Ask Clients These 3 Questions to Boost Revenue Today!

The fastest way to figure out what people want is by asking the right clients the right questions.

Today, Mike Warkentin sits down with gym owner Toni Roy of Breathe CrossFit to break down how the Pumpkin Plan transformed her business.

Following the steps, Toni created a list of clients who bring her the most joy and a second list with her highest-value clients. Typically, a gym owner circles the clients on both lists to ID the members they want to replicate. In Toni's case, the groups had zero overlap.

This insight pushed her to rethink her offerings and create a hybrid membership built around CrossFit, personal training and nutrition—a combo that delivers better results for clients and boosts average revenue per member.

Now, regular Goal Review Sessions allow her to continue the conversation: She can catch problems early, celebrate successes and upgrade prescriptions to serve clients better.

Toni also gives a behind-the-scenes look at the new-moms group she developed with her Two-Brain mentor. The support-centered program is already turning into a relationship-building referral funnel.

Tune in to learn how to identify your best clients, provide more value and grow your revenue.

Use the link below to buy your tickets to the 2026 Two-Brain Summit and hear from Pumpkin Plan creator Mike Michalowicz!

Get the exact questions to ask in your Seed Client interviews via the link below!

Links

Two-Brain Summit Tickets

Seed Client Interview Questions

Gym Owners United

Book a Call

1:46 - Using The Pumpkin Plan

6:14 - Ask what clients want

10:09 - Increased ARM

13:28 - Tips for doing the exercise

16:29 - Taking action with a mentor

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:02):
If you know exactly what your clients really want,
your business is gonna generatemore revenue.
So how do you know their secretdesires?
Well, you actually you just ask.
Sounds simple, but businessowners, myself included,
regularly forget to do this.
We guess, we assume, and we makehuge costly mistakes.
Today on Run Up Profitable Gym,we're gonna talk about a proven
system for finding out what yourclients want and then giving it

(00:24):
to them so that you can makemore revenue.
With me today, Tony Roy ofBreathe CrossFit in New
Hampshire.
She's done the pumpkin plantexercise, which was created by
Mike McAllowitz, who will bespeaking at the 2026 TwoBrain
Summit.
Get your tickets via the link inthe show notes.
This is sometimes called theSeed Clients Exercise Inside Two
Brain.
Tony, welcome.
How are you today?

SPEAKER_02 (00:43):
I'm doing good.
How are you?

SPEAKER_01 (00:44):
I am excellent.
I'm very excited to hear aboutyour experience with this
fantastic fundamental exercisethat we do for gym owners.
I'm gonna lay out the veryshortest version and I'm gonna
let you tell us exactly how itwent for you.
So the short version, listeners,is this list the clients who
make you the happiest.
Make another list of the clientswho pay you the most money,
circle the names that appear onboth lists.
Those are your best clients.

(01:04):
Take them out for coffee.
At those coffee meetings, you'regonna ask them three questions.
What led you to my gym in thefirst place?
That tells you what to do withmarketing to find more people
just like them.
What did you try in the pastthat you didn't like?
That tells you what they're notinto and also where people like
them are hanging out right nowand might be interested in
jumping to you.
Next, what's your greatestchallenge outside my gym?

(01:25):
This shows you how you cancreate more value and you know,
offer them more services.
If they all say, I'm trainingfor a race, maybe you start a
running group, something likethat.
So these again, it's a mistaketo sit there and list these
questions out like you'rereading off a cue card.
You're gonna have aconversation, but you're kind of
gonna work them into theconversation.
You're gonna take some noteswhen they're gone, and then
you're gonna use this to improveyour business.

(01:45):
So, Tony, for you, when youfirst did the pumpkin plant
exercise exercise, how did youdo it?
Did you follow that plan or varyit a little bit?

SPEAKER_02 (01:53):
Yeah, so we varied it a little bit.
Um, we did exactly what you saidthat we wrote down uh the top 10
clients that they're the onethat they come in the door, they
smile, they make you happy.
Those are the people that youwant to kind of replicate in
your gym.
And then we also did the top 10clients who essentially pay us
the most money.

(02:13):
So things like personaltraining.
And the first and then you findthe overlap.
The first couple of times thatwe did this, either there wasn't
essentially overlap in you canwe also were we bought the
business, um, so kind ofshifting cultures, just
different, nothing wrong.
Um, just kind of finding what welike.

(02:36):
We ended up kind of not havingany overlap, so kind of just
making adjustments.
Interesting, yeah, doing itagain and again, and kind of it
takes a long time to kind offigure things out.
So I guess what we kind of cameup with is since the clients who
pay us the most tend to bepersonal training, and the ones

(02:59):
who bring us the most joy tendto be group classes, presumably
because that's who we see themost.
Where breathe CrossFit, so we'reobviously passionate about
CrossFit.
We ended up coming up with kindof a hybrid plan where we it's
not just you do personaltraining or you do CrossFit.
We came up with a blend for thetwo, which honest and truly I

(03:20):
think is the best program, and II'm biased, but the best program
that we have because it's thebest of both worlds.
So, for example, if someonewants to work on muscle ups and
it's not coming up in class asmuch as they'd like, but that's
still something that they reallywant to do, but they don't want
to completely get rid of thegroup classes.

(03:41):
They could meet with a personaltrainer once a week or even once
a month if they don'tnecessarily need the
accountability, we'll give themhomework to do for things on
their own as well.

SPEAKER_01 (03:51):
Wow.
Okay, so am I getting thisright?
That this pumpkin plant exerciseshowed you that you didn't
necessarily have the exactclient lists that we expect, and
you started a hybrid service asa result of that?

SPEAKER_03 (04:02):
Correct.

SPEAKER_01 (04:02):
Yeah.
Wow.
So that's cool because hybridservices are huge ARM boosters.
So by doing the exercise andfinding an interesting wrinkle,
like, and that makes perfectsense.
Like I hadn't thought of thisbefore, but it makes perfect
sense.
Your PT clients are going to bevery high value clients because
obviously it's a higher valueservice, but some of your group
clients just might by accidentbe the shining stars of the gym
who thrive in that, you know, uhgroup setting and just come in

(04:25):
with batteries included in thewhole deal.
And you might not have thatoverlap, but you saw that and
then created a whole new serviceand a revenue stream that A gets
them the results they want bygiving them more, and B makes
you more money.

SPEAKER_02 (04:38):
Yeah, exactly.
We made the mistake in thebeginning where you want to kind
of do everything that you'reseeing, like you want to start
all these different programs,like you hear HyRox, you hear
boot camp, kids class, like allthese things, and we felt like
we were doing a bunch ofdifferent things and not really

(04:58):
good at anything.
So we kind of cut things downand said, we do personal
training, we do CrossFit, and wedo nutrition.
And then we ended up kind ofblending all of them.
And that's truly what we thinkis the best membership is doing
all three essentially nutrition,CrossFit, and personal training.

SPEAKER_01 (05:16):
And that makes sense because this is not a member
survey, right?
We've all, you know, many of ushave tried this and it goes
really badly because you, youknow, the business is not a
democracy.
Like you're trying to serve yourclients to give them what they
want, but you can't have 150 or200 people making decisions for
you as the CEO.
You have to make thosedecisions.
So this is not a member survey,but it is a way to identify what
people want.
It's so interesting because Ihadn't run into someone who's

(05:37):
had it go like you.
Usually people are like, oh,these people obviously are the
seed clients and they go fromthere.
You had a completely differentexperience, but it allowed you
to tailor the offerings in yourbusiness to reflect what you saw
in the exercise.
So I think that's just such acool thing.
And it really shows how thisexercise can work in a number of
different ways.
So I would encourage youlisteners to try this one and
see what happens.

(05:58):
If you don't find those names,why aren't you finding them on
the same list?
That's going to be a really,really interesting question.
And the answer will probablyhelp you make a much better
business.
So you were you were probablypretty surprised by that, I'm
guessing, when you uh when youdidn't find the people matching
up on the list.

SPEAKER_02 (06:14):
Yeah, and I would say like the big thing is like
the ones who bring you the mostjoy are the ones that you want
to replicate, and those are yourseeds that you want to water,
take care of, and watch themgrow like the pumpkin plan.
Um it's just figuring out whatthey like, and most of the time

(06:34):
they know what they like, andevery now and then they don't,
but they know and they'll tellyou if you just ask.
And then that will help you todetermine like how you should go
with your business rather thanyou trying to come up with the
ideas as you serve the clientsthat are already in front of
you.

SPEAKER_01 (06:53):
Yeah, and the mistake that I made was I I
created one time, this was inlike 2012 or something when the
crossway games were reallyspinning up, and I decided, oh,
I'll make this three-tiercompetitor stream for all these
people who want to do thesecompetitions.
And I had like, I don't know,eight of them.
They didn't really care.
It like whatever I made up wasnot what they wanted.
And if I had to ask themspecifically, you know, these
questions, I would have gottenmuch different, much more info

(07:15):
that could have would haveallowed me to create the right
program.
Ultimately, competitive stuffwas not a good fit for my gym.
I probably would have found thatout too, because I bet a lot of
my best clients would have said,I'm not interested in that at
all.
What I really want to learn ismuscle ups.
And then I could have done ahybrid program like you.
So if I had done this exercisebefore I started whimsically
throwing stuff against the wall,it would have had a much bit
different result for me.
So have you done this exercisemore than once?

SPEAKER_02 (07:37):
Uh, I've done it a couple of times, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (07:39):
So, what was different between now you did
you just describe the firstinstance or the second?

SPEAKER_02 (07:44):
Um, I'd say the first time, like there was no
overlap.
Like if we did kind of 10, 10joy to 10 top ping, there was
zero overlap.
And then a couple months laterwe did it again, and there was
of the 10, like let's say therewas maybe two for overlap.
So you could see that it wasgetting better.
Yeah, but if I'm being honest, Ihaven't done it in a while, and

(08:07):
I have thought about doing itagain, but I really enjoy the
way things, how things have beengoing.
Like we are happy with ourprograms, our clients are happy,
they're getting results.
Um, I haven't felt the need tokind of do it again, um, but I
guess it doesn't hurt to do it.

SPEAKER_01 (08:25):
Well, it's you know, it's one of those things that
you'd probably want to do, likeif it's gonna, if you had if you
only had you had the opportunityto do it one time, you would
probably put it at the earlystages of your gym where you
need to figure out what are yourcore offerings and like your
business model is gonna evolvesomewhat, but not a ton, right?
Like you're not gonna go fromcompletely every three months
gonna toss out group training orinstall personal training, those

(08:45):
are kind of big decisions thatlast for like five or 10 years
or maybe forever.
So I'd suggest that like it'sreally valuable early on, and
you could certainly revisit it.
But the other thing is like ifyou're doing goal review
sessions with people andlisteners, we recommend you meet
with your clients every three tosix months to do goal review
sessions, you're essentiallydoing C client interviews in
those sessions as well.
And you're again, you're notripping your business apart

(09:07):
every five years, you know,unless you really have to,
because there's a major problem.
But if you're like Tony andthings are going pretty well,
you've got these new programsyou clearly know, like she
listed her core offeringsimmediately off the top of her
head as we walked in here.
You don't need to change thoseif they're working.
And if, you know, in your goalreview sessions, seven clients
said, Oh, you know, I'm reallyinterested in this local mud

(09:27):
run.
You're like, okay, I can justput in a mud run training group.
We're gonna do a six-weekprogram for 250 bucks.
We'll meet twice a week withsome homework on the side and
nutrition plan.
Boom, sold out.
You got seven people rightthere, plus three of their
friends, or something like that.
Like, that's how the systemworks as your gym evolves and
you start doing these goalreview sessions.
So you said the results that itproduced.
We'll just go over this again sopeople understand.

(09:49):
You did the exercise, created abrand new service offering,
which is a high-value serviceoffering.
Everyone that we know has grouptraining plus some personal
training.
Their ARM goes from say 150, 200to like 275, something like
that, usually because you'retacking on a 60, 50, 70, 80, 90
PT package onto a groupmembership.
Did you see your ARM numbersboost after this right away?

SPEAKER_02 (10:12):
Yeah, actually, I was having a talk with our
mentor um, because a lot ofpeople tend to slack off during
the holidays or cancel theirmemberships or want to put it on
hold or whatever.
And I was talking with her and Iwas like, should we be worried?
And she said, No, Tony, likeyour gym is growing, so you're
gonna have more clients canceltheir memberships, but it's not

(10:33):
gonna your percentage, yourchurn isn't gonna be as high.
And our revenue, even if we'relosing clients, our revenue
actually is staying the same,which is great, which means our
arm is going up.

SPEAKER_01 (10:45):
Yeah, so that's fantastic.
So this exercise clearlyimproves average revenue per
member in your case.
And for other people, it mayimprove specialty revenue,
perception program revenue,nutrition services, any other
things.
Like there's kids' programs, andthat's like I'll give an example
of a question.
Let's say someone you asked thatquestion, what's your greatest
challenge outside of my gym?
And they're like, God, I'd comemore often and I would I would

(11:07):
upgrade my membership tounlimited if I could just find
child care at five o'clock.
And you're like, huh, sevenpeople said that.
What if we had a kids' programthat runs concurrently in the
second half of the gym with anadult program?
And I've heard of this happeningat gyms, and literally it's like
all of a sudden you get a kids'membership, you get an upgraded
adult membership, more revenue,happier clients' problems
solved.
So that's an example of how thisgoes.

(11:28):
Let me ask you this when you gotthis info from these clients,
did you start to adjustmarketing in any way, or was
that just a natural extension ofgetting a new program in place?

SPEAKER_02 (11:38):
So I guess so.
You mentioned the Steve clientor the goal reviews.
Um, that's one of my favoritethings that I get to do with
members is even if like you findout what's going well and you
find out what they're strugglingwith.
And if things are going well,great.
Like you just met with them foran opportunity to increase their
motivation and for clientretention.

(11:59):
But then if things aren't goingwell, you know about it, which
sometimes they won't share withyou unless you asked, and then
it gives you an opportunity tofix it.
Um, I actually had a seed clientinterview this morning, and I
have no problem like that.
It's not a necessarily a salesopportunity, it's a chance to
make sure your members are happyand that they're getting

(12:20):
results, especially in groupclasses, because they don't have
that one-on-one connection thatthey would with personal
training.
And in this goal review thismorning, this client ended up
switching to one of our programswhere he's actually going to be
a little bit more independentbecause he's a pilot and he has
seven days of work and thenseven days off.

(12:41):
So that's something that maybewe would have missed if we
didn't do the um goal reviews.
So I think the the pumpkin planand goal reviews and things like
that is really important.
So you can, like Tubrain says,and like the shirt behind you
says, help best.

SPEAKER_01 (12:56):
This is exactly it's exactly the principle.
And you don't know how to helpbest, you can offer help, but
you're kind of doing the shotgunblast into nowhere unless you
ask, how can I help you best?
And then you can provide that.
And that's exactly the way thatyou're gonna build a really
strong gym business.
And again, I've made so manymistakes with guessing on things
and guessing on prices andguessing on programs and
guessing on membership tiers andoptions and all this stuff.

(13:18):
There's science and data, and itif you use it, your business is
gonna grow a whole lot faster.
Let me ask you this.
So, someone out there has neverdone this exercise.
Let's give them some tips on howto do it.
I'll give tip one is gonna be doit.
Actually, commit to doing thisexercise.
The lists will take you maybethree minutes.
You don't have to be like, youknow, seven, you know, 549.99,

(13:40):
you know, you don't have to dothe exact, you can just look
quickly scan.
I know this guy buys 17, 17 PTpackages a month and do the list
quickly.
It could take less than fiveminutes.
Do the exercise, do it.
Tony, what do you think?
Is it were these conversationswere they like kind of awkward,
or how did you feel about them,or how can people get make them
natural and just very organic toget the info they need?

SPEAKER_02 (14:01):
Yeah, I'd say when we first were thinking about
doing the pumpkin plan before weeven did it, that's probably why
we were hesitant to do it,because I was like, uh, I don't
feel comfortable going out forcoffee with someone.
Like, I've never hung out withthem outside the gym before.
They're gonna do squats.
Yeah.
So I think just like you'resaying, do it is is what you

(14:24):
gotta do.
And then you'll refine thingslater.
Like, and I feel like that'severything in business.
Like with social media,sometimes people are afraid to
make a post, but it's like youjust have to do it, and then
you're gonna get better bygetting your reps in.

SPEAKER_01 (14:36):
Yeah, and I agree with you.
And I think that the othersecond thing that I would do is
like, I wouldn't get so focusedon these questions that you're
sitting there just like lookingfor that awkward moment to ram
one in where it's like she'staking a sip of coffee, you're
like, What's your favorite thingabout my gym?
You know, like you don't have todo it that way.
You can just have aconversation, just naturally sit
down with people, but know inyour mind that what you're
looking for is you just kind ofwant to find out some info about

(14:58):
like what led you to my gym, youknow.
And you can just say, Ah, youknow, you've been here for five
years.
I was you're just such a greatmember.
I'm just curious, like, whatbrought you here in the very
first place?
And they get to tell a storyabout themselves, like just make
it natural.
You can kind of get the stuff inhere, but you don't have to be
like, uh, and then number three,oh, what is your greatest
challenge outside my gym?
You don't have to do it likethat.

SPEAKER_02 (15:16):
Yeah, just like the first the first time we did it,
I had like I typed out questionsthat I was gonna ask them, and
like and I told them, I'm like,look, I like this is how it's
supposed to be done.
I'm doing it this way, andthat's okay too.
Yeah, and and and it works forthat, but then the more you do
it, the more comfortable you getspeaking with people in general,

(15:38):
and then you figure out likewhere to guide the um
instruction.
Like we created an SOP, like ifI'm unavailable, or when I was
out on maternity leave for ourcoaches to do it, and just you
get like with anything, you getbetter just doing it over and
over again, and then you don'thave to follow that structure,

(16:00):
it becomes more natural.

SPEAKER_01 (16:02):
And so I'll give you that one.
That's a tip.
We'll just listeners practice ifyou're feeling a little bit
nervous about this, practicewith your spouse, your partner,
your dog, your kid, whatever,and just practice having a
conversation like that.
And just if you do that a fewtimes, even in the mirror,
you'll start to feel much morenatural when you do this in
person.
I'll give you a tip, Tony.
You tell me if you think this isthe right one.
I made this mistake.
I went out with a client and wehad coffee, and I did I got some

(16:25):
info.
I didn't do anything after that.
My advice here, my tip would beto take action on what you see
with the help of a mentor.
So if you sit down and you hearsome interesting stuff, hey
mentor, I just went out for fivecoffee with five clients.
This is what they told me.
You can even just feed the stuffinto chat GPT, you have to spit
out a bullet pointed summary.

(16:45):
Here is what I learned.
What do we do?
What do we do now?
No, what do you think of thatone?

SPEAKER_02 (16:51):
Yeah, I think that's great.
I think a lot of times I'll havemaybe like an idea, but I don't
really know what go with it.
I choose to meet with my mentorweekly.

SPEAKER_03 (17:01):
Do you?

SPEAKER_02 (17:02):
Yeah, yeah.
I I we we used to meet monthly,and then same thing with
clients.
Sometimes you don't want to waitthat long.
And I like the additionalaccountability.
Even if I have learned and knowwhat to do, it's still great to
bounce ideas off of someonewho's kind of been through it.
So we meet with our mentor uhweekly, and if something comes

(17:22):
up, I kind of jot down like thisis what I want to do, and she
might kind of either say, Yes,that's a great idea, or that's
great, but you should also dothis instead.

SPEAKER_01 (17:33):
I like that.
I'm gonna ask, who is yourmentor and what was the last big
thing you accomplished as aresult of those conversations?

SPEAKER_02 (17:40):
Joanne is our mentor.
Uh awesome.
She's running for mayor as well.
Joanne for mayor.

SPEAKER_01 (17:45):
Right?
Oh Joanne.

SPEAKER_02 (17:48):
So since I just had a baby, I have been going to the
hospital, and I they have likesupport groups that I've been
going to, and I really want tohelp these people as well.
We've had a diapers and dumbbellprogram that is good, but it's
it's hard to get moms who justhad a baby to commit to kind of

(18:08):
to be honest, anything like sixtime, right?
Yeah, yeah.
So I kind of had talked to herlike, what can I do since the
hospital has really helped mewith my postpartum mental health
and things like that?
I do have my baby with me,actually.
She heard me talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 (18:27):
Oh, there you go.
Push the stroller, I love it.

SPEAKER_02 (18:29):
Yeah, exactly.
So we kind of came up with anidea of how to get how to help
mums um bring them into our gym.
So actually, starting thisFriday, we're gonna be doing a
mom's group where mums come infirst 30 minutes is just
arriving because it's sometimeshard to show up to things on

(18:51):
time being a mom.
Then the next 30 minutes isgonna be either like a guest
speaker, like we have a pelvicfloor therapist coming in, and
then the last 30 minutes isgonna be an optional workout.
So that's kind of an idea thatwe work through together that
even though I'm gonna be givingmy time up an hour and a half

(19:14):
every week, um, I still getsomething out of it.
It's also helping me with mypostpartum recovery.
My baby gets to come to workwith me and helps other moms,
and then like hopefully whenthey are ready for fitness, that
they already are in anenvironment that they feel
comfortable with.
And I think I would rather spendtime doing that than spend money

(19:38):
on Facebook ads and Google adsand things like that.
That I would rather give my timeand help someone than kind of
just throw my money and hope forthe best.

SPEAKER_01 (19:48):
Yeah, and like really, like you just laid out
essentially like you've got areferral funnel in the making
there where like moms know othermoms.
If you have a great program,they're gonna tell other moms,
and there's always they haveconnections and Family members.
So every new person that comesinto your gym becomes a source
of referrals.
And, you know, we technicallytell people work that referral
funnel before you get to paidads because it's cheaper and

(20:10):
easier.
It just takes your time andeffort to talk to people you
already know and they're goingto refer the warmest leads you
can ever get rather thanthrowing$500 a Facebook and
hoping for a cold lead.
You can do both, and werecommend that gym owners run
four funnels at a time.
But that referral funnel is justthat's the one.
If you're going to do onefunnel, that's the one to crush.
So I'm going to let you go anddeal with your baby because I
think you've got mom dutiescoming up here.
But I want to thank you so muchfor sharing your experience with

(20:32):
the pumpkin plant.
Listeners, I'd encourage you todo this exercise because you saw
here, Tony did it, increased herARM because she discovered a
great way to make her clientshappy.
Thanks, Tony.

SPEAKER_02 (20:43):
Awesome.
Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 (20:44):
That was Tony Roy.
This is Run a Profitable Gym.
Please hit subscribe on your wayout the door so you don't miss a
single show like this.
And now here's Two Brain FounderChris Cooper with a final
message.

SPEAKER_00 (20:53):
Hey, it's TwoBrain 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.

(21:14):
I'd love to have you in thatgroup.
It's Gym Owners United onFacebook or go to gym
ownersunited.com to join.
Do it today.