to high net owner benefit in a small gym
4:42 - Planning for high ARM
9:57 - Earning more for their time
14:47 - Acquiring and retaining clients
27:25 - Systemizing their business
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_03 (00:00):
You need a massive, massive space and a ton of
members to earn a lot as a gymowner.
SPEAKER_01 (00:07):
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Let me interrupt you rightthere, Mike.
What?
What do you think about that,Jake?
SPEAKER_02 (00:15):
I don't think we did that at all.
We're pretty small.
Lean, mean fighting machine.
Like how much square footage?
We are 1,400 square foot and wecater to about 90 members right
now.
SPEAKER_03 (00:29):
And you made Two Brain's top 10 leaderboard for
net owner benefit.
I think we're going to have todig into this because a lot of
people are believing the firstline I said, which is obviously
not correct.
So my guests made our top 10leaderboard for earnings with 90
clients, more or less, in 1,400square feet.
If you're interested in how theydid it, they're going to share
their secrets today on RunnerProfitable Gym.
I'm your host, Mike Bork.
And please hit subscribe beforeyou go any further.
(00:51):
Now, Jake Barton and JenserGomez, they run Evolver Fitness
in Connecticut.
They made Two Brain's net ownerbenefit leaderboard.
As I just said, that leaderboardruns from$1,700 thousand to
forty five thousand dollars amonth now that's not gross
revenue that is what the ownerstook home and these are three
month rolling averages sothere's not one hit wonders in
here these are consistent ownerincome numbers seventeen
thousand to forty five thousanddollars the gentlemen have
(01:13):
decided to come on the show andtalk about how they did it
welcome guys how are you
SPEAKER_02 (01:18):
hi we're great dude thanks for having us
SPEAKER_03 (01:21):
I'm fired up to talk to you guys.
So we're going to dig deeperinto this topic, but I want to
ask you right off the top forthe short answer.
How did you earn so much in1,400 square feet with a
relatively small number ofclients?
SPEAKER_02 (01:32):
I'm going to sit there and say the secret to our
kind of method is high arm.
It's a high ticket method.
high profile offering basicallyas close to a done for you as
you could possibly get.
Jennifer and I were talkingbefore we came on here that it
was kind of like we live inConnecticut on the Gold Coast of
(01:54):
Connecticut, which is super highreal estate costs.
And when we started to dabble inthe space, we're sitting there
kind of like, what can weafford?
I mean, we were trainers at thetime.
We bootstrapped the operation.
We were nervous about it.
So it made us very, very, very,very safe with our numbers.
We were very, very pessimistic.
(02:15):
We wanted to keep it lean.
We wanted to keep ouroperational costs as low as
possible in hopes that at somepoint we'd be here on the Net
Owner Benefit Leaderboard for2Bring.
And yeah, here we are.
SPEAKER_03 (02:29):
Okay, so ARM, average revenue per member.
If you have a high ARM, you donot need a ton of members.
If you have a low ARM, like say$30, you're going to need a lot
of members.
And that's where people get intotrouble because it's hard.
Like in an access gym, maybethat works.
In a coaching gym, if your ARMis low, you're selling your time
for a low value.
And all of a sudden, you'regoing to need a ton of people.
(02:51):
It's just this hamster wheel.
It doesn't work.
And we see people get on thismarketing hamster wheel.
I need more clients.
I need more clients.
I need more clients.
But what you really need isprobably a rate increase.
You probably need to boost thoserates up, you probably need to
add some services, add some highvalue services like personal
training, semi-private training,all those different things.
TRM is a secret recipe forrevenue in gyms, right?
(03:13):
And I'm going to ask you this,guys.
I'm going to dig in with acouple of questions based on
what you said here because Ireally want to kind of figure
this out.
Back in the day, there was a lotof like when group fitness
exploded with CrossFit and soforth in about the 2010s or so,
there was this if you build it,they will come mentality.
You get a great big space andyou're going to fill it with
people, except that doesn'toften happen very much.
And very few CrossFit gyms andgroup training gyms have been
able to get 200, 300, 400, 500members.
(03:35):
It doesn't happen.
You guys went the other way andI love what you did.
You said, I'm just going tominimize my expenses and risk in
a small space and we're going tomaximize stuff in there.
So how did you come up on thatplan when so many people did it
the other way?
SPEAKER_01 (03:47):
It's a great question.
We tried different modalitiesthroughout our years of
experience doing this.
And what gave us the tool thatwe could share with people that
they could consistent andfaster, get a result faster was
this personal training tool.
(04:08):
Which is a very individualized,specific to the client needs.
Through all the years, the waywe developed this process was
like, how can we simplifyfitness or their lifestyle or
their movement so they can getthe most out of it?
SPEAKER_03 (04:30):
So you focus the results right off the bat.
SPEAKER_01 (04:33):
Straight.
Because if you can get clientshappy, they will keep coming.
and they will refer theirfamilies and friends.
SPEAKER_03 (04:42):
When did you figure this out?
What year did you open this,Jim?
SPEAKER_01 (04:45):
We opened in 2020, August of 2020, right after the
pandemic.
SPEAKER_03 (04:50):
Ooh, I was going to say, that sounds like a tough
time to open.
SPEAKER_01 (04:53):
It was.
Like, in this transition, welost about 85% of our clients.
SPEAKER_03 (04:59):
Ooh, yeah,
SPEAKER_01 (05:00):
that's a tough thing.
So we just had to put our headsdown and work really hard, which
we did.
It was great.
I think when you have thatintention of, helping people
especially at that time peoplethey appreciate that kind of
stuff and they stick to you uhand at the time because our
spots were so small people wereavoiding big box gyms
SPEAKER_03 (05:22):
right that's interesting yeah
SPEAKER_01 (05:25):
so people were looking for places like that
they would come out with just meand jake and two other people in
the room they'd be like oh thisis great you know like we can
share so it was uh was also abenefit for us at the time
SPEAKER_03 (05:37):
Okay, so did you guys, did you plan, like, did
you have your avatar, yourclient, your perfect client laid
out right when you opened in2020, or was that something you
developed after that?
SPEAKER_02 (05:47):
That's still, I would say, a continuous process.
We have this conversation on aweekly basis.
Who are we catering to?
How are we catering to them?
What can we do better?
What do we feel comfortable andconfident with?
So one of the things that wefind in 2Brain, so much of this
stuff we try and make asmeasurable as possible.
(06:09):
And then we reiterate.
You look constantly, and I'msure everyone listening to this,
I'm sure everyone that's kind ofwithin this group, You're always
learning.
We're always learning.
So we're just trying to slowlybut surely just get a little bit
better day by day so we canserve more people and hopefully
help some more people along theway.
SPEAKER_03 (06:28):
Did you guys spend a lot of money on equipment when
you opened?
Or did you kind of, like yousaid, bootstrap?
Did you start small and kind ofchip away?
What was your plan for equipmentand gear?
SPEAKER_02 (06:37):
So yeah, we went the completely polar opposite of
like the big box chain model.
So we really, we couldn'tafford, couldn't afford big
machines.
So we went a couple of roguemonster light racks.
We got a dumbbell stack.
We had some slam balls.
We got a couple of plate trees,but really like we kept it as
(06:59):
bare bones as possible.
The big, big spendy stuff thatwe got were some Kaiser
machines, which were fun andlook frilly and people get
excited about them.
But otherwise we kept it prettyinexpensive to start up.
SPEAKER_03 (07:14):
And that's interesting because, you know,
Chris Cooper, we had similarhistories, he and I, and we
opened, you know, group gyms.
He had a personal trainingstudio as well, but group gyms
and filled them with stuff andbought all this things things we
didn't need essentially he saidif he would go back and do it
again he'd probably do almostexactly what you guys are doing
where he'd get a couple ofbarbells maybe a pile box some
dumbbells just like someinexpensive stuff that you can
(07:36):
get a lot of mileage out of andhe would have gotten a very
small space and he wouldn't haveexpanded out of that space until
he was bursting at the absoluteseams and he would have sold
high value stuff maybe not grouptraining anymore maybe it would
have been semi-private or smallgroup coaching and obviously pt
but that model allows you toscale up and out rather than
like panicking about paying therent.
And that's where I was, where Ihad the 6,000 square foot space,
(07:59):
bought a bunch of stuff.
And I'm like, I need moremembers.
I'm panicking about stuff.
And I wasn't focused on clientresults because I was focused on
trying to spin the plates tokeep the place from closing.
So you guys did it completelyopposite.
Talk to me about the growth ofthat plan.
So you start in 2020, obviouslyyou got to get through the
pandemic and you go through thatway.
Did you always have a high ARMor was that something that you
built over time?
SPEAKER_01 (08:20):
We always had the high ticket service, right?
The hype touch service that'sall that's we've been doing this
for our whole life not our lifeour whole professional life so
we did always had a high arm butthat doesn't translate into an
(08:40):
ob right away correct so like isaid we lost about 85 of our
clients and then jake and i gotinto work and we got members
back into the gym and we'relike, Oh my God, we're doing all
these hours.
We need to hire someone.
So then we hire a trainer, trainthem.
(09:00):
They didn't do it.
They didn't do a good job.
So
SPEAKER_02 (09:04):
we did a good job actually in fairness to them.
I think we did a pretty bad jobnow.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (09:14):
And then we, as we joined, um, two brain, we
started learning the importanceof SOPs and then, how we do
service, and then how we trainour staff.
And like now we have threetrainers, two full times, one
part time, and they're prettymuch managers.
They run the place really well,like it's their own.
(09:34):
They know how to do NSIs.
They know what we're lookingfor.
As we move, as we take ourselvesfrom the business a little bit
more and focus at differentparts, our NLB will grow that
way right make sure there aretrainers building up their
schedule and and becomingsuccessful professionals at this
SPEAKER_03 (09:56):
so how many hours a week do you guys coach now is it
mostly management stuff or doyou still work on the floor
SPEAKER_02 (10:02):
we are still we are still very heavily involved in
the floor which is so like gentswas just talking about one thing
when when we did this we webuilt the almost built it
fundamentally wrong.
So we kept it small.
That was all good.
But in our naivety, we built abusiness that was reliant, or at
(10:23):
least we thought was reliantupon us from the get go.
So when Junster says we wereworking like dogs, we would get
into the gym 5 a.m.
We would open up those frontdoors.
And if we weren't training onthe floor, we were sitting
outside and we'll sit there.
We're just begging for business.
Any person that walks by wouldbe like, hey, you look like you
(10:46):
work out.
What do you do?
Come on in.
So we built that back up.
But as part of that, it justbecomes what's ingrained.
So prior to owning the gym, wewere trainers, too.
And we were our reward systemwas always put more in, get more
out.
put more in, get more out.
And now slowly but surely after13 years, give or take, we're
(11:11):
starting to say, oh, you knowwhat?
Well, if like we put it onto themarketing cog and we get some
leads and we facilitate that andbring them into the space, all
of the guys that work with us,they can take care of these
people.
But honestly, in some cases,most cases better than us.
And that is like, a game changerfor our business.
(11:33):
With our NOB, it's high rightnow.
It may come down a little bit aswe start putting more money into
the staff, like into the staffpay.
And that's okay.
Like both Jensen and I have hadthis conversation time and time
again.
It's like, you know, at somepoint, you start to decide where
your value is like.
So, Jenser and I are both familypeople.
(11:55):
I have a one-and-a-half-year-oldson.
He's got two kids.
And so, like, getting some ofthat time after working long
hours for five years, it's nice.
And so, we're going to, youknow, start leaning into the EHR
a little bit more than maybe...
and OB as we grow a little bit.
SPEAKER_03 (12:17):
And that's effective hourly rate, listeners.
That's the amount you take individed by the hours that you
put in, or sorry, the amountthat you earn divided by the
hours that you work.
That means that if you workfewer hours and you can make
more in less time, essentially.
But interestingly enough, one ofthe other leaderboard members,
he said the same thing.
He's reducing his net ownerbenefit just a little bit to
(12:38):
invest more in staffdevelopment.
So this is not an uncommon plan.
And some of these things aren'talways just like one line up.
There are peaks and valleys orplateaus in there where you have
to invest in the business andthen things spike up and that's
really interesting i want to diginto that part because you've
obviously done an interestingthing where you went from like
two dudes doing all the trainingwith like protein bars on
fishing line and trying to reelin new clients right off the
street you guys went from thatto now having a staff, I think
(13:00):
you said five people betweenfull and part-time.
Talk to me about that transitionbecause it's really interesting
how that works because sometimesstaff is seen as an expense.
In other cases, staff is seen asan investment and they allow you
to scale up your business.
So talk to me about going fromtwo dudes to a staff.
SPEAKER_01 (13:17):
So like Jake said, our reward system was like, you
work really hard, you get paidby the hour and you do a good
job and you're going to getpaid.
And now from like getting thebusiness and trusting that our
staff is gonna deliver theproduct that we promised them,
(13:37):
for me, I would speak formyself, for me specifically,
that was really hard.
So until we had systems in placethat assured that our trainers
could deliver the product theway I picture in my head, I
didn't feel comfortable enoughtaking myself out of the
(14:00):
business and letting them runthe show like I am now.
So it's been a very hardtransition in my head, but it's
paying off.
And as I see our staff doingbetter, it actually motivates me
(14:24):
more.
I it gives me the same joy asgiving as getting a client to
their goal.
And I think that's somethingthat for me, it's going to be
one of my main goals now is ishow can I get each staff to the
point that they're like, justlike Jake and I am.
SPEAKER_03 (14:46):
So let me ask you this.
So you've got, who gets theclients?
Who finds the clients?
How do you acquire these people?
And are you acquiring them foryour staff members?
Are staff members expected to dothat?
Or how does your business setup?
SPEAKER_02 (14:58):
So we lean with the hire ticket.
This has been interestingbecause we've done the Facebook
ads and we've done organicsocial.
We were all in on all of theselittle levers.
What we find works most for us,and Jens touched on it earlier
in this conversation, is isreferral business because the
(15:18):
average revenue per member ishigher.
Because our average ticketprice, like on the books, it
comes in around$600 on a monthlybasis.
These people are paying, butwe're charging.
We're still like people willhate us for this.
It's not monthly recurringrevenue.
The way we organize ourstructure, our packages, we sell
it at four, eight or 12,depending on what a person is
(15:39):
doing on a weekly basis.
because we do it like thisthere's a massive barrier to
entry you know anyone that'sworked with cold traffic on
facebook knows it's hard enoughto sell them a 30 membership
people have locks on the walletthey're scared what if it's not
going to do what they want youknow it's it's a it's tough it's
(16:00):
really really tough so we'vetried that and it's really
really tough to get that personapart with 800 bucks so what we
what we found is we try and keepour referral structures like
bring a friend stuff like that alittle bit more premium we try
we try and create or craftevents that feel exclusive they
(16:24):
feel built out they feel likethe client's going to get an
experience a perfect example ofit this is like this upcoming
sunday jen sir and i are goingto host a nice like light
workout we're going to dorefreshments we're going to do
some bagels post-workout andthen we have a shopping event at
uh the clothing brand viewer'sstore local to us and so our
(16:47):
clients get their privateshopping experience they all get
20 off and so it just feels likea like something cool.
And that really, honestly, thebig secret here is that's a no
cost to us.
Those people are taking care toget some people in their door
too.
It just feels really good forour community building.
(17:08):
And as part of that offering, wedecided we were gonna bring in
anyone that signs up with us hasto bring a friend.
So has to bring a new face.
And so that'll give us, we'llcall it 15 to 20 people we've
never met.
They're all friends of clientsOur client list is pretty
curated.
They're all pretty specific toour space or our avatar.
(17:29):
And it gives us 15 leads thatwe'll start to communicate with.
We run weekly newsletter.
We'll get them involved with oursocial.
And hopefully that amounts toone or two new faces in the gym.
So that's really like the breadand butter for us for lead
acquisition.
And Jensur and I are pretty,like we really have our finger
on the pulse there.
(17:50):
But like Jensur said too, withour trainers, because they do a
good job, because they want tohelp first, they do get results.
They do become part of people'sfamilies.
And so it's not uncommon, too,for like our trainer, Miguel,
trains a woman named Pam, andPam loves it.
She's crushing it.
She's happy.
(18:10):
Pam loves it so much and havingso much fun with Miguel that
Andre, her husband, comes.
Andre fits right in, brings hisdog every Monday and every
Wednesday to come play with mydog, Norman.
And then...
You know, fast forward to thesummer, their daughter Sophia
comes in and now it's like, oh,everyone's hanging out.
(18:31):
And so we see a lot of that, alot of referral business in our
space.
SPEAKER_01 (18:36):
On top of that, we also work with affiliates with
business nearby us, which isyour physical therapist,
chiropractors, and we have areally good relationship with
those people and we getreferrals back and forth.
SPEAKER_03 (18:52):
yeah and that's such a great way to do it and like in
your business model you're notlooking for 350 clients that's
hard to do with referrals now ifyou want to get 90 to 120 you
can do that and the great partabout it is that you're going
you've got your clients You talkto their friends and family.
Let's say you get 45 clients andeach one brings in someone else.
That's 90 right there.
You don't have to spend a ton, aton of time on marketing and
(19:15):
cold traffic, like you said,especially because if you found
that the cold traffic isn't thebest play for you because you're
going to say, and our prices are$600 a month.
And a lot of people are clickingon Facebook, aren't looking for
that at all.
Whereas your friends and familyand coworkers of the people
you're already crushing it with,they're like fish in a barrel.
And this is not the first timeI've heard this.
And I've heard there's a gym, Ibelieve it was Brian Bott in New
(19:37):
Jersey, one of our mentors, Hehas a program where he gives
out, it's like a black cardreferral program.
And what he does is he takesthis, it's a super premium
looking card.
It's not just like a flimsypiece of paper.
It's like a very high value kindof thing.
He's like, this is for yourfriend, Tim.
And he knows the guy by name orwhatever.
He says, you tell your friend,Tim, to use this card for, it's
like a, I can't remember if it'sa free session or it's a free
(19:58):
month or something like that,but it's something that's super
high value.
And he gives them this cardthat's just personalized and
feels like a huge valuable gift.
It's not just a flimsy 10 centsoff coupon.
and inevitably these people comein they're friends of friends
they love it they want to workout with their friends and he
ends up getting these clientsand they're high value clients
that stay for like you knowyears and they end up their
(20:19):
lifetime value is like you knowten thousand dollars or
something like that so he's gotthis whole thing calculated
other gym owners have done thesame thing but two brain teaches
four funnels And you've gotpaid, which is a very tough one.
You can master it.
You should use that at somepoint, most gym owners, but
that's a tough one.
You've got organic social media.
That's where you're cranking upcontent.
You've got content funnel.
That's just generic stuff that'snot like your blog and so forth.
(20:41):
And then on the other end of it,you've got the referral funnel.
And the referral funnel is anincredibly valuable funnel
because it takes your time.
Not a ton of money, and you'reconnecting with people, and you
just heard listeners.
These guys have very specificbring-a-friend events that are
very classy.
They feel like a big deal.
They've got a clearly definedreferral program, and you can
fill a gym with this stuff.
(21:01):
Kubrick teaches us through likefour different funnels.
Referrals is a non-negotiablefunnel because it is the best
one that you could possibly haveworking.
All for at all times is a greatplan as well.
Talk to me about retention.
So that's one of the things in asmall business model like this
where you've got 90 clients,$600a person.
person, that's awesome.
But if 10 leave, that's a hugehit.
(21:23):
How do you retain these guys andmake sure that they stay for a
long time and are always happy?
Obviously, results is part ofit.
What else do you
SPEAKER_01 (21:29):
do?
Like I said, when we talk to ourtrainers and train them, this is
one thing that it's a must.
When a client comes to the gym,that is 5% of your work at
Evolver.
95% of the work is going to betexting that client, checking in
(21:52):
on that client, researchinganything that's going to help
that client get to the nextphase.
So when people come to us, weget the same thing as everybody
else.
I want to lose weight.
Oh, I want to do this.
I want to do that.
But what we're really good at islistening, seeing where the
client is on their journey, andfiguring out what is the least
(22:15):
amount of work that you have todo to get to your goal and a lot
of that comes from literallyholding a client's hand and
walking them through this pathso we'll be texting them on the
weekend and we'll be sendingdifferent studies that we come
across different food recipesdifferent tools that we use and
(22:37):
just sharing all those thingswith them it makes them If you
heard, first of all, it makesthem get the results and they're
happy, man.
As long as they're happy, youknow, they'll keep coming back.
SPEAKER_03 (22:52):
So it sounds like what I'm getting here is like
the gym experience is like asmall part.
It's all that stuff in betweenthat keeps your clients coming
back.
And it's a really high touchthing where again, one-on-one,
you're going to have just anincredible interpersonal
relationship, but you'recontinuing that outside the gym.
How do you message them?
Do you use email or DMs or doyou use a coaching platform?
(23:13):
What do you use to stayconnected to your clients
outside the session?
SPEAKER_01 (23:17):
All right.
So that's something that wecreated with our mentor.
Nice.
We created a system that haslike dates and times and how the
trainer communicates to theclient.
We keep track of how many timesthey check in a week, if it was
(23:38):
through a phone call, if it wasthrough email, if it was through
text message, whatever that is.
As long as the trainer keepsdoing those touch points and
we're seeing that that isactually happening, I feel like
that's the...
SPEAKER_02 (23:53):
That's where the money
SPEAKER_01 (23:54):
is.
SPEAKER_02 (23:55):
That's the deal.
Yeah, like...
So like with all those things,with the touch points, it's
email, phone, text message.
He makes sure that like Jensuris really like the head of
product within our company.
He just makes sure he's on it.
So what's really nice though toois like it gives us real-time
feedback as we start to exit alittle bit or hopefully start to
(24:18):
make it.
A little bit more of an exit.
We still need to know what'sgoing on within those four
walls.
We still need to know whatpeople are working on, what to
celebrate because it's, youknow, we are still part of the
part of the brand.
We live the brand.
And so just making sure thatlike when someone posts in our
little drive, Hey, to use Pamagain, we're, we're celebrating
(24:41):
it's her and Andre'sanniversary.
Well, great.
That note's going to be pushedinto that Google Doc.
Jensen's going to see it on aMonday.
Oh, shoot.
It's anniversary time.
We're going to find out, becausewe're sneaky, where they're
going to their anniversarydinner.
And we're going to go get themglasses of champagne.
Something's going to happen.
But all of those are tools.
(25:01):
Gary did a really good job withus.
Big shout out to Gary Walsh.
And here's my bicep pose.
You can't see it.
There it is.
Big shout to Gary, though,because he really did help us
systemize and operationalize ouroffering.
And that's where I feel bad forour first trainer in the space,
(25:24):
because he used to ask for it.
It's so amazing.
In hindsight, we would puttogether performance improvement
plans because we were upset withthe outcomes, because we gave
him no KPIs.
We gave him nothing to workwith.
And we would just get mad whenhe didn't do it the way we
wanted it done.
And he would look at us and he'dsay, give me actionable steps.
(25:46):
What's more actionable than mesaying like, show up on time.
We would get so angry, butnothing was in stone.
There were no rules.
It was a mess.
So it was a big shout to Garylast year, like really helped us
get that stuff organized.
And it's not done by any meansor by any stretch of the
(26:06):
imagination.
We'll keep on improving thoseprocesses.
We'll start bringing it to ourteam.
to help, you know, they're init, they're in the thick of it.
So get their input on how we canbe better at this, how we can
communicate it better, how wecan deliver it better.
SPEAKER_03 (26:21):
I'm going to highlight two things in what you
just said.
The first one is extraordinaryservice.
So you said we were sneaky, Pomand Andre, we figured out where
they're going for theiranniversary, whatever it was you
said, celebration, and you givethem a special something.
And like, that's just oneexample.
I'm sure you've probably got 800different examples exactly like
that.
If you guys going the extra milefor your clients, that's how you
(26:42):
retain clients.
It's, you know, just getting toknow them and being part of
their lives.
That is a huge, huge thing.
So listeners, if you're outthere and you're saying, how do
I retain more clients?
Find out what your clients doand become part of their lives
and stay in constant contactwith them.
In fact, get off this show, textfive clients that you have and
just say, hey, how was your lastworkout?
Or congratulate them onsomething that you saw in their
(27:02):
metrics.
Hey, I saw you deadlifted 300for four reps.
That's a huge new record foryou.
Do that right after the show.
your retention will improve ifyou do that daily and i'm not
making that up that will happenyou can track it and you can
show me the numbers in twomonths if you do that kind of
stuff every day the second thingyou said systems every single
gym owner who comes on this showthe successful ones on our
leaderboards mentions systems atsome point it is inevitable if
(27:24):
you do not have business systemsyour gym will not thrive you can
definitely do okay becauseyou're a hard-working type a
kind of person you're talentedand skilled you're going to
crush it and work the long hoursand grind but you cannot scale
up to the level that these guysare at if you do not have have
gym systems.
It is unbelievably important.
I know it's tedious to buildthem.
Once you build them, they governeverything and they make
(27:45):
everything better.
Gentlemen, talk to me about howa mentor helped you build those
systems and make sure that youcould put it in place.
Was that something that thementor was instrumental in
doing?
SPEAKER_02 (27:54):
Yeah.
So Gary was instrumental indoing it.
Honestly, when we came on withTwo Brain, we didn't have an
employee handbook.
We had to having, it was twoguys in a gym that liked to work
out.
That's all we had.
(28:15):
So he really did.
At least we liked it.
So it was, yeah, that was it.
And so when we came on very,very quickly, he recognized
that, None of it was clear cut.
No one had a clear path tosuccess.
Trainers didn't know what wasexpected of them.
Honestly, we didn't know whatwas expected of trainers.
(28:38):
So like Gary helped us systemizeit.
from stocking lists forbathrooms to hiring workflows
and onboarding.
Literally, absolutely anythingthat goes on in those four walls
is on some piece of paper.
And what we see now is when weonboard new coaches, it's
(29:00):
amazing.
It used to take us a couplemonths or three months, four
months to get a person up tospeed, to get them comfortable
in the space, to know whatthey're doing.
Now we can do it in three weeks.
We give them the handbook.
We say, this is it.
This is like, read this thingthrough.
Then we start doing our NSIs andwe have it.
It's all defined.
(29:21):
And so now we can say, allright, we're going to get on
LinkedIn, Indeed, ZipRecruiter.
We're going to put out our ad.
We have it all pre-framed out.
We're going to hire on a newperson.
We're going to run them throughthe races.
And it's like, it has simplifiedour lives unimaginably.
And then most recently we'vepushed into, we actually
(29:43):
switched into the Tinker group.
So we jumped into Tinker lastmonth.
And so now we're working withKenny.
And so Kenny is helping us witha little bit more of the big
picture stuff.
Jensen and I are, we're, We likeall of the stuff we liked.
We like tinkering.
We like messing up, messingaround in other business space.
And so what we seem to beworking on right now, like our
(30:06):
really like our current, ourfocus is, is that whole
effective hourly rate.
We don't need to grind so hard.
We need to start thinking about.
kind of vivid vision andstructuring what life looks like
for the next 20, 30, 40 yearsand how that pans out.
And I think it really does allstart with pulling ourselves out
of the business, not being somuch in the day to day and
(30:29):
working on growth, working onthe bigger
SPEAKER_01 (30:31):
picture.
I just want to add something tohow he helped me a lot.
I have these things, I have somany different ideas and I wanna
do all these things all thetime.
And having a mentor running usthrough exercises like the
perfect day and set up differentgoals and having Gary come up to
(30:57):
me like, is this gonna help youreach your perfect day?
And it's like, oh, no, of coursenot.
And then for me, it reallyclicked when it was, it's just
like clients.
Clients have like crazy goalsand we have to hold them
accountable to those things.
And having a mentor, it felt thesame way.
(31:19):
It was someone like, youshouldn't do that.
Maybe you should take this routeand we'll be better for your
goal.
So for me, that's how it wasvery helpful.
SPEAKER_03 (31:29):
Yeah.
And that's great to hear becauseit can be so difficult to do
this stuff on your own.
You can chase different thingsand you can get distracted.
And I was going to say systemssuck one time.
You just build them that onetime and it's not super fun.
But as soon as it's done, themaintenance on them is so low
and you just have to keepupgrading them and auditing them
over time.
And that takes so much littletime.
AI can help now.
There's all sorts of tools youcan use that way.
(31:50):
But you build them one time andthen you just maintain them and
they govern your entirebusiness.
And that allows you to doEverything faster and better and
the perfect example you guyssaid having all the stuff in
your head and even notformalized because you couldn't
quite figure out what you wantto tell people getting upset
with staff members and thenfinally getting everyone on the
same page and so that they knowwhat's expected, you know what's
(32:11):
expected.
We're all on the same page andeverything works.
That allows you to offloadthings.
Your service standard doesn'tdecline.
You don't lose clients becausepeople are doing a bad job.
Everything gets better.
And then you've even formalized,you know, stock and inventory
and all the other things youguys need.
So you formalize the entiresystem of your business.
And gym owners, if this issomething that you do not want
to do and you don't like it, Theshortcut is to use a two-brain
(32:31):
mentor to do it because we teachyou in the early stages of
mentorship how to formalize andsystemize your business and
build the structures, get somequick wins that allow you to
scale up.
And then if I pull out backhere.
This is one of Cooper's books.
It's founder, farmer, tinker,thief.
That's the early stages asfounder.
You're just setting this thingup.
Farmer, you're scaling up intogrowth.
Tinker, that's where these guysare right now.
(32:52):
That's where you've built asuccessful business that's not
wobbling like it's going to fallover.
It's doing pretty well on itsown.
You've offloaded some stuff.
And now you get to sit back andsay as an entrepreneur, what's
next?
And these guys are saying, wewant to make a higher hourly
rate.
in less time.
We want to earn more in lesstime.
We want to spend more time withour families.
We've grinded for a long time.
We want to set this up for ourstaff.
(33:13):
That's where you can really makesome fun entrepreneurial plays
and work on some next levelstuff.
And so that's kind of the thirdstage of the Two Brain system is
that tinker group where you workwith an elite coach and an elite
group of gym owners to figureout what's next.
And that's super exciting.
So gentlemen, next is going tobe effective hourly rate.
And then how many hours wouldyou like to work in a gym?
(33:33):
What are you thinking?
SPEAKER_02 (33:34):
That's what it would say, zero.
SPEAKER_03 (33:36):
Okay, that's fair.
SPEAKER_01 (33:38):
Yeah.
It's not true.
I love being a trainer.
It's what I've been doing.
It's what I'm going to do forthe rest of my life.
But I do love training staffmore than training clients now.
For me, that's the fire.
So I will work 40 hours doingthat.
Training clients, it can goanywhere between zero and
(34:02):
10,000.
SPEAKER_03 (34:03):
Okay, that's awesome.
Jake, for you, what's your idealbalance?
SPEAKER_02 (34:08):
You know, I actually, I really like my
mornings in the gym.
So I would like to go in alittle bit later.
I'd like to be in there maybesix as opposed to five because
it's just...
It's too early.
That's my time still,effectively.
But I'd like to be done and out,not worried about it by noon.
I want to be able to.
My big goal this year is just Iwant to be able to pick up my
(34:31):
kid from daycare every day.
That's my goal.
So as long as I'm out by 3o'clock and I can make it down
there, we're good.
SPEAKER_03 (34:38):
And that's what you can do.
That's the flexibility you getwhen you build a great business.
If you wear all the hats...
and you don't have systems, youhave to do everything yourself,
you will never get out of thatgrind.
And what will happen, and I'msorry to say this, this is what
will happen, you will burn out.
I said, no, it won't happen tome.
I hit the exact same thing.
I burned out.
Then people leave.
Talented coaches leave thefitness industry.
Gyms go down and staff losetheir jobs and clients lose
(35:00):
their place to train.
If you do it the other way andbuild a strong business where
you can offload jobs and evolveand live your perfect day,
Clients get results, they get tokeep training, staff members
build great careers, you as theowner get to benefit, and life
is beautiful.
So if you need to know how to dothat, you want to hit the easy
button, book a call via the linkin the show notes, and you could
one day be on one of ourleaderboards.
I did talk to someone on thisleaderboard.
(35:22):
the same one you guys got and hesaid i started looking at this
stuff to bring content in 2022and i dreamed of being on a
leaderboard i didn't think itwas possible and this month he
made it three years later withthe help of mentors so that's
pretty cool thing gentlemen iwant to congratulate you on
making the leaderboard this isone of our best ones it's super
it's because it shows ownerlifestyle congrats and thank you
so much for sharing your timeand insight with us i appreciate
(35:43):
it
SPEAKER_01 (35:44):
thank you so much mike
SPEAKER_03 (35:46):
yeah it's my pleasure jake and jen sir from
wolver fitness in connecticut onour Two Brain Leaderboard for
Net Owner Benefit from$17,000 to$45,000 a month.
You can be there too.
Book a link via the call in theshow notes.
Thanks for listening.
My name is Mike Morgan.
I'm your host.
Please subscribe for moreepisodes so you don't miss a
show.
And now here's Two Brain founderChris Cooper with a
SPEAKER_00 (36:04):
final message for you.
Hey, it's Two Brain founderChris Cooper with a quick note.
We created the Gym Owners UnitedFacebook group to help you run a
profitable gym.
Thousands of gym owners justlike you have already joined.
In the group, we share soundadvice about the business of
fitness every day.
I answer questions, I run freewebinars, and I give away all
(36:25):
kinds of great resources to helpyou grow your gym.
I'd love to have you in thatgroup.
It's Gym Owners United onFacebook or go to
gymownersunited.com to join.
Do it today.
Hey!
You need a massive, massive space and a ton of
members to earn a lot as a gymowner.
SPEAKER_01 (00:07):
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Let me interrupt you rightthere, Mike.
What?
What do you think about that,Jake?
SPEAKER_02 (00:15):
I don't think we did that at all.
We're pretty small.
Lean, mean fighting machine.
Like how much square footage?
We are 1,400 square foot and wecater to about 90 members right
now.
SPEAKER_03 (00:29):
And you made Two Brain's top 10 leaderboard for
net owner benefit.
I think we're going to have todig into this because a lot of
people are believing the firstline I said, which is obviously
not correct.
So my guests made our top 10leaderboard for earnings with 90
clients, more or less, in 1,400square feet.
If you're interested in how theydid it, they're going to share
their secrets today on RunnerProfitable Gym.
I'm your host, Mike Bork.
And please hit subscribe beforeyou go any further.
(00:51):
Now, Jake Barton and JenserGomez, they run Evolver Fitness
in Connecticut.
They made Two Brain's net ownerbenefit leaderboard.
As I just said, that leaderboardruns from$1,700 thousand to
forty five thousand dollars amonth now that's not gross
revenue that is what the ownerstook home and these are three
month rolling averages sothere's not one hit wonders in
here these are consistent ownerincome numbers seventeen
thousand to forty five thousanddollars the gentlemen have
(01:13):
decided to come on the show andtalk about how they did it
welcome guys how are you
SPEAKER_02 (01:18):
hi we're great dude thanks for having us
SPEAKER_03 (01:21):
I'm fired up to talk to you guys.
So we're going to dig deeperinto this topic, but I want to
ask you right off the top forthe short answer.
How did you earn so much in1,400 square feet with a
relatively small number ofclients?
SPEAKER_02 (01:32):
I'm going to sit there and say the secret to our
kind of method is high arm.
It's a high ticket method.
high profile offering basicallyas close to a done for you as
you could possibly get.
Jennifer and I were talkingbefore we came on here that it
was kind of like we live inConnecticut on the Gold Coast of
(01:54):
Connecticut, which is super highreal estate costs.
And when we started to dabble inthe space, we're sitting there
kind of like, what can weafford?
I mean, we were trainers at thetime.
We bootstrapped the operation.
We were nervous about it.
So it made us very, very, very,very safe with our numbers.
We were very, very pessimistic.
(02:15):
We wanted to keep it lean.
We wanted to keep ouroperational costs as low as
possible in hopes that at somepoint we'd be here on the Net
Owner Benefit Leaderboard for2Bring.
And yeah, here we are.
SPEAKER_03 (02:29):
Okay, so ARM, average revenue per member.
If you have a high ARM, you donot need a ton of members.
If you have a low ARM, like say$30, you're going to need a lot
of members.
And that's where people get intotrouble because it's hard.
Like in an access gym, maybethat works.
In a coaching gym, if your ARMis low, you're selling your time
for a low value.
And all of a sudden, you'regoing to need a ton of people.
(02:51):
It's just this hamster wheel.
It doesn't work.
And we see people get on thismarketing hamster wheel.
I need more clients.
I need more clients.
I need more clients.
But what you really need isprobably a rate increase.
You probably need to boost thoserates up, you probably need to
add some services, add some highvalue services like personal
training, semi-private training,all those different things.
TRM is a secret recipe forrevenue in gyms, right?
(03:13):
And I'm going to ask you this,guys.
I'm going to dig in with acouple of questions based on
what you said here because Ireally want to kind of figure
this out.
Back in the day, there was a lotof like when group fitness
exploded with CrossFit and soforth in about the 2010s or so,
there was this if you build it,they will come mentality.
You get a great big space andyou're going to fill it with
people, except that doesn'toften happen very much.
And very few CrossFit gyms andgroup training gyms have been
able to get 200, 300, 400, 500members.
(03:35):
It doesn't happen.
You guys went the other way andI love what you did.
You said, I'm just going tominimize my expenses and risk in
a small space and we're going tomaximize stuff in there.
So how did you come up on thatplan when so many people did it
the other way?
SPEAKER_01 (03:47):
It's a great question.
We tried different modalitiesthroughout our years of
experience doing this.
And what gave us the tool thatwe could share with people that
they could consistent andfaster, get a result faster was
this personal training tool.
(04:08):
Which is a very individualized,specific to the client needs.
Through all the years, the waywe developed this process was
like, how can we simplifyfitness or their lifestyle or
their movement so they can getthe most out of it?
SPEAKER_03 (04:30):
So you focus the results right off the bat.
SPEAKER_01 (04:33):
Straight.
Because if you can get clientshappy, they will keep coming.
and they will refer theirfamilies and friends.
SPEAKER_03 (04:42):
When did you figure this out?
What year did you open this,Jim?
SPEAKER_01 (04:45):
We opened in 2020, August of 2020, right after the
pandemic.
SPEAKER_03 (04:50):
Ooh, I was going to say, that sounds like a tough
time to open.
SPEAKER_01 (04:53):
It was.
Like, in this transition, welost about 85% of our clients.
SPEAKER_03 (04:59):
Ooh, yeah,
SPEAKER_01 (05:00):
that's a tough thing.
So we just had to put our headsdown and work really hard, which
we did.
It was great.
I think when you have thatintention of, helping people
especially at that time peoplethey appreciate that kind of
stuff and they stick to you uhand at the time because our
spots were so small people wereavoiding big box gyms
SPEAKER_03 (05:22):
right that's interesting yeah
SPEAKER_01 (05:25):
so people were looking for places like that
they would come out with just meand jake and two other people in
the room they'd be like oh thisis great you know like we can
share so it was uh was also abenefit for us at the time
SPEAKER_03 (05:37):
Okay, so did you guys, did you plan, like, did
you have your avatar, yourclient, your perfect client laid
out right when you opened in2020, or was that something you
developed after that?
SPEAKER_02 (05:47):
That's still, I would say, a continuous process.
We have this conversation on aweekly basis.
Who are we catering to?
How are we catering to them?
What can we do better?
What do we feel comfortable andconfident with?
So one of the things that wefind in 2Brain, so much of this
stuff we try and make asmeasurable as possible.
(06:09):
And then we reiterate.
You look constantly, and I'msure everyone listening to this,
I'm sure everyone that's kind ofwithin this group, You're always
learning.
We're always learning.
So we're just trying to slowlybut surely just get a little bit
better day by day so we canserve more people and hopefully
help some more people along theway.
SPEAKER_03 (06:28):
Did you guys spend a lot of money on equipment when
you opened?
Or did you kind of, like yousaid, bootstrap?
Did you start small and kind ofchip away?
What was your plan for equipmentand gear?
SPEAKER_02 (06:37):
So yeah, we went the completely polar opposite of
like the big box chain model.
So we really, we couldn'tafford, couldn't afford big
machines.
So we went a couple of roguemonster light racks.
We got a dumbbell stack.
We had some slam balls.
We got a couple of plate trees,but really like we kept it as
(06:59):
bare bones as possible.
The big, big spendy stuff thatwe got were some Kaiser
machines, which were fun andlook frilly and people get
excited about them.
But otherwise we kept it prettyinexpensive to start up.
SPEAKER_03 (07:14):
And that's interesting because, you know,
Chris Cooper, we had similarhistories, he and I, and we
opened, you know, group gyms.
He had a personal trainingstudio as well, but group gyms
and filled them with stuff andbought all this things things we
didn't need essentially he saidif he would go back and do it
again he'd probably do almostexactly what you guys are doing
where he'd get a couple ofbarbells maybe a pile box some
dumbbells just like someinexpensive stuff that you can
(07:36):
get a lot of mileage out of andhe would have gotten a very
small space and he wouldn't haveexpanded out of that space until
he was bursting at the absoluteseams and he would have sold
high value stuff maybe not grouptraining anymore maybe it would
have been semi-private or smallgroup coaching and obviously pt
but that model allows you toscale up and out rather than
like panicking about paying therent.
And that's where I was, where Ihad the 6,000 square foot space,
(07:59):
bought a bunch of stuff.
And I'm like, I need moremembers.
I'm panicking about stuff.
And I wasn't focused on clientresults because I was focused on
trying to spin the plates tokeep the place from closing.
So you guys did it completelyopposite.
Talk to me about the growth ofthat plan.
So you start in 2020, obviouslyyou got to get through the
pandemic and you go through thatway.
Did you always have a high ARMor was that something that you
built over time?
SPEAKER_01 (08:20):
We always had the high ticket service, right?
The hype touch service that'sall that's we've been doing this
for our whole life not our lifeour whole professional life so
we did always had a high arm butthat doesn't translate into an
(08:40):
ob right away correct so like isaid we lost about 85 of our
clients and then jake and i gotinto work and we got members
back into the gym and we'relike, Oh my God, we're doing all
these hours.
We need to hire someone.
So then we hire a trainer, trainthem.
(09:00):
They didn't do it.
They didn't do a good job.
So
SPEAKER_02 (09:04):
we did a good job actually in fairness to them.
I think we did a pretty bad jobnow.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (09:14):
And then we, as we joined, um, two brain, we
started learning the importanceof SOPs and then, how we do
service, and then how we trainour staff.
And like now we have threetrainers, two full times, one
part time, and they're prettymuch managers.
They run the place really well,like it's their own.
(09:34):
They know how to do NSIs.
They know what we're lookingfor.
As we move, as we take ourselvesfrom the business a little bit
more and focus at differentparts, our NLB will grow that
way right make sure there aretrainers building up their
schedule and and becomingsuccessful professionals at this
SPEAKER_03 (09:56):
so how many hours a week do you guys coach now is it
mostly management stuff or doyou still work on the floor
SPEAKER_02 (10:02):
we are still we are still very heavily involved in
the floor which is so like gentswas just talking about one thing
when when we did this we webuilt the almost built it
fundamentally wrong.
So we kept it small.
That was all good.
But in our naivety, we built abusiness that was reliant, or at
(10:23):
least we thought was reliantupon us from the get go.
So when Junster says we wereworking like dogs, we would get
into the gym 5 a.m.
We would open up those frontdoors.
And if we weren't training onthe floor, we were sitting
outside and we'll sit there.
We're just begging for business.
Any person that walks by wouldbe like, hey, you look like you
(10:46):
work out.
What do you do?
Come on in.
So we built that back up.
But as part of that, it justbecomes what's ingrained.
So prior to owning the gym, wewere trainers, too.
And we were our reward systemwas always put more in, get more
out.
put more in, get more out.
And now slowly but surely after13 years, give or take, we're
(11:11):
starting to say, oh, you knowwhat?
Well, if like we put it onto themarketing cog and we get some
leads and we facilitate that andbring them into the space, all
of the guys that work with us,they can take care of these
people.
But honestly, in some cases,most cases better than us.
And that is like, a game changerfor our business.
(11:33):
With our NOB, it's high rightnow.
It may come down a little bit aswe start putting more money into
the staff, like into the staffpay.
And that's okay.
Like both Jensen and I have hadthis conversation time and time
again.
It's like, you know, at somepoint, you start to decide where
your value is like.
So, Jenser and I are both familypeople.
(11:55):
I have a one-and-a-half-year-oldson.
He's got two kids.
And so, like, getting some ofthat time after working long
hours for five years, it's nice.
And so, we're going to, youknow, start leaning into the EHR
a little bit more than maybe...
and OB as we grow a little bit.
SPEAKER_03 (12:17):
And that's effective hourly rate, listeners.
That's the amount you take individed by the hours that you
put in, or sorry, the amountthat you earn divided by the
hours that you work.
That means that if you workfewer hours and you can make
more in less time, essentially.
But interestingly enough, one ofthe other leaderboard members,
he said the same thing.
He's reducing his net ownerbenefit just a little bit to
(12:38):
invest more in staffdevelopment.
So this is not an uncommon plan.
And some of these things aren'talways just like one line up.
There are peaks and valleys orplateaus in there where you have
to invest in the business andthen things spike up and that's
really interesting i want to diginto that part because you've
obviously done an interestingthing where you went from like
two dudes doing all the trainingwith like protein bars on
fishing line and trying to reelin new clients right off the
street you guys went from thatto now having a staff, I think
(13:00):
you said five people betweenfull and part-time.
Talk to me about that transitionbecause it's really interesting
how that works because sometimesstaff is seen as an expense.
In other cases, staff is seen asan investment and they allow you
to scale up your business.
So talk to me about going fromtwo dudes to a staff.
SPEAKER_01 (13:17):
So like Jake said, our reward system was like, you
work really hard, you get paidby the hour and you do a good
job and you're going to getpaid.
And now from like getting thebusiness and trusting that our
staff is gonna deliver theproduct that we promised them,
(13:37):
for me, I would speak formyself, for me specifically,
that was really hard.
So until we had systems in placethat assured that our trainers
could deliver the product theway I picture in my head, I
didn't feel comfortable enoughtaking myself out of the
(14:00):
business and letting them runthe show like I am now.
So it's been a very hardtransition in my head, but it's
paying off.
And as I see our staff doingbetter, it actually motivates me
(14:24):
more.
I it gives me the same joy asgiving as getting a client to
their goal.
And I think that's somethingthat for me, it's going to be
one of my main goals now is ishow can I get each staff to the
point that they're like, justlike Jake and I am.
SPEAKER_03 (14:46):
So let me ask you this.
So you've got, who gets theclients?
Who finds the clients?
How do you acquire these people?
And are you acquiring them foryour staff members?
Are staff members expected to dothat?
Or how does your business setup?
SPEAKER_02 (14:58):
So we lean with the hire ticket.
This has been interestingbecause we've done the Facebook
ads and we've done organicsocial.
We were all in on all of theselittle levers.
What we find works most for us,and Jens touched on it earlier
in this conversation, is isreferral business because the
(15:18):
average revenue per member ishigher.
Because our average ticketprice, like on the books, it
comes in around$600 on a monthlybasis.
These people are paying, butwe're charging.
We're still like people willhate us for this.
It's not monthly recurringrevenue.
The way we organize ourstructure, our packages, we sell
it at four, eight or 12,depending on what a person is
(15:39):
doing on a weekly basis.
because we do it like thisthere's a massive barrier to
entry you know anyone that'sworked with cold traffic on
facebook knows it's hard enoughto sell them a 30 membership
people have locks on the walletthey're scared what if it's not
going to do what they want youknow it's it's a it's tough it's
(16:00):
really really tough so we'vetried that and it's really
really tough to get that personapart with 800 bucks so what we
what we found is we try and keepour referral structures like
bring a friend stuff like that alittle bit more premium we try
we try and create or craftevents that feel exclusive they
(16:24):
feel built out they feel likethe client's going to get an
experience a perfect example ofit this is like this upcoming
sunday jen sir and i are goingto host a nice like light
workout we're going to dorefreshments we're going to do
some bagels post-workout andthen we have a shopping event at
uh the clothing brand viewer'sstore local to us and so our
(16:47):
clients get their privateshopping experience they all get
20 off and so it just feels likea like something cool.
And that really, honestly, thebig secret here is that's a no
cost to us.
Those people are taking care toget some people in their door
too.
It just feels really good forour community building.
(17:08):
And as part of that offering, wedecided we were gonna bring in
anyone that signs up with us hasto bring a friend.
So has to bring a new face.
And so that'll give us, we'llcall it 15 to 20 people we've
never met.
They're all friends of clientsOur client list is pretty
curated.
They're all pretty specific toour space or our avatar.
(17:29):
And it gives us 15 leads thatwe'll start to communicate with.
We run weekly newsletter.
We'll get them involved with oursocial.
And hopefully that amounts toone or two new faces in the gym.
So that's really like the breadand butter for us for lead
acquisition.
And Jensur and I are pretty,like we really have our finger
on the pulse there.
(17:50):
But like Jensur said too, withour trainers, because they do a
good job, because they want tohelp first, they do get results.
They do become part of people'sfamilies.
And so it's not uncommon, too,for like our trainer, Miguel,
trains a woman named Pam, andPam loves it.
She's crushing it.
She's happy.
(18:10):
Pam loves it so much and havingso much fun with Miguel that
Andre, her husband, comes.
Andre fits right in, brings hisdog every Monday and every
Wednesday to come play with mydog, Norman.
And then...
You know, fast forward to thesummer, their daughter Sophia
comes in and now it's like, oh,everyone's hanging out.
(18:31):
And so we see a lot of that, alot of referral business in our
space.
SPEAKER_01 (18:36):
On top of that, we also work with affiliates with
business nearby us, which isyour physical therapist,
chiropractors, and we have areally good relationship with
those people and we getreferrals back and forth.
SPEAKER_03 (18:52):
yeah and that's such a great way to do it and like in
your business model you're notlooking for 350 clients that's
hard to do with referrals now ifyou want to get 90 to 120 you
can do that and the great partabout it is that you're going
you've got your clients You talkto their friends and family.
Let's say you get 45 clients andeach one brings in someone else.
That's 90 right there.
You don't have to spend a ton, aton of time on marketing and
(19:15):
cold traffic, like you said,especially because if you found
that the cold traffic isn't thebest play for you because you're
going to say, and our prices are$600 a month.
And a lot of people are clickingon Facebook, aren't looking for
that at all.
Whereas your friends and familyand coworkers of the people
you're already crushing it with,they're like fish in a barrel.
And this is not the first timeI've heard this.
And I've heard there's a gym, Ibelieve it was Brian Bott in New
(19:37):
Jersey, one of our mentors, Hehas a program where he gives
out, it's like a black cardreferral program.
And what he does is he takesthis, it's a super premium
looking card.
It's not just like a flimsypiece of paper.
It's like a very high value kindof thing.
He's like, this is for yourfriend, Tim.
And he knows the guy by name orwhatever.
He says, you tell your friend,Tim, to use this card for, it's
like a, I can't remember if it'sa free session or it's a free
(19:58):
month or something like that,but it's something that's super
high value.
And he gives them this cardthat's just personalized and
feels like a huge valuable gift.
It's not just a flimsy 10 centsoff coupon.
and inevitably these people comein they're friends of friends
they love it they want to workout with their friends and he
ends up getting these clientsand they're high value clients
that stay for like you knowyears and they end up their
(20:19):
lifetime value is like you knowten thousand dollars or
something like that so he's gotthis whole thing calculated
other gym owners have done thesame thing but two brain teaches
four funnels And you've gotpaid, which is a very tough one.
You can master it.
You should use that at somepoint, most gym owners, but
that's a tough one.
You've got organic social media.
That's where you're cranking upcontent.
You've got content funnel.
That's just generic stuff that'snot like your blog and so forth.
(20:41):
And then on the other end of it,you've got the referral funnel.
And the referral funnel is anincredibly valuable funnel
because it takes your time.
Not a ton of money, and you'reconnecting with people, and you
just heard listeners.
These guys have very specificbring-a-friend events that are
very classy.
They feel like a big deal.
They've got a clearly definedreferral program, and you can
fill a gym with this stuff.
(21:01):
Kubrick teaches us through likefour different funnels.
Referrals is a non-negotiablefunnel because it is the best
one that you could possibly haveworking.
All for at all times is a greatplan as well.
Talk to me about retention.
So that's one of the things in asmall business model like this
where you've got 90 clients,$600a person.
person, that's awesome.
But if 10 leave, that's a hugehit.
(21:23):
How do you retain these guys andmake sure that they stay for a
long time and are always happy?
Obviously, results is part ofit.
What else do you
SPEAKER_01 (21:29):
do?
Like I said, when we talk to ourtrainers and train them, this is
one thing that it's a must.
When a client comes to the gym,that is 5% of your work at
Evolver.
95% of the work is going to betexting that client, checking in
(21:52):
on that client, researchinganything that's going to help
that client get to the nextphase.
So when people come to us, weget the same thing as everybody
else.
I want to lose weight.
Oh, I want to do this.
I want to do that.
But what we're really good at islistening, seeing where the
client is on their journey, andfiguring out what is the least
(22:15):
amount of work that you have todo to get to your goal and a lot
of that comes from literallyholding a client's hand and
walking them through this pathso we'll be texting them on the
weekend and we'll be sendingdifferent studies that we come
across different food recipesdifferent tools that we use and
(22:37):
just sharing all those thingswith them it makes them If you
heard, first of all, it makesthem get the results and they're
happy, man.
As long as they're happy, youknow, they'll keep coming back.
SPEAKER_03 (22:52):
So it sounds like what I'm getting here is like
the gym experience is like asmall part.
It's all that stuff in betweenthat keeps your clients coming
back.
And it's a really high touchthing where again, one-on-one,
you're going to have just anincredible interpersonal
relationship, but you'recontinuing that outside the gym.
How do you message them?
Do you use email or DMs or doyou use a coaching platform?
(23:13):
What do you use to stayconnected to your clients
outside the session?
SPEAKER_01 (23:17):
All right.
So that's something that wecreated with our mentor.
Nice.
We created a system that haslike dates and times and how the
trainer communicates to theclient.
We keep track of how many timesthey check in a week, if it was
(23:38):
through a phone call, if it wasthrough email, if it was through
text message, whatever that is.
As long as the trainer keepsdoing those touch points and
we're seeing that that isactually happening, I feel like
that's the...
SPEAKER_02 (23:53):
That's where the money
SPEAKER_01 (23:54):
is.
SPEAKER_02 (23:55):
That's the deal.
Yeah, like...
So like with all those things,with the touch points, it's
email, phone, text message.
He makes sure that like Jensuris really like the head of
product within our company.
He just makes sure he's on it.
So what's really nice though toois like it gives us real-time
feedback as we start to exit alittle bit or hopefully start to
(24:18):
make it.
A little bit more of an exit.
We still need to know what'sgoing on within those four
walls.
We still need to know whatpeople are working on, what to
celebrate because it's, youknow, we are still part of the
part of the brand.
We live the brand.
And so just making sure thatlike when someone posts in our
little drive, Hey, to use Pamagain, we're, we're celebrating
(24:41):
it's her and Andre'sanniversary.
Well, great.
That note's going to be pushedinto that Google Doc.
Jensen's going to see it on aMonday.
Oh, shoot.
It's anniversary time.
We're going to find out, becausewe're sneaky, where they're
going to their anniversarydinner.
And we're going to go get themglasses of champagne.
Something's going to happen.
But all of those are tools.
(25:01):
Gary did a really good job withus.
Big shout out to Gary Walsh.
And here's my bicep pose.
You can't see it.
There it is.
Big shout to Gary, though,because he really did help us
systemize and operationalize ouroffering.
And that's where I feel bad forour first trainer in the space,
(25:24):
because he used to ask for it.
It's so amazing.
In hindsight, we would puttogether performance improvement
plans because we were upset withthe outcomes, because we gave
him no KPIs.
We gave him nothing to workwith.
And we would just get mad whenhe didn't do it the way we
wanted it done.
And he would look at us and he'dsay, give me actionable steps.
(25:46):
What's more actionable than mesaying like, show up on time.
We would get so angry, butnothing was in stone.
There were no rules.
It was a mess.
So it was a big shout to Garylast year, like really helped us
get that stuff organized.
And it's not done by any meansor by any stretch of the
(26:06):
imagination.
We'll keep on improving thoseprocesses.
We'll start bringing it to ourteam.
to help, you know, they're init, they're in the thick of it.
So get their input on how we canbe better at this, how we can
communicate it better, how wecan deliver it better.
SPEAKER_03 (26:21):
I'm going to highlight two things in what you
just said.
The first one is extraordinaryservice.
So you said we were sneaky, Pomand Andre, we figured out where
they're going for theiranniversary, whatever it was you
said, celebration, and you givethem a special something.
And like, that's just oneexample.
I'm sure you've probably got 800different examples exactly like
that.
If you guys going the extra milefor your clients, that's how you
(26:42):
retain clients.
It's, you know, just getting toknow them and being part of
their lives.
That is a huge, huge thing.
So listeners, if you're outthere and you're saying, how do
I retain more clients?
Find out what your clients doand become part of their lives
and stay in constant contactwith them.
In fact, get off this show, textfive clients that you have and
just say, hey, how was your lastworkout?
Or congratulate them onsomething that you saw in their
(27:02):
metrics.
Hey, I saw you deadlifted 300for four reps.
That's a huge new record foryou.
Do that right after the show.
your retention will improve ifyou do that daily and i'm not
making that up that will happenyou can track it and you can
show me the numbers in twomonths if you do that kind of
stuff every day the second thingyou said systems every single
gym owner who comes on this showthe successful ones on our
leaderboards mentions systems atsome point it is inevitable if
(27:24):
you do not have business systemsyour gym will not thrive you can
definitely do okay becauseyou're a hard-working type a
kind of person you're talentedand skilled you're going to
crush it and work the long hoursand grind but you cannot scale
up to the level that these guysare at if you do not have have
gym systems.
It is unbelievably important.
I know it's tedious to buildthem.
Once you build them, they governeverything and they make
(27:45):
everything better.
Gentlemen, talk to me about howa mentor helped you build those
systems and make sure that youcould put it in place.
Was that something that thementor was instrumental in
doing?
SPEAKER_02 (27:54):
Yeah.
So Gary was instrumental indoing it.
Honestly, when we came on withTwo Brain, we didn't have an
employee handbook.
We had to having, it was twoguys in a gym that liked to work
out.
That's all we had.
(28:15):
So he really did.
At least we liked it.
So it was, yeah, that was it.
And so when we came on very,very quickly, he recognized
that, None of it was clear cut.
No one had a clear path tosuccess.
Trainers didn't know what wasexpected of them.
Honestly, we didn't know whatwas expected of trainers.
(28:38):
So like Gary helped us systemizeit.
from stocking lists forbathrooms to hiring workflows
and onboarding.
Literally, absolutely anythingthat goes on in those four walls
is on some piece of paper.
And what we see now is when weonboard new coaches, it's
(29:00):
amazing.
It used to take us a couplemonths or three months, four
months to get a person up tospeed, to get them comfortable
in the space, to know whatthey're doing.
Now we can do it in three weeks.
We give them the handbook.
We say, this is it.
This is like, read this thingthrough.
Then we start doing our NSIs andwe have it.
It's all defined.
(29:21):
And so now we can say, allright, we're going to get on
LinkedIn, Indeed, ZipRecruiter.
We're going to put out our ad.
We have it all pre-framed out.
We're going to hire on a newperson.
We're going to run them throughthe races.
And it's like, it has simplifiedour lives unimaginably.
And then most recently we'vepushed into, we actually
(29:43):
switched into the Tinker group.
So we jumped into Tinker lastmonth.
And so now we're working withKenny.
And so Kenny is helping us witha little bit more of the big
picture stuff.
Jensen and I are, we're, We likeall of the stuff we liked.
We like tinkering.
We like messing up, messingaround in other business space.
And so what we seem to beworking on right now, like our
(30:06):
really like our current, ourfocus is, is that whole
effective hourly rate.
We don't need to grind so hard.
We need to start thinking about.
kind of vivid vision andstructuring what life looks like
for the next 20, 30, 40 yearsand how that pans out.
And I think it really does allstart with pulling ourselves out
of the business, not being somuch in the day to day and
(30:29):
working on growth, working onthe bigger
SPEAKER_01 (30:31):
picture.
I just want to add something tohow he helped me a lot.
I have these things, I have somany different ideas and I wanna
do all these things all thetime.
And having a mentor running usthrough exercises like the
perfect day and set up differentgoals and having Gary come up to
(30:57):
me like, is this gonna help youreach your perfect day?
And it's like, oh, no, of coursenot.
And then for me, it reallyclicked when it was, it's just
like clients.
Clients have like crazy goalsand we have to hold them
accountable to those things.
And having a mentor, it felt thesame way.
(31:19):
It was someone like, youshouldn't do that.
Maybe you should take this routeand we'll be better for your
goal.
So for me, that's how it wasvery helpful.
SPEAKER_03 (31:29):
Yeah.
And that's great to hear becauseit can be so difficult to do
this stuff on your own.
You can chase different thingsand you can get distracted.
And I was going to say systemssuck one time.
You just build them that onetime and it's not super fun.
But as soon as it's done, themaintenance on them is so low
and you just have to keepupgrading them and auditing them
over time.
And that takes so much littletime.
AI can help now.
There's all sorts of tools youcan use that way.
(31:50):
But you build them one time andthen you just maintain them and
they govern your entirebusiness.
And that allows you to doEverything faster and better and
the perfect example you guyssaid having all the stuff in
your head and even notformalized because you couldn't
quite figure out what you wantto tell people getting upset
with staff members and thenfinally getting everyone on the
same page and so that they knowwhat's expected, you know what's
(32:11):
expected.
We're all on the same page andeverything works.
That allows you to offloadthings.
Your service standard doesn'tdecline.
You don't lose clients becausepeople are doing a bad job.
Everything gets better.
And then you've even formalized,you know, stock and inventory
and all the other things youguys need.
So you formalize the entiresystem of your business.
And gym owners, if this issomething that you do not want
to do and you don't like it, Theshortcut is to use a two-brain
(32:31):
mentor to do it because we teachyou in the early stages of
mentorship how to formalize andsystemize your business and
build the structures, get somequick wins that allow you to
scale up.
And then if I pull out backhere.
This is one of Cooper's books.
It's founder, farmer, tinker,thief.
That's the early stages asfounder.
You're just setting this thingup.
Farmer, you're scaling up intogrowth.
Tinker, that's where these guysare right now.
(32:52):
That's where you've built asuccessful business that's not
wobbling like it's going to fallover.
It's doing pretty well on itsown.
You've offloaded some stuff.
And now you get to sit back andsay as an entrepreneur, what's
next?
And these guys are saying, wewant to make a higher hourly
rate.
in less time.
We want to earn more in lesstime.
We want to spend more time withour families.
We've grinded for a long time.
We want to set this up for ourstaff.
(33:13):
That's where you can really makesome fun entrepreneurial plays
and work on some next levelstuff.
And so that's kind of the thirdstage of the Two Brain system is
that tinker group where you workwith an elite coach and an elite
group of gym owners to figureout what's next.
And that's super exciting.
So gentlemen, next is going tobe effective hourly rate.
And then how many hours wouldyou like to work in a gym?
(33:33):
What are you thinking?
SPEAKER_02 (33:34):
That's what it would say, zero.
SPEAKER_03 (33:36):
Okay, that's fair.
SPEAKER_01 (33:38):
Yeah.
It's not true.
I love being a trainer.
It's what I've been doing.
It's what I'm going to do forthe rest of my life.
But I do love training staffmore than training clients now.
For me, that's the fire.
So I will work 40 hours doingthat.
Training clients, it can goanywhere between zero and
(34:02):
10,000.
SPEAKER_03 (34:03):
Okay, that's awesome.
Jake, for you, what's your idealbalance?
SPEAKER_02 (34:08):
You know, I actually, I really like my
mornings in the gym.
So I would like to go in alittle bit later.
I'd like to be in there maybesix as opposed to five because
it's just...
It's too early.
That's my time still,effectively.
But I'd like to be done and out,not worried about it by noon.
I want to be able to.
My big goal this year is just Iwant to be able to pick up my
(34:31):
kid from daycare every day.
That's my goal.
So as long as I'm out by 3o'clock and I can make it down
there, we're good.
SPEAKER_03 (34:38):
And that's what you can do.
That's the flexibility you getwhen you build a great business.
If you wear all the hats...
and you don't have systems, youhave to do everything yourself,
you will never get out of thatgrind.
And what will happen, and I'msorry to say this, this is what
will happen, you will burn out.
I said, no, it won't happen tome.
I hit the exact same thing.
I burned out.
Then people leave.
Talented coaches leave thefitness industry.
Gyms go down and staff losetheir jobs and clients lose
(35:00):
their place to train.
If you do it the other way andbuild a strong business where
you can offload jobs and evolveand live your perfect day,
Clients get results, they get tokeep training, staff members
build great careers, you as theowner get to benefit, and life
is beautiful.
So if you need to know how to dothat, you want to hit the easy
button, book a call via the linkin the show notes, and you could
one day be on one of ourleaderboards.
I did talk to someone on thisleaderboard.
(35:22):
the same one you guys got and hesaid i started looking at this
stuff to bring content in 2022and i dreamed of being on a
leaderboard i didn't think itwas possible and this month he
made it three years later withthe help of mentors so that's
pretty cool thing gentlemen iwant to congratulate you on
making the leaderboard this isone of our best ones it's super
it's because it shows ownerlifestyle congrats and thank you
so much for sharing your timeand insight with us i appreciate
(35:43):
it
SPEAKER_01 (35:44):
thank you so much mike
SPEAKER_03 (35:46):
yeah it's my pleasure jake and jen sir from
wolver fitness in connecticut onour Two Brain Leaderboard for
Net Owner Benefit from$17,000 to$45,000 a month.
You can be there too.
Book a link via the call in theshow notes.
Thanks for listening.
My name is Mike Morgan.
I'm your host.
Please subscribe for moreepisodes so you don't miss a
show.
And now here's Two Brain founderChris Cooper with a
SPEAKER_00 (36:04):
final message for you.
Hey, it's Two Brain founderChris Cooper with a quick note.
We created the Gym Owners UnitedFacebook group to help you run a
profitable gym.
Thousands of gym owners justlike you have already joined.
In the group, we share soundadvice about the business of
fitness every day.
I answer questions, I run freewebinars, and I give away all
(36:25):
kinds of great resources to helpyou grow your gym.
I'd love to have you in thatgroup.
It's Gym Owners United onFacebook or go to
gymownersunited.com to join.
Do it today.
Hey!
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