June 6, 2025 • 38 mins
CrossFit Mondego has 429 members—and they’re not bleeding out the door.
In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Mike Warkentin sits down with one of CrossFit Mondego’s owners, Luísa Mesquita, to find out exactly how she and her partners transformed a gym with high churn into a 400-plus-member powerhouse with great retention.
Luísa breaks down the key additions that fueled their explosive growth, including a data-driven referral funnel that consistently brings in new leads without ad spend.
In addition to expanding client count, CrossFit Mondego has boosted its revenue with a high-value on-ramp program, as well as small-group and hybrid training.
Luísa explains how her Two-Brain mentor, Brian Foley, helped the gym’s owners make gradual changes to move the needle and scale with sustainable systems—without burning out.
Listen to Luísa's full story, and then use her tips to build a gym where more people stay longer and pay more.
Links
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2:12 - How retention has increased
5:32 - The impact of on-ramp
12:50 - Additional programs driving growth
19:47 - Hyrox at a CrossFit gym
24:30 - Why Luísa slowed down ads
31:56 - Advice for getting more clients
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_03 (00:00):
I'm Luisa Mesquita from CrossFit Mondego, and we
have 429 members.
SPEAKER_01 (00:09):
CrossFit gyms with 400 or more members, they exist,
and you're going to find out howthey acquired so many people
today and run a profitable gym.
I'm your host, Mike Working, andplease hit subscribe wherever
you're watching or listeningwith my thanks.
On our most recent leaderboard,our top 10 gyms for client count
had between 379 and 655 clients.
(00:30):
This is incredible.
Luisa has 400 plus and she madethat leaderboard and she's here
to share her secrets.
Good afternoon from Portugal.
How are you today?
SPEAKER_03 (00:40):
I am fine.
Thank you, Mike.
SPEAKER_01 (00:42):
I am excited to talk to you.
I love hearing about CrossFitgyms with tons of members.
And I especially love talking toCrossFit gyms that aren't in
North America because it's suchan interesting perspective.
So I'm fired up.
We're going to get into it.
You bought the business in 2023.
It had fewer than 300 clientsand you had higher churn.
How did you add a hundred peopleand keep them after you took
(01:02):
over?
SPEAKER_03 (01:04):
So when we took over, I was a former coach in
the business and we identified alot of things that weren't
working in the retention issues.
So the first thing that westarted to do, it was collecting
data.
Data is everything and it showsus a lot of things and we could
(01:26):
identify all the weakness in thebusiness.
And that was the first part ofour entry in the business.
Then we started to do somechanges in the systems.
We established some systems.
It's simple things likeanswering the phone.
So we had a phone.
(01:46):
We're running a website andeverything, but you need to get
the leads inside your gym.
So that was a big difference.
Then we systemized all theprocedures from coaches and
everything to get a betterretention.
So Then we started to, peoplewere coming and then with all
(02:06):
the systems that we put onpractice, we could improve our
retention.
SPEAKER_01 (02:12):
Do you have stats on your retention?
Do you have exact stats bychance?
I didn't ask you for that, butdo you have them?
SPEAKER_03 (02:18):
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (02:19):
I would love to know what you went from and what
you're at now in terms of lengthof engagement.
SPEAKER_03 (02:25):
In terms of length of engagement?
SPEAKER_01 (02:27):
Yeah, do you have that?
If you don't, that's okay.
You can just give me a ballpark.
I'm curious what you've changed
SPEAKER_03 (02:31):
there.
Our leg started in 24 and thennow our leg is like 36.5.
SPEAKER_01 (02:40):
Months?
SPEAKER_03 (02:42):
Yeah, months.
SPEAKER_01 (02:43):
Wow.
So you're keeping people forwell over three years.
SPEAKER_03 (02:46):
Yeah.
Good for you.
So that's incredible.
We had all the knowledgeavailable.
We read all the books and wespent hours.
I'm talking we because we arethree of us running the
business.
And then we started to puteverything on spreadsheets and
look at the numbers and sharewith each other what can we do
(03:11):
because we listen to this and tothat.
And then we started to puteverything on the spreadsheet
and let that speak.
And then you move around that.
SPEAKER_01 (03:22):
Yeah.
So you're, you're relyingheavily on data and here, here's
some data for you.
When I ran a CrossFit gym, uh, Icould have gotten to a 400
members if they weren't allbleeding out every month.
Right.
I acquired 400 members.
I just didn't hold onto them andI could never get past.
That was you.
That's,
SPEAKER_03 (03:37):
That was the big challenge.
And then we created some systemsto get the client journey.
Now we are better in the clientjourney and 2Brain is being very
useful for us to systemizeeverything and then to have a
smooth process.
But that was the first thingthat we identified.
People just came intoexperimental class and sometimes
(04:01):
it was good, sometimes it wasn'tbecause it was a very hard
workout.
Yeah, we did that.
We have already two differentclasses, CrossFit class and the
conditioning class.
It is easier in the skills andthe technique, but it's very
intense.
And people come in, experimentalclass, okay, then they go out
(04:21):
and what happens?
If they want to come, they wantto come.
But if don't, we have to go andfind and talk with them.
And so that was the maindifference in that time, two
years ago.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (04:34):
Yeah.
And you mentioned something elsethat was funny to me because I
did the exact same thing whereyou said, if you want to acquire
more clients, you have to answeryour phone.
And it seems obvious, but I didnot answer my phone.
I was the only person in thebusiness.
I could hear ringing in theoffice and I was coaching,
right?
SPEAKER_03 (04:50):
You're coaching, you're doing the financial stuff
and front desk and everythingand it was a little it was
little changes that all compoundto make a huge huge difference
SPEAKER_01 (05:01):
and that's it's so accurate because when i started
making the same little changesthat you did like picking up the
phone i got more members when istarted checking in with my
members and having goal reviewsessions they stayed longer and
it was just these littleincremental things and all of a
sudden the business getsmomentum and you've taken that
from 300 to 420 members just bydoing these small things let me
ask you a little bit about uhabout the business now i'm gonna
(05:22):
get specific here so So you saidclient journey is big for you.
You've added on-ramp for newmembers.
Now, a lot of people say, oh,that's a barrier to entry and
people don't want to do thatstuff.
How did the on-ramp affect yourgrowth, your average revenue per
member and your retention?
SPEAKER_03 (05:36):
So we were also afraid of running a one-run
program.
We had...
We had only experimental classesand it was okay.
They were coming and we improvedour retention and we thought
that, okay, this is going tobe...
But then we started to thinkthat we want to increase our
(05:57):
ARM.
So...
What kind of things are we goingto do with small group training?
That were things that we addedto our services.
Then, okay, we started to workwith our mentor, Brian.
And the first thing, let's runon ramp.
And we were like, oh no.
(06:18):
It was very challenging in thebeginning.
First in our minds, then puttingon practice and explain that to
our coaches.
And then suddenly two monthsago, okay, we are going to run
on ramp and it worked.
And it's amazing.
19 OneRamp sets in one month.
SPEAKER_02 (06:41):
Really?
SPEAKER_03 (06:41):
And if I'm going to see the numbers, because I have
all the numbers from two yearsuntil now of people signing in,
it was 16, 15, some months willbe 20, but then another 18 or
15.
So the number is very, very,very good compared to
everything.
And the difference is, in thepast, they subscribed for a...
(07:06):
a free pass or twice a week andthen suddenly the value is twice
that value with the one rampsession that is five sessions of
PT and then we can sit again andhave the prescriptions for them.
SPEAKER_01 (07:23):
Wow, so you've taken, put in an on-ramp, you're
selling just as much as you didbefore without the on-ramp
except you're selling likedouble, did I hear double the
price now?
SPEAKER_03 (07:32):
Yeah, if we look to the numbers of our free pass,
Our on-ramp session is thedouble price.
SPEAKER_01 (07:40):
Wow, so you haven't seen a drop-off in clients at
all.
SPEAKER_03 (07:43):
Yeah, for each client, we doubled the entry
value that they increased to thebusiness.
SPEAKER_01 (07:50):
Wow, so you've doubled the value, so your
average revenue per member isgoing way, way up.
Your length of engagement isgoing longer, so you're keeping
people longer.
Everything is compounding, yeah.
right?
More clients at a higher ratewho stay longer.
This is the magic formula forgiant revenue in gyms and profit
and net owner benefits.
So listeners, if you're outthere, this is an incredible
(08:11):
story and it's possible to dothis.
OnRamp is one step in thatprocess, but it's a big one.
I'm going to ask you a coupleother things about that.
Talk to me about, you'vementioned Brian a few times,
talk to me about what role yourmentor played in this growth.
How did you go from, like whenyou came into 2Brain, talk about
your client journey, how didthis work and how did all these
little things add up for you?
SPEAKER_03 (08:30):
So as I'd before, we were a big enthusiast of Two
Brain, the podcast, the freemember group on Facebook, the
books, everything.
But as we listen all the time,knowledge is It's anything if we
don't put it on practice.
So we had a lot of ideas and alot of content in our minds, but
(08:51):
we needed to be more accurate,more straight in the line.
And then suddenly, January thisyear, me and my partners, we
went to Coaches Congress inStockholm.
SPEAKER_01 (09:02):
Nice.
SPEAKER_03 (09:03):
Yeah.
And then, again, we had someconference from two great
business guys, and we werediscussing the need that we had
to get...
someone from the outside justtrying to help us structuring
our thoughts and our actions.
So at that time, it felt like weneed to do this because, okay,
(09:27):
we are getting results, we aregrowing, but we want more.
And for getting more, we need togo to the best and try to learn
from people that are in thebusiness more than we are.
And then we talked in person inthe Coaches Congress.
And then we booked the call andeverything went smoothly.
(09:49):
And now what we feel now,everything has...
a flow that we just need to doour work and of course we need
to do that work otherwise it'snot going to happen it's not
going to be a miracle buteverything runs smooth in the
(10:10):
paid ads it was somethingamazing that everything was on
time and then we talked withColm and then we talked again
with Brian and everything thementorship is getting us on
track and runs smoothly
SPEAKER_01 (10:25):
Okay.
So you looked at all the freestuff.
And again, Chris Cooper'sphilosophy here is no gym left
behind.
So he wants to put in a ton offree content to help gym owners
do whatever they can.
Right.
So like raise your rates.
All this content is out there,but it.
if you have to do the work andthat's the thing that we have
trouble with.
Yeah, it makes a hugedifference, but it's hard.
SPEAKER_03 (10:44):
Because we want to do everything and we want to
listen to everything and readeverything, but then we don't
put anything on practicebecause, or we are going to, in
our case, okay, we worked a loton the retentions and systems
and we are, we, I'm a little bitof a nerd in the data and the
(11:05):
SOPs.
But then it was everything on myhead.
And then Brian told me, okay,just write it.
Okay.
Then going to talk with yourcoaches.
Okay.
Then talk with your front desk.
That was another thing that wedidn't get.
We understand the value of afront side the month that we
(11:25):
hired her because it was amazingthe job that she can do.
And then we have more time tothink and read the data and
choose what we need to gothrough.
SPEAKER_01 (11:38):
Yeah.
So if you're listening outthere, It's important to think
that like you can take all thisstuff that's out there, but when
you find that like, okay, Idon't know exactly what to do
when I want to go furtherfaster.
I want better results.
That's the time to book a calland talk to a mentor because
everything that's free is outthere and it can help you.
And we want that to help you.
But if you really want to startmoving the needle and getting to
(11:58):
that next level, that's what amentor says here.
I've analyzed your business andwe need to target this.
Length of engagement or averagerevenue per member or any of
these other things.
Here is the exact tactic thatyou're going to use right now.
I'm going to tell you how to doit.
Here are the resources.
And I'm going to check in withyou in a week and say, did you
do it?
And then we're going to move onto the next thing.
Is that how your experiencewent, Louisa?
SPEAKER_03 (12:18):
Yeah.
And another thing that I want toshare is when we are freely
getting the knowledge, we wantto do everything.
I'm going to do this and thenI'm going to do that.
And then Brian said, our mentoris like, okay, let's do one
thing at a time.
UNKNOWN (12:32):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (12:32):
Let's do one thing well, and then we move to
another one.
And that's the importance of thementorship.
And in other areas of businessand in other areas of life,
that's important.
And that's what's going to runsmoothly everything.
SPEAKER_01 (12:49):
So you talked about some of the stuff that helped
your growth is on-ramp becauseyou're bringing people at a
higher rate, but they're alsostaying longer.
Talk to me about some of theother additional programs you're
using to drive growth, likeSmall Group, High Rocks.
What else have you got going onthere?
SPEAKER_03 (13:01):
Small Group was the big...
Biggest improvement that we did.
SPEAKER_01 (13:04):
Okay.
What happens there?
SPEAKER_03 (13:06):
Yeah.
Back in time, we just hadCrossFit classes and
conditioning classes.
And then some accessory core andflow and mobility and nothing
else.
But big groups always.
So a value per session, a littlebit lower.
A little bit.
How
SPEAKER_01 (13:22):
big is a big group for you?
SPEAKER_03 (13:23):
And for us, we had 30 people in the CrossFit class
and 26 on the conditioning.
That's a big group.
Yeah, we have a big space.
And then it's two differentareas.
And we can run a CrossFit classwith 30 students with two
coaches running the class.
And then 26 for theconditioning, that's easiest,
(13:45):
low skill class, but highintensity.
So that's a big group for us.
And we have more than 60 classesduring the week.
So we have a lot of studentscoming.
We have approximately 200students coming daily.
So it's hard stuff to manage allthe schedule.
(14:06):
It's a challenge for us.
Then back, I think in the end of2023, we were, okay, we need to
get more money per member.
So what can we do?
We had the small space overthere that, okay, let's do some
construction.
works here nothing veryexpensive and let's try small
(14:28):
group okay four persons maximumand we tried okay let's see one
month two months three monthsthen suddenly in this moment I
have in small group training 31students We have an increase of
value in our ARM because these31 students, they pay at the
(14:51):
double that the other ones.
Twice
SPEAKER_01 (14:53):
as much as your big group clients.
SPEAKER_03 (14:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think more.
Yeah.
In average, it will be thatnumber.
Okay.
So, okay.
There are 31 now.
They started like two or three,but this is compounding.
And that was the, and it's athing that we are going to
continuing to get our credits onthat.
SPEAKER_01 (15:18):
And do they do, oh, pardon me, go
SPEAKER_03 (15:20):
ahead.
Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, no,
SPEAKER_01 (15:22):
no.
In that small group setting, arethey doing the same workout with
one coach?
SPEAKER_03 (15:27):
No.
SPEAKER_01 (15:29):
What are they doing?
SPEAKER_03 (15:30):
So we have a specific programming to small
group training and then we havehybrid programming.
So we have small group trainingwith the normal programming that
is adjusted to the CrossFitprogramming.
And then we have hybrid that weare going to do like the
(15:50):
prescriptive model.
And our client asks us to workout the upper body or just lower
body.
And we have the different kindof workouts in the same space.
SPEAKER_01 (16:05):
Okay, so some of it's personalized in the hybrid
stream.
SPEAKER_03 (16:08):
Yeah, but not in the 100% that we want because we
have to improve the systems withour coaches and getting them on
track to do different workoutsfor members.
(16:28):
The senior coaches, they canhandle it.
But we see that the youngest,it's a challenge.
SPEAKER_01 (16:34):
Okay, so what you've got is a small group training
with some hybrid stuff going onand you're looking maybe at some
semi-private stuff down theroad.
Is that accurate?
SPEAKER_03 (16:41):
Yeah, semi-private.
That was the missing word, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (16:44):
And listeners, I'll give you a quick description.
Small group is going to be oneworkout and it's probably about
four people in there and there'sa coach and they're going to do
variations of that workout.
It's like a small CrossFit groupclass.
Here's the thing though.
In some CrossFit gyms, like theone that I used to run, I was
doing small group training byaccident.
I wanted 30 people like Mariehas got, Louise has got, but I
(17:04):
was, you know, doing it theother way where I had, four
people show up or two people orone people.
I was in PT and it was callingit group sessions.
That's a whole mistake.
The other side of that issemi-private training.
And that's where you have, it'sbasically personal training in a
group setting.
So you've got maybe fourdifferent people and one's doing
an OCR program.
One is doing hypertrophy.
(17:26):
One is doing maybe a CrossFitworkout.
One is doing powerlifting,whatever.
They all have their ownprograms.
And one coach delivers thatpersonalized program to each of
those clients.
This is a very, very high valueprogram where they're paying
higher rates than group rates,higher rates than small group
rates.
It's premium, but it's less thanone-on-one personal training.
So those are the variations.
Go ahead.
What do you
SPEAKER_03 (17:46):
got?
That's the
SPEAKER_01 (17:47):
next step.
That's the next step.
SPEAKER_03 (17:49):
Yeah, but I want to share another thing that was my
partner's idea to improve ourretention when we identified
some...
So we track if they are comingor not, the red flags they are
missing for one or two weeks,and then we call them, etc.
And then suddenly...
My partner, Ricardo, proposedthat to us.
(18:12):
When we identify someone withsome kind of injury, let's
invite them to one session inthe small group.
SPEAKER_01 (18:19):
Oh, I like that.
SPEAKER_03 (18:21):
Yeah.
And then what worked for us, itwas two different things.
One, we can take care of ourclients just one week or two,
and then they will return togroup classes and Great, because
they kept going to the gym.
Another thing that happened, itwas that guy that was like one
(18:42):
or two years with us, and it waslike, okay, this is always the
same.
Of course, it's not always thesame because we don't have to
work out the same, but...
They tried our small grouptraining, and then suddenly, I
want to do one month in smallgroup training.
And suddenly, our client ingroup class pays X, and then in
(19:08):
PT small group, they pay double.
So for us, it was another way ofincreasing our ARM with one
strategy that started to justworry about retention, and then
suddenly just improved our ARMalso.
SPEAKER_01 (19:23):
wow that i love that i love the way that's evolving
because that's what we often sawin crossfit gyms is they would
acquire members but they weren'thigh value members and there's
nothing wrong with that but ifyou want to increase the value
of your time and pay yourcoaches more and increase
revenue fast pt one-on-one smallgroup semi-private training
these high value options can betacked on to a group program and
(19:43):
all of a sudden revenue goes upa lot so that's exactly what
we're seeing at your gym talk tome about high rocks this is a
big deal in europe it's a bigdeal around the world now what's
going on there
SPEAKER_03 (19:52):
so high rocks was Our conditioning class, if we
are looking in the physiologicalway of looking at things, it was
similar, okay?
It wasn't IROX.
It didn't have the running focusthat IROX needs, but it was a
great class.
And then in Europe, two or threeyears ago, we started to talk
(20:15):
about IROX and we were like, no,okay, IROX, but our conditioning
is good.
We are not going to changeanything.
But then...
The hype of IROX is like boomhere in Europe.
SPEAKER_02 (20:27):
It's
SPEAKER_03 (20:27):
here.
Yeah.
And then we have the IROXambassador here in Portugal,
Thiago Louza.
It's a great friend of us.
And we started to, okay, let'stry this.
Let's get the hype in thismoment.
And then we want to subscribe.
And then we got the affiliation.
(20:48):
And...
In the beginning, it wasDecember last year, we didn't
add more classes in thebeginning, we just changed it.
Again, we looked at the numbersand we identified which class
had the fewer members in thattime of the day.
We know more or less people thatare running awfully the same
(21:10):
classes.
Okay, we are going to try thisschedule, this one, this one,
this one.
And it was amazing.
A lot of people engaged.
And then suddenly, okay, we needto add more classes and then we
add more classes and we I thinkwe we have like version 4 or 5
from the schedule because we arealways changing everything but
(21:33):
it's I think from now for nowit's it's being a good thing
because we have people fromother gyms that don't have IROX
affiliation or CrossFitaffiliation anything that they
are like okay they have sledsand a 30 meter running track to
the sleds and let's try andlet's let's ask them if they
(21:55):
have IROX IROX program orsomething like that.
So we are now getting morestudents, more leads,
specifically for IROX.
Wow.
Yeah.
There's only, we are not a verybig town, but there's only two
CrossFit gyms and the two IROXgyms.
(22:18):
But there's a big hype goingaround IROX and they just got
with the flow and it's beengreat for us.
SPEAKER_01 (22:26):
Okay, I have two specific questions about that.
The first one, do you have aspecific IROX membership or is
it just like a group trainingmembership so they can go to
those classes?
SPEAKER_03 (22:35):
Yeah.
Our membership is free.
If you have the free pass, youcan choose CrossFit,
conditioning, or IROX.
You choose everything.
SPEAKER_01 (22:46):
But you're getting leads who specifically want
IROX.
Okay, so that's a big deal.
So that's really, reallyinteresting.
My second question is, would yousay that you're seeing a good
return on your investment inIROX affiliation?
SPEAKER_03 (22:59):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, you are.
Sorry, sorry.
In
SPEAKER_01 (23:02):
High Rocks affiliation, like you paid, are
you seeing a return oninvestment in
SPEAKER_03 (23:06):
that?
UNKNOWN (23:06):
Uh...
SPEAKER_03 (23:07):
I need to check the numbers.
SPEAKER_01 (23:09):
No, you're a data person.
That's okay.
I just threw that one at you,but I was just curious.
That's interesting.
And if you're not breaking itdown by stream, that's okay
because you're selling onemembership and they can go.
So I've asked other gym ownersthis question and it can be
difficult to pull that numberup, but I was just curious if
you had a gut sense.
SPEAKER_03 (23:24):
I think we now get the information because we now
are running an SI since we aretwo-member mentees.
And then we just checkeverything and we register
everything.
So we know, I think in sixmonths from now, if I'm going to
(23:45):
be here with you again, I'mgoing to tell you.
Yeah, that's it.
100 members, 20 were looking forIROX.
And I sold 20 memberships andthen I'm going to do the maths
and I'm going to see if it'sworth or not.
SPEAKER_01 (23:59):
Yeah, so you're still in the early stages of it.
We'll check back with youbecause we know this IROX is a
big deal.
And I'm talking to gym ownersabout this regularly, some of
whom are doing what you'redoing.
doing where they're bringing itin other people are looking at
very specific angles for highrocks we'll figure it out and
then listeners will tell youwhat the best thing you can do
with that program is becauseit's a big deal and a lot of
crossfit gyms are finding thatif they have the space or even
(24:20):
some that don't you candefinitely acquire people who
are interested in that programand you have most of the
equipment sleds might be theonly thing but a lot of crossfit
gyms have those sleds anyway sothat's okay now here's the
interesting thing so you talkedyou talked to me before the show
and you said that you'veadjusted your ad campaigns
because you're getting too manyleads this is the greatest thing
ever, but you've adjusted itbecause why?
What are you working on now?
SPEAKER_03 (24:41):
Yeah, we adjust why?
Because we felt that it wasn'tfair to get the leads and don't
have the ability to call them orto write them an email.
SPEAKER_01 (24:50):
Okay, so you'd grow too fast and it'd be a problem.
SPEAKER_03 (24:52):
Yeah, the feeling that we had, it was because...
In an experimental class, thenew guy is going straight to a
class.
And if there are 20 or 25students or four, it's the same.
There's one coach there forthem.
When we have the on-rampprogram, I need one coach to one
student.
(25:13):
So we had the staff problem.
As our mentor told us, it's agood problem.
But then we had to adjust.
And everything, it was one monthrunning.
And then we had leads comingfrom paying ads and from the
other funnels that I think wework well, our referral funnel.
(25:33):
And then suddenly, yeah, no,that's the biggest one.
And I have data on that.
And that's the number one
SPEAKER_01 (25:39):
for us.
I want to hear that after.
Finish what you're saying andwe're going to hit referrals
because that's a big deal.
SPEAKER_03 (25:43):
And then suddenly we were running ads and everything
was okay.
Colm was amazing with us.
And then I was, Colm, we need toslow down because I can't
have...
10 people every day coming to mybeta business.
I was afraid of clicking themeta business because they were
(26:03):
a lot.
And the feeling was, I'm goingto lose these leads because I
can answer them.
And I cannot put them on theon-ramp program because I don't
have schedule for them.
So we talk with our staff.
We've made the little changes.
We increased the number of hoursof some of them.
Me and my partners, okay, let'sgo.
(26:25):
And then we are going to runmore classes in this phase to
help and to establish all theprocedures and everything
because if we want to delegate,we need to do that and
understand and have the feelingof what's working or not.
And then we slow down a littlebit our ads, but then we have
(26:46):
like daily six, seven leads, wecall them.
We have all the tracking of theset rate and the close rate.
So It was one necessity to slowdown a little bit the ads, to
have some time to breathe andreschedule everything and put
everything working.
SPEAKER_01 (27:05):
Okay, so you laid out a trap that many people fall
victim to and it happened to me.
I started running ads around aspecial program.
I got a ton of people in thedoor.
I put in like 30 or 40 people asthis huge crowd and I didn't
have enough coaches so theyweren't getting the attention
they needed.
And that's a bad experience.
Right?
It's a bad experience.
My existing clients were upsetbecause there was too many
people in the gym.
(27:25):
The people that came in that biggroup of 30 to 40, many of them,
I want to say 95% left becausewe didn't follow up with them.
We didn't work on retention.
We didn't find out what theirgoals were.
And so this giant boost that Ihad washed out immediately and
my current members were upset.
So it's very tempting to try andgrow fast.
It's a better plan to growslowly and sustainably and chip
(27:46):
up.
Yep.
Just get that on
SPEAKER_03 (27:48):
ramp.
My partners, they are amazing inthe sales systems.
Yeah.
They...
And...
what we felt with the NSI, theon-ramp, it's possible and it's,
you can train it, you can workout on that and be good at
sales.
We have, João is amazing,Ricardo is amazing and then we
(28:09):
are trying to get reps, reps,reps, reps and then just
delegate to our coaches becauseit's possible.
I didn't sell anything to anyoneever and then suddenly I have
like 10 NSIs closed to on-rampso it's possible.
SPEAKER_01 (28:24):
So you learned and your mentor taught you Brian?
SPEAKER_03 (28:25):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And do reps with my, mypartners, do reps with my
partners, do reps with thestaff.
It's amazing.
That's interesting.
Go ahead.
We have regularly weeklymeetings with the staff, with
our staff.
That's another thing thatchanged from the, the, the, the,
since we, we, we run thebusiness and everything can, can
(28:47):
be done with reps regularly.
and the right orientation fromour mentor.
SPEAKER_01 (28:53):
Yeah.
So again, this is again, thevalue we're talking about free
content versus a mentor.
Here's an interesting thing.
If you're getting a ton of leadsand you're getting, you have
this free content, you use allthis stuff to get a bunch of
leads, but your close rate isterrible.
And one out of 10 people signsup, you're wasting those leads
because you're bad at sales.
A mentor can say your salesmetrics are not very good.
We are going to slow this down.
(29:13):
We're going to get you somesales training.
We're going to make you betterat training, selling, pardon me.
And when we get your close rateand that's 70, 80, 85% range,
then we're going to startworking on getting more leads in
because you're going to closeeight or nine out of 10 as
opposed to one out of 10.
We're not going to waste your addollars or whatever.
That is a key point ofmentorship.
I need to ask you this.
This is a big deal.
Referral funnel.
What have you got there?
SPEAKER_03 (29:34):
It's amazing.
In our client journey, the pastclient journey, now it's
improved since we work with ourmentor.
We decided to, okay, we didn'thave NSIs or gold reviews.
It was everything, a lot oforganic things happened, but
then we established, okay, sincethey are here in our gym, okay,
(29:55):
one month now, we are going tochat them in WhatsApp and tell
them something.
And we're going to offer one PTsmall group session or one
hybrid session.
And then in that process, insome week of that process, okay,
let us know Who do you want tocome here to experiment?
(30:16):
And that time was experimentalclasses.
Who do you want to offer asession or something like that?
It was amazing because...
Because if we do this in thesame frequency, like you enter
now at the gym and one monthfrom now, I'm going to ask you
referrals.
Yes.
There's someone that is going toenter the gym tomorrow or the
day after tomorrow.
(30:37):
So one week and one day after,in the next week, in the next
week, we are getting ourreferrals done.
In a constant way.
And when I look at the numbers,I see that the most people that
come to our gym, it's alwaysfrom referral funnel.
SPEAKER_01 (30:59):
Turin teaches clients to build four different
funnels?
you've got referrals is the mostimportant one, but you can't
just ask a new person, Hey, yougot any friends?
You have to do it at a specifictime.
She talked about the specifictime
SPEAKER_03 (31:11):
and a specific moment.
SPEAKER_01 (31:12):
There you go.
And that, and we teach peoplehow to find it.
SPEAKER_03 (31:16):
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (31:17):
You can't just say like, you can't, you know, it's
just not a thing that's going towork.
You have to do, you have to bevery clear about when you ask
for those referrals and there isa system for doing it.
When you do that, some gyms thatI know, um, run exclusively on
referrals they don't have theydon't need anything else because
they fill their gyms with thatbut we would always recommend
four different funnels you'vegot organic social media you've
(31:38):
got content and then you've gotpaid ads and if you have all
four of those funnels running atonce then you can be assured
that your gym will always havenew leads and new clients so
yeah but start with referralsbecause it's the free one you
don't have to it's nothing butyour time and you but you have
to talk to your clients to do itso i'm going to close this out
you've done given me a ton ofinformation here I'm going to,
(31:59):
what is, if someone is out thereand saying, I want to build a
gym with a lot of clients, thisis a trap because a lot of
people tried to do it and wemade huge mistakes and destroyed
our businesses.
How would you advise them to doit properly so that they build,
they get a lot of clients, butthey don't fall apart?
What would you do?
SPEAKER_03 (32:17):
First, we have to have space and staff for all of
that, okay?
And we need to have a vision.
One of my partners is amazing atdoing that.
We have a long-term vision andto be scalable, the business.
Because if we are going to justfocus on the members, we are
going to...
It will probably be a messbecause you need extra revenue
(32:41):
from other things.
Because when you...
Okay, your business...
I had 300 members and now I have130 more.
So my expenses will be more,that's obvious.
So we need to have more thingsto structure the business and to
be able to run everything.
(33:02):
I think if I didn't get on thisbusiness like I did because I
was a coach and then I boughtthe business, I think the first
thing that I would do, it waslistening to someone that
already knows how to run abusiness.
And I think the mentorship isamazing for that.
(33:25):
What I feel is that we are inthe first steps, but I think we
are in the first steps with alot of things.
done already and we are just wewant more okay Brian is always
okay calm down but I thinksystems
SPEAKER_02 (33:46):
there it is I
SPEAKER_03 (33:46):
think it's everything and data Because data
is going to show us if myexpenses are higher or if my
revenue, how is going, how am Igoing to pay everything, number
of frequency of classes, why Ihave to have a class with two or
(34:07):
three people.
That's not, it's not going towork.
I'm going to throw money away.
So data systems are, I don'tknow, and a big space to have
all of the 429 students in.
SPEAKER_01 (34:23):
So if I look at your business, here's this plan that
I'm going to lay out forlisteners, and you tell me if
you agree with me because I'mbasing this on what I think
you've done.
If I wanted to build a400-member CrossFit gym, I would
first address my retention.
I would figure out the best wayto hold on to every single
client that I get for as long aspossible, and I would do that
(34:45):
first– by putting in an on-rampand doing goal review sessions
90 days after that person comesin through the business.
Those are the two things that Iwould do.
And the third thing is I wouldsystemize everything in my
business because if you don'tsystemize it, the screws are
going to come up.
Everything's going to rattleapart because you're going to
have too many people too fast.
Then you're going to startbleeding people.
(35:05):
So those three things, thestep-by-step plan for that
exists, Two Brain created it,and a mentor can lay it out for
you.
So I would get a mentor.
Those four things.
What do you think?
SPEAKER_03 (35:14):
Yeah, I completely agree.
And the second that you told...
establishing the connection withour clients not in a in a big
group class but in goal reviewsessions seated with them taking
a coffee the connection with theclients i think we are strong in
that also we have a bigcommunity when you have a when
(35:35):
we have a holiday and the box isclosed and then we we just open
the open class session and thenit's like 100 people doing a
workout with us so the strongconnection that we built and we
are in i think the the nsi thethe goal review it's very very
important because that's what inthe end it's going to keep us
(35:56):
keep the clients with us if we Ihave my own PTs my clients and
they are with me a lot of liketwo or three or four or five
more years because we have aconnection and when we and if
you could establish thatconnection but it's not me Luisa
the owner it's everyone it's thecoach is the cleaner is the
(36:17):
front desk and we when we haveall the systems to Okay, cheer
up and have a high five and talkto the client by his name.
And then we have like brightspots for the clients that we
send every Monday.
That's going to make thedifference in the end of the
game.
SPEAKER_01 (36:37):
I love it.
So listeners, do not set a goalof getting 400 members in your
CrossFit gym.
Set a goal of getting 150 in abusiness that runs like a
well-oiled machine.
Then...
set an average revenue permember goal of about$205.
Then...
Get a mentor to figure out howto scale up.
And if you want to get to 420with great retention and high
(36:57):
average revenue per member likeLouisa has, then you can do it.
But don't set that goal of like,I need 400 people.
Get 150, then move up with awell-oiled machine underneath
you and things will go well.
Thank you so much for sharingyour story.
I appreciate it so much.
SPEAKER_03 (37:11):
Thank you, Mike.
Thank you, Mike.
SPEAKER_01 (37:12):
I'm going to get you back and we'll talk high rocks
again.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
That was Louisa Moschita andthis is Run a Profitable Gym.
I'm Mike Morgan.
And please hit subscribewherever you're watching and
listening with my thanks.
We crank this stuff out everysingle week to help gym owners
like you.
And now, here's to rain finderChris Cooper with a final
message.
SPEAKER_00 (37:30):
Hey, it's Two Brain founder Chris 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
kinds of great resources to helpyou grow your gym.
(37:51):
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!
I'm Luisa Mesquita from CrossFit Mondego, and we
have 429 members.
SPEAKER_01 (00:09):
CrossFit gyms with 400 or more members, they exist,
and you're going to find out howthey acquired so many people
today and run a profitable gym.
I'm your host, Mike Working, andplease hit subscribe wherever
you're watching or listeningwith my thanks.
On our most recent leaderboard,our top 10 gyms for client count
had between 379 and 655 clients.
(00:30):
This is incredible.
Luisa has 400 plus and she madethat leaderboard and she's here
to share her secrets.
Good afternoon from Portugal.
How are you today?
SPEAKER_03 (00:40):
I am fine.
Thank you, Mike.
SPEAKER_01 (00:42):
I am excited to talk to you.
I love hearing about CrossFitgyms with tons of members.
And I especially love talking toCrossFit gyms that aren't in
North America because it's suchan interesting perspective.
So I'm fired up.
We're going to get into it.
You bought the business in 2023.
It had fewer than 300 clientsand you had higher churn.
How did you add a hundred peopleand keep them after you took
(01:02):
over?
SPEAKER_03 (01:04):
So when we took over, I was a former coach in
the business and we identified alot of things that weren't
working in the retention issues.
So the first thing that westarted to do, it was collecting
data.
Data is everything and it showsus a lot of things and we could
(01:26):
identify all the weakness in thebusiness.
And that was the first part ofour entry in the business.
Then we started to do somechanges in the systems.
We established some systems.
It's simple things likeanswering the phone.
So we had a phone.
(01:46):
We're running a website andeverything, but you need to get
the leads inside your gym.
So that was a big difference.
Then we systemized all theprocedures from coaches and
everything to get a betterretention.
So Then we started to, peoplewere coming and then with all
(02:06):
the systems that we put onpractice, we could improve our
retention.
SPEAKER_01 (02:12):
Do you have stats on your retention?
Do you have exact stats bychance?
I didn't ask you for that, butdo you have them?
SPEAKER_03 (02:18):
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (02:19):
I would love to know what you went from and what
you're at now in terms of lengthof engagement.
SPEAKER_03 (02:25):
In terms of length of engagement?
SPEAKER_01 (02:27):
Yeah, do you have that?
If you don't, that's okay.
You can just give me a ballpark.
I'm curious what you've changed
SPEAKER_03 (02:31):
there.
Our leg started in 24 and thennow our leg is like 36.5.
SPEAKER_01 (02:40):
Months?
SPEAKER_03 (02:42):
Yeah, months.
SPEAKER_01 (02:43):
Wow.
So you're keeping people forwell over three years.
SPEAKER_03 (02:46):
Yeah.
Good for you.
So that's incredible.
We had all the knowledgeavailable.
We read all the books and wespent hours.
I'm talking we because we arethree of us running the
business.
And then we started to puteverything on spreadsheets and
look at the numbers and sharewith each other what can we do
(03:11):
because we listen to this and tothat.
And then we started to puteverything on the spreadsheet
and let that speak.
And then you move around that.
SPEAKER_01 (03:22):
Yeah.
So you're, you're relyingheavily on data and here, here's
some data for you.
When I ran a CrossFit gym, uh, Icould have gotten to a 400
members if they weren't allbleeding out every month.
Right.
I acquired 400 members.
I just didn't hold onto them andI could never get past.
That was you.
That's,
SPEAKER_03 (03:37):
That was the big challenge.
And then we created some systemsto get the client journey.
Now we are better in the clientjourney and 2Brain is being very
useful for us to systemizeeverything and then to have a
smooth process.
But that was the first thingthat we identified.
People just came intoexperimental class and sometimes
(04:01):
it was good, sometimes it wasn'tbecause it was a very hard
workout.
Yeah, we did that.
We have already two differentclasses, CrossFit class and the
conditioning class.
It is easier in the skills andthe technique, but it's very
intense.
And people come in, experimentalclass, okay, then they go out
(04:21):
and what happens?
If they want to come, they wantto come.
But if don't, we have to go andfind and talk with them.
And so that was the maindifference in that time, two
years ago.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (04:34):
Yeah.
And you mentioned something elsethat was funny to me because I
did the exact same thing whereyou said, if you want to acquire
more clients, you have to answeryour phone.
And it seems obvious, but I didnot answer my phone.
I was the only person in thebusiness.
I could hear ringing in theoffice and I was coaching,
right?
SPEAKER_03 (04:50):
You're coaching, you're doing the financial stuff
and front desk and everythingand it was a little it was
little changes that all compoundto make a huge huge difference
SPEAKER_01 (05:01):
and that's it's so accurate because when i started
making the same little changesthat you did like picking up the
phone i got more members when istarted checking in with my
members and having goal reviewsessions they stayed longer and
it was just these littleincremental things and all of a
sudden the business getsmomentum and you've taken that
from 300 to 420 members just bydoing these small things let me
ask you a little bit about uhabout the business now i'm gonna
(05:22):
get specific here so So you saidclient journey is big for you.
You've added on-ramp for newmembers.
Now, a lot of people say, oh,that's a barrier to entry and
people don't want to do thatstuff.
How did the on-ramp affect yourgrowth, your average revenue per
member and your retention?
SPEAKER_03 (05:36):
So we were also afraid of running a one-run
program.
We had...
We had only experimental classesand it was okay.
They were coming and we improvedour retention and we thought
that, okay, this is going tobe...
But then we started to thinkthat we want to increase our
(05:57):
ARM.
So...
What kind of things are we goingto do with small group training?
That were things that we addedto our services.
Then, okay, we started to workwith our mentor, Brian.
And the first thing, let's runon ramp.
And we were like, oh no.
(06:18):
It was very challenging in thebeginning.
First in our minds, then puttingon practice and explain that to
our coaches.
And then suddenly two monthsago, okay, we are going to run
on ramp and it worked.
And it's amazing.
19 OneRamp sets in one month.
SPEAKER_02 (06:41):
Really?
SPEAKER_03 (06:41):
And if I'm going to see the numbers, because I have
all the numbers from two yearsuntil now of people signing in,
it was 16, 15, some months willbe 20, but then another 18 or
15.
So the number is very, very,very good compared to
everything.
And the difference is, in thepast, they subscribed for a...
(07:06):
a free pass or twice a week andthen suddenly the value is twice
that value with the one rampsession that is five sessions of
PT and then we can sit again andhave the prescriptions for them.
SPEAKER_01 (07:23):
Wow, so you've taken, put in an on-ramp, you're
selling just as much as you didbefore without the on-ramp
except you're selling likedouble, did I hear double the
price now?
SPEAKER_03 (07:32):
Yeah, if we look to the numbers of our free pass,
Our on-ramp session is thedouble price.
SPEAKER_01 (07:40):
Wow, so you haven't seen a drop-off in clients at
all.
SPEAKER_03 (07:43):
Yeah, for each client, we doubled the entry
value that they increased to thebusiness.
SPEAKER_01 (07:50):
Wow, so you've doubled the value, so your
average revenue per member isgoing way, way up.
Your length of engagement isgoing longer, so you're keeping
people longer.
Everything is compounding, yeah.
right?
More clients at a higher ratewho stay longer.
This is the magic formula forgiant revenue in gyms and profit
and net owner benefits.
So listeners, if you're outthere, this is an incredible
(08:11):
story and it's possible to dothis.
OnRamp is one step in thatprocess, but it's a big one.
I'm going to ask you a coupleother things about that.
Talk to me about, you'vementioned Brian a few times,
talk to me about what role yourmentor played in this growth.
How did you go from, like whenyou came into 2Brain, talk about
your client journey, how didthis work and how did all these
little things add up for you?
SPEAKER_03 (08:30):
So as I'd before, we were a big enthusiast of Two
Brain, the podcast, the freemember group on Facebook, the
books, everything.
But as we listen all the time,knowledge is It's anything if we
don't put it on practice.
So we had a lot of ideas and alot of content in our minds, but
(08:51):
we needed to be more accurate,more straight in the line.
And then suddenly, January thisyear, me and my partners, we
went to Coaches Congress inStockholm.
SPEAKER_01 (09:02):
Nice.
SPEAKER_03 (09:03):
Yeah.
And then, again, we had someconference from two great
business guys, and we werediscussing the need that we had
to get...
someone from the outside justtrying to help us structuring
our thoughts and our actions.
So at that time, it felt like weneed to do this because, okay,
(09:27):
we are getting results, we aregrowing, but we want more.
And for getting more, we need togo to the best and try to learn
from people that are in thebusiness more than we are.
And then we talked in person inthe Coaches Congress.
And then we booked the call andeverything went smoothly.
(09:49):
And now what we feel now,everything has...
a flow that we just need to doour work and of course we need
to do that work otherwise it'snot going to happen it's not
going to be a miracle buteverything runs smooth in the
(10:10):
paid ads it was somethingamazing that everything was on
time and then we talked withColm and then we talked again
with Brian and everything thementorship is getting us on
track and runs smoothly
SPEAKER_01 (10:25):
Okay.
So you looked at all the freestuff.
And again, Chris Cooper'sphilosophy here is no gym left
behind.
So he wants to put in a ton offree content to help gym owners
do whatever they can.
Right.
So like raise your rates.
All this content is out there,but it.
if you have to do the work andthat's the thing that we have
trouble with.
Yeah, it makes a hugedifference, but it's hard.
SPEAKER_03 (10:44):
Because we want to do everything and we want to
listen to everything and readeverything, but then we don't
put anything on practicebecause, or we are going to, in
our case, okay, we worked a loton the retentions and systems
and we are, we, I'm a little bitof a nerd in the data and the
(11:05):
SOPs.
But then it was everything on myhead.
And then Brian told me, okay,just write it.
Okay.
Then going to talk with yourcoaches.
Okay.
Then talk with your front desk.
That was another thing that wedidn't get.
We understand the value of afront side the month that we
(11:25):
hired her because it was amazingthe job that she can do.
And then we have more time tothink and read the data and
choose what we need to gothrough.
SPEAKER_01 (11:38):
Yeah.
So if you're listening outthere, It's important to think
that like you can take all thisstuff that's out there, but when
you find that like, okay, Idon't know exactly what to do
when I want to go furtherfaster.
I want better results.
That's the time to book a calland talk to a mentor because
everything that's free is outthere and it can help you.
And we want that to help you.
But if you really want to startmoving the needle and getting to
(11:58):
that next level, that's what amentor says here.
I've analyzed your business andwe need to target this.
Length of engagement or averagerevenue per member or any of
these other things.
Here is the exact tactic thatyou're going to use right now.
I'm going to tell you how to doit.
Here are the resources.
And I'm going to check in withyou in a week and say, did you
do it?
And then we're going to move onto the next thing.
Is that how your experiencewent, Louisa?
SPEAKER_03 (12:18):
Yeah.
And another thing that I want toshare is when we are freely
getting the knowledge, we wantto do everything.
I'm going to do this and thenI'm going to do that.
And then Brian said, our mentoris like, okay, let's do one
thing at a time.
UNKNOWN (12:32):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (12:32):
Let's do one thing well, and then we move to
another one.
And that's the importance of thementorship.
And in other areas of businessand in other areas of life,
that's important.
And that's what's going to runsmoothly everything.
SPEAKER_01 (12:49):
So you talked about some of the stuff that helped
your growth is on-ramp becauseyou're bringing people at a
higher rate, but they're alsostaying longer.
Talk to me about some of theother additional programs you're
using to drive growth, likeSmall Group, High Rocks.
What else have you got going onthere?
SPEAKER_03 (13:01):
Small Group was the big...
Biggest improvement that we did.
SPEAKER_01 (13:04):
Okay.
What happens there?
SPEAKER_03 (13:06):
Yeah.
Back in time, we just hadCrossFit classes and
conditioning classes.
And then some accessory core andflow and mobility and nothing
else.
But big groups always.
So a value per session, a littlebit lower.
A little bit.
How
SPEAKER_01 (13:22):
big is a big group for you?
SPEAKER_03 (13:23):
And for us, we had 30 people in the CrossFit class
and 26 on the conditioning.
That's a big group.
Yeah, we have a big space.
And then it's two differentareas.
And we can run a CrossFit classwith 30 students with two
coaches running the class.
And then 26 for theconditioning, that's easiest,
(13:45):
low skill class, but highintensity.
So that's a big group for us.
And we have more than 60 classesduring the week.
So we have a lot of studentscoming.
We have approximately 200students coming daily.
So it's hard stuff to manage allthe schedule.
(14:06):
It's a challenge for us.
Then back, I think in the end of2023, we were, okay, we need to
get more money per member.
So what can we do?
We had the small space overthere that, okay, let's do some
construction.
works here nothing veryexpensive and let's try small
(14:28):
group okay four persons maximumand we tried okay let's see one
month two months three monthsthen suddenly in this moment I
have in small group training 31students We have an increase of
value in our ARM because these31 students, they pay at the
(14:51):
double that the other ones.
Twice
SPEAKER_01 (14:53):
as much as your big group clients.
SPEAKER_03 (14:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think more.
Yeah.
In average, it will be thatnumber.
Okay.
So, okay.
There are 31 now.
They started like two or three,but this is compounding.
And that was the, and it's athing that we are going to
continuing to get our credits onthat.
SPEAKER_01 (15:18):
And do they do, oh, pardon me, go
SPEAKER_03 (15:20):
ahead.
Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, no,
SPEAKER_01 (15:22):
no.
In that small group setting, arethey doing the same workout with
one coach?
SPEAKER_03 (15:27):
No.
SPEAKER_01 (15:29):
What are they doing?
SPEAKER_03 (15:30):
So we have a specific programming to small
group training and then we havehybrid programming.
So we have small group trainingwith the normal programming that
is adjusted to the CrossFitprogramming.
And then we have hybrid that weare going to do like the
(15:50):
prescriptive model.
And our client asks us to workout the upper body or just lower
body.
And we have the different kindof workouts in the same space.
SPEAKER_01 (16:05):
Okay, so some of it's personalized in the hybrid
stream.
SPEAKER_03 (16:08):
Yeah, but not in the 100% that we want because we
have to improve the systems withour coaches and getting them on
track to do different workoutsfor members.
(16:28):
The senior coaches, they canhandle it.
But we see that the youngest,it's a challenge.
SPEAKER_01 (16:34):
Okay, so what you've got is a small group training
with some hybrid stuff going onand you're looking maybe at some
semi-private stuff down theroad.
Is that accurate?
SPEAKER_03 (16:41):
Yeah, semi-private.
That was the missing word, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (16:44):
And listeners, I'll give you a quick description.
Small group is going to be oneworkout and it's probably about
four people in there and there'sa coach and they're going to do
variations of that workout.
It's like a small CrossFit groupclass.
Here's the thing though.
In some CrossFit gyms, like theone that I used to run, I was
doing small group training byaccident.
I wanted 30 people like Mariehas got, Louise has got, but I
(17:04):
was, you know, doing it theother way where I had, four
people show up or two people orone people.
I was in PT and it was callingit group sessions.
That's a whole mistake.
The other side of that issemi-private training.
And that's where you have, it'sbasically personal training in a
group setting.
So you've got maybe fourdifferent people and one's doing
an OCR program.
One is doing hypertrophy.
(17:26):
One is doing maybe a CrossFitworkout.
One is doing powerlifting,whatever.
They all have their ownprograms.
And one coach delivers thatpersonalized program to each of
those clients.
This is a very, very high valueprogram where they're paying
higher rates than group rates,higher rates than small group
rates.
It's premium, but it's less thanone-on-one personal training.
So those are the variations.
Go ahead.
What do you
SPEAKER_03 (17:46):
got?
That's the
SPEAKER_01 (17:47):
next step.
That's the next step.
SPEAKER_03 (17:49):
Yeah, but I want to share another thing that was my
partner's idea to improve ourretention when we identified
some...
So we track if they are comingor not, the red flags they are
missing for one or two weeks,and then we call them, etc.
And then suddenly...
My partner, Ricardo, proposedthat to us.
(18:12):
When we identify someone withsome kind of injury, let's
invite them to one session inthe small group.
SPEAKER_01 (18:19):
Oh, I like that.
SPEAKER_03 (18:21):
Yeah.
And then what worked for us, itwas two different things.
One, we can take care of ourclients just one week or two,
and then they will return togroup classes and Great, because
they kept going to the gym.
Another thing that happened, itwas that guy that was like one
(18:42):
or two years with us, and it waslike, okay, this is always the
same.
Of course, it's not always thesame because we don't have to
work out the same, but...
They tried our small grouptraining, and then suddenly, I
want to do one month in smallgroup training.
And suddenly, our client ingroup class pays X, and then in
(19:08):
PT small group, they pay double.
So for us, it was another way ofincreasing our ARM with one
strategy that started to justworry about retention, and then
suddenly just improved our ARMalso.
SPEAKER_01 (19:23):
wow that i love that i love the way that's evolving
because that's what we often sawin crossfit gyms is they would
acquire members but they weren'thigh value members and there's
nothing wrong with that but ifyou want to increase the value
of your time and pay yourcoaches more and increase
revenue fast pt one-on-one smallgroup semi-private training
these high value options can betacked on to a group program and
(19:43):
all of a sudden revenue goes upa lot so that's exactly what
we're seeing at your gym talk tome about high rocks this is a
big deal in europe it's a bigdeal around the world now what's
going on there
SPEAKER_03 (19:52):
so high rocks was Our conditioning class, if we
are looking in the physiologicalway of looking at things, it was
similar, okay?
It wasn't IROX.
It didn't have the running focusthat IROX needs, but it was a
great class.
And then in Europe, two or threeyears ago, we started to talk
(20:15):
about IROX and we were like, no,okay, IROX, but our conditioning
is good.
We are not going to changeanything.
But then...
The hype of IROX is like boomhere in Europe.
SPEAKER_02 (20:27):
It's
SPEAKER_03 (20:27):
here.
Yeah.
And then we have the IROXambassador here in Portugal,
Thiago Louza.
It's a great friend of us.
And we started to, okay, let'stry this.
Let's get the hype in thismoment.
And then we want to subscribe.
And then we got the affiliation.
(20:48):
And...
In the beginning, it wasDecember last year, we didn't
add more classes in thebeginning, we just changed it.
Again, we looked at the numbersand we identified which class
had the fewer members in thattime of the day.
We know more or less people thatare running awfully the same
(21:10):
classes.
Okay, we are going to try thisschedule, this one, this one,
this one.
And it was amazing.
A lot of people engaged.
And then suddenly, okay, we needto add more classes and then we
add more classes and we I thinkwe we have like version 4 or 5
from the schedule because we arealways changing everything but
(21:33):
it's I think from now for nowit's it's being a good thing
because we have people fromother gyms that don't have IROX
affiliation or CrossFitaffiliation anything that they
are like okay they have sledsand a 30 meter running track to
the sleds and let's try andlet's let's ask them if they
(21:55):
have IROX IROX program orsomething like that.
So we are now getting morestudents, more leads,
specifically for IROX.
Wow.
Yeah.
There's only, we are not a verybig town, but there's only two
CrossFit gyms and the two IROXgyms.
(22:18):
But there's a big hype goingaround IROX and they just got
with the flow and it's beengreat for us.
SPEAKER_01 (22:26):
Okay, I have two specific questions about that.
The first one, do you have aspecific IROX membership or is
it just like a group trainingmembership so they can go to
those classes?
SPEAKER_03 (22:35):
Yeah.
Our membership is free.
If you have the free pass, youcan choose CrossFit,
conditioning, or IROX.
You choose everything.
SPEAKER_01 (22:46):
But you're getting leads who specifically want
IROX.
Okay, so that's a big deal.
So that's really, reallyinteresting.
My second question is, would yousay that you're seeing a good
return on your investment inIROX affiliation?
SPEAKER_03 (22:59):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, you are.
Sorry, sorry.
In
SPEAKER_01 (23:02):
High Rocks affiliation, like you paid, are
you seeing a return oninvestment in
SPEAKER_03 (23:06):
that?
UNKNOWN (23:06):
Uh...
SPEAKER_03 (23:07):
I need to check the numbers.
SPEAKER_01 (23:09):
No, you're a data person.
That's okay.
I just threw that one at you,but I was just curious.
That's interesting.
And if you're not breaking itdown by stream, that's okay
because you're selling onemembership and they can go.
So I've asked other gym ownersthis question and it can be
difficult to pull that numberup, but I was just curious if
you had a gut sense.
SPEAKER_03 (23:24):
I think we now get the information because we now
are running an SI since we aretwo-member mentees.
And then we just checkeverything and we register
everything.
So we know, I think in sixmonths from now, if I'm going to
(23:45):
be here with you again, I'mgoing to tell you.
Yeah, that's it.
100 members, 20 were looking forIROX.
And I sold 20 memberships andthen I'm going to do the maths
and I'm going to see if it'sworth or not.
SPEAKER_01 (23:59):
Yeah, so you're still in the early stages of it.
We'll check back with youbecause we know this IROX is a
big deal.
And I'm talking to gym ownersabout this regularly, some of
whom are doing what you'redoing.
doing where they're bringing itin other people are looking at
very specific angles for highrocks we'll figure it out and
then listeners will tell youwhat the best thing you can do
with that program is becauseit's a big deal and a lot of
crossfit gyms are finding thatif they have the space or even
(24:20):
some that don't you candefinitely acquire people who
are interested in that programand you have most of the
equipment sleds might be theonly thing but a lot of crossfit
gyms have those sleds anyway sothat's okay now here's the
interesting thing so you talkedyou talked to me before the show
and you said that you'veadjusted your ad campaigns
because you're getting too manyleads this is the greatest thing
ever, but you've adjusted itbecause why?
What are you working on now?
SPEAKER_03 (24:41):
Yeah, we adjust why?
Because we felt that it wasn'tfair to get the leads and don't
have the ability to call them orto write them an email.
SPEAKER_01 (24:50):
Okay, so you'd grow too fast and it'd be a problem.
SPEAKER_03 (24:52):
Yeah, the feeling that we had, it was because...
In an experimental class, thenew guy is going straight to a
class.
And if there are 20 or 25students or four, it's the same.
There's one coach there forthem.
When we have the on-rampprogram, I need one coach to one
student.
(25:13):
So we had the staff problem.
As our mentor told us, it's agood problem.
But then we had to adjust.
And everything, it was one monthrunning.
And then we had leads comingfrom paying ads and from the
other funnels that I think wework well, our referral funnel.
(25:33):
And then suddenly, yeah, no,that's the biggest one.
And I have data on that.
And that's the number one
SPEAKER_01 (25:39):
for us.
I want to hear that after.
Finish what you're saying andwe're going to hit referrals
because that's a big deal.
SPEAKER_03 (25:43):
And then suddenly we were running ads and everything
was okay.
Colm was amazing with us.
And then I was, Colm, we need toslow down because I can't
have...
10 people every day coming to mybeta business.
I was afraid of clicking themeta business because they were
(26:03):
a lot.
And the feeling was, I'm goingto lose these leads because I
can answer them.
And I cannot put them on theon-ramp program because I don't
have schedule for them.
So we talk with our staff.
We've made the little changes.
We increased the number of hoursof some of them.
Me and my partners, okay, let'sgo.
(26:25):
And then we are going to runmore classes in this phase to
help and to establish all theprocedures and everything
because if we want to delegate,we need to do that and
understand and have the feelingof what's working or not.
And then we slow down a littlebit our ads, but then we have
(26:46):
like daily six, seven leads, wecall them.
We have all the tracking of theset rate and the close rate.
So It was one necessity to slowdown a little bit the ads, to
have some time to breathe andreschedule everything and put
everything working.
SPEAKER_01 (27:05):
Okay, so you laid out a trap that many people fall
victim to and it happened to me.
I started running ads around aspecial program.
I got a ton of people in thedoor.
I put in like 30 or 40 people asthis huge crowd and I didn't
have enough coaches so theyweren't getting the attention
they needed.
And that's a bad experience.
Right?
It's a bad experience.
My existing clients were upsetbecause there was too many
people in the gym.
(27:25):
The people that came in that biggroup of 30 to 40, many of them,
I want to say 95% left becausewe didn't follow up with them.
We didn't work on retention.
We didn't find out what theirgoals were.
And so this giant boost that Ihad washed out immediately and
my current members were upset.
So it's very tempting to try andgrow fast.
It's a better plan to growslowly and sustainably and chip
(27:46):
up.
Yep.
Just get that on
SPEAKER_03 (27:48):
ramp.
My partners, they are amazing inthe sales systems.
Yeah.
They...
And...
what we felt with the NSI, theon-ramp, it's possible and it's,
you can train it, you can workout on that and be good at
sales.
We have, João is amazing,Ricardo is amazing and then we
(28:09):
are trying to get reps, reps,reps, reps and then just
delegate to our coaches becauseit's possible.
I didn't sell anything to anyoneever and then suddenly I have
like 10 NSIs closed to on-rampso it's possible.
SPEAKER_01 (28:24):
So you learned and your mentor taught you Brian?
SPEAKER_03 (28:25):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And do reps with my, mypartners, do reps with my
partners, do reps with thestaff.
It's amazing.
That's interesting.
Go ahead.
We have regularly weeklymeetings with the staff, with
our staff.
That's another thing thatchanged from the, the, the, the,
since we, we, we run thebusiness and everything can, can
(28:47):
be done with reps regularly.
and the right orientation fromour mentor.
SPEAKER_01 (28:53):
Yeah.
So again, this is again, thevalue we're talking about free
content versus a mentor.
Here's an interesting thing.
If you're getting a ton of leadsand you're getting, you have
this free content, you use allthis stuff to get a bunch of
leads, but your close rate isterrible.
And one out of 10 people signsup, you're wasting those leads
because you're bad at sales.
A mentor can say your salesmetrics are not very good.
We are going to slow this down.
(29:13):
We're going to get you somesales training.
We're going to make you betterat training, selling, pardon me.
And when we get your close rateand that's 70, 80, 85% range,
then we're going to startworking on getting more leads in
because you're going to closeeight or nine out of 10 as
opposed to one out of 10.
We're not going to waste your addollars or whatever.
That is a key point ofmentorship.
I need to ask you this.
This is a big deal.
Referral funnel.
What have you got there?
SPEAKER_03 (29:34):
It's amazing.
In our client journey, the pastclient journey, now it's
improved since we work with ourmentor.
We decided to, okay, we didn'thave NSIs or gold reviews.
It was everything, a lot oforganic things happened, but
then we established, okay, sincethey are here in our gym, okay,
(29:55):
one month now, we are going tochat them in WhatsApp and tell
them something.
And we're going to offer one PTsmall group session or one
hybrid session.
And then in that process, insome week of that process, okay,
let us know Who do you want tocome here to experiment?
(30:16):
And that time was experimentalclasses.
Who do you want to offer asession or something like that?
It was amazing because...
Because if we do this in thesame frequency, like you enter
now at the gym and one monthfrom now, I'm going to ask you
referrals.
Yes.
There's someone that is going toenter the gym tomorrow or the
day after tomorrow.
(30:37):
So one week and one day after,in the next week, in the next
week, we are getting ourreferrals done.
In a constant way.
And when I look at the numbers,I see that the most people that
come to our gym, it's alwaysfrom referral funnel.
SPEAKER_01 (30:59):
Turin teaches clients to build four different
funnels?
you've got referrals is the mostimportant one, but you can't
just ask a new person, Hey, yougot any friends?
You have to do it at a specifictime.
She talked about the specifictime
SPEAKER_03 (31:11):
and a specific moment.
SPEAKER_01 (31:12):
There you go.
And that, and we teach peoplehow to find it.
SPEAKER_03 (31:16):
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (31:17):
You can't just say like, you can't, you know, it's
just not a thing that's going towork.
You have to do, you have to bevery clear about when you ask
for those referrals and there isa system for doing it.
When you do that, some gyms thatI know, um, run exclusively on
referrals they don't have theydon't need anything else because
they fill their gyms with thatbut we would always recommend
four different funnels you'vegot organic social media you've
(31:38):
got content and then you've gotpaid ads and if you have all
four of those funnels running atonce then you can be assured
that your gym will always havenew leads and new clients so
yeah but start with referralsbecause it's the free one you
don't have to it's nothing butyour time and you but you have
to talk to your clients to do itso i'm going to close this out
you've done given me a ton ofinformation here I'm going to,
(31:59):
what is, if someone is out thereand saying, I want to build a
gym with a lot of clients, thisis a trap because a lot of
people tried to do it and wemade huge mistakes and destroyed
our businesses.
How would you advise them to doit properly so that they build,
they get a lot of clients, butthey don't fall apart?
What would you do?
SPEAKER_03 (32:17):
First, we have to have space and staff for all of
that, okay?
And we need to have a vision.
One of my partners is amazing atdoing that.
We have a long-term vision andto be scalable, the business.
Because if we are going to justfocus on the members, we are
going to...
It will probably be a messbecause you need extra revenue
(32:41):
from other things.
Because when you...
Okay, your business...
I had 300 members and now I have130 more.
So my expenses will be more,that's obvious.
So we need to have more thingsto structure the business and to
be able to run everything.
(33:02):
I think if I didn't get on thisbusiness like I did because I
was a coach and then I boughtthe business, I think the first
thing that I would do, it waslistening to someone that
already knows how to run abusiness.
And I think the mentorship isamazing for that.
(33:25):
What I feel is that we are inthe first steps, but I think we
are in the first steps with alot of things.
done already and we are just wewant more okay Brian is always
okay calm down but I thinksystems
SPEAKER_02 (33:46):
there it is I
SPEAKER_03 (33:46):
think it's everything and data Because data
is going to show us if myexpenses are higher or if my
revenue, how is going, how am Igoing to pay everything, number
of frequency of classes, why Ihave to have a class with two or
(34:07):
three people.
That's not, it's not going towork.
I'm going to throw money away.
So data systems are, I don'tknow, and a big space to have
all of the 429 students in.
SPEAKER_01 (34:23):
So if I look at your business, here's this plan that
I'm going to lay out forlisteners, and you tell me if
you agree with me because I'mbasing this on what I think
you've done.
If I wanted to build a400-member CrossFit gym, I would
first address my retention.
I would figure out the best wayto hold on to every single
client that I get for as long aspossible, and I would do that
(34:45):
first– by putting in an on-rampand doing goal review sessions
90 days after that person comesin through the business.
Those are the two things that Iwould do.
And the third thing is I wouldsystemize everything in my
business because if you don'tsystemize it, the screws are
going to come up.
Everything's going to rattleapart because you're going to
have too many people too fast.
Then you're going to startbleeding people.
(35:05):
So those three things, thestep-by-step plan for that
exists, Two Brain created it,and a mentor can lay it out for
you.
So I would get a mentor.
Those four things.
What do you think?
SPEAKER_03 (35:14):
Yeah, I completely agree.
And the second that you told...
establishing the connection withour clients not in a in a big
group class but in goal reviewsessions seated with them taking
a coffee the connection with theclients i think we are strong in
that also we have a bigcommunity when you have a when
(35:35):
we have a holiday and the box isclosed and then we we just open
the open class session and thenit's like 100 people doing a
workout with us so the strongconnection that we built and we
are in i think the the nsi thethe goal review it's very very
important because that's what inthe end it's going to keep us
(35:56):
keep the clients with us if we Ihave my own PTs my clients and
they are with me a lot of liketwo or three or four or five
more years because we have aconnection and when we and if
you could establish thatconnection but it's not me Luisa
the owner it's everyone it's thecoach is the cleaner is the
(36:17):
front desk and we when we haveall the systems to Okay, cheer
up and have a high five and talkto the client by his name.
And then we have like brightspots for the clients that we
send every Monday.
That's going to make thedifference in the end of the
game.
SPEAKER_01 (36:37):
I love it.
So listeners, do not set a goalof getting 400 members in your
CrossFit gym.
Set a goal of getting 150 in abusiness that runs like a
well-oiled machine.
Then...
set an average revenue permember goal of about$205.
Then...
Get a mentor to figure out howto scale up.
And if you want to get to 420with great retention and high
(36:57):
average revenue per member likeLouisa has, then you can do it.
But don't set that goal of like,I need 400 people.
Get 150, then move up with awell-oiled machine underneath
you and things will go well.
Thank you so much for sharingyour story.
I appreciate it so much.
SPEAKER_03 (37:11):
Thank you, Mike.
Thank you, Mike.
SPEAKER_01 (37:12):
I'm going to get you back and we'll talk high rocks
again.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
That was Louisa Moschita andthis is Run a Profitable Gym.
I'm Mike Morgan.
And please hit subscribewherever you're watching and
listening with my thanks.
We crank this stuff out everysingle week to help gym owners
like you.
And now, here's to rain finderChris Cooper with a final
message.
SPEAKER_00 (37:30):
Hey, it's Two Brain founder Chris 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
kinds of great resources to helpyou grow your gym.
(37:51):
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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