May 5, 2025 • 17 mins
Summer is coming, and for many gym owners, that means holds, cancellations and a painful dip in revenue—but it doesn’t have to.
The summer slump is natural if you don't take action: Clients go on vacation, they trade your programmed workouts for outdoor activities in the sunshine, and kids who are home from school force routine changes.
But when clients stop coming to the gym consistently, they lose the momentum they’ve built, making it harder to get them to restart in the fall.
Today on “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper gives you a tactical action plan for getting ahead of the summer slump in 2025.
He breaks down practical strategies for improving summer retention and boosting revenue with seasonal programs, such as offseason athlete camps.
You’ll also learn how to offer remote coaching and travel prescriptions so you can keep clients engaged even when they’re outside the gym.
Tune in to hear a complete plan you can apply to your gym today and use every year to make summer a strong season.
Links
Gym Owners United
Book a Call
3:25 - Pre-sell fall engagement
5:00 - Seasonal programs and events
7:37 - Camps and programs for offseason athletes
9:06 - Remote training programs
12:29 - Vacation training plans
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, can I put my membership on hold with the
kids being done school for thesummer? Now my schedule changes
and I can't make it to any ofthe group class times anymore.
I'm Chris Cooper. This is Run aProfitable Gym and the summer
slump is coming. That was anemail that I actually got at my
gym last Thursday, and I'mgonna tell you what we did
about it today and how we planto overcome and beat the summer
(00:26):
slump so that it doesn't hurtus first. The summer slump is
natural, especially in thenorthern part of the world.
There's a seasonal drop off forgym memberships. As people
embrace the sunlight, they wantto go outside, their schedule
is changing, they go onvacation, the kids are outta
school, their routines are allinterrupted. The problem is
that your gym still has to goon. And more than that, these
(00:50):
clients will go backward forthree or four months if they
just step away from theirfitness. The mistake that most
gym owners make is to justbrace for impact instead of
planning for opportunity. Andso today I'm gonna give you
tactical ways to keep yourrevenue steady or even grow it
and keep your clients engagedthrough the summer. I'm gonna
share my own experience withsome summer slowdowns from
(01:12):
Catalyst and from the thousandother gyms that we currently
work with in the two Brainmodel. And I'm gonna tell you
why this matters. The problemis that retention is the big
issue here, and if people dropoff, it's hard to get them to
restart. So this is more thanjust revenue, it's more than
just number of people inclasses. It's more than just
needing more lead gen. It'skeeping people engaged long
(01:34):
enough to maintain theirhabits, to get them good
results and maintain yourrevenue so that when the fall
comes and there's another surgeof clients, you're already
going into it strong. Before westart, I want you to think
about how you present yourclass times and your schedule.
Your clients needs change overthe course of the year. So do
yours, so do your coaches. Andso you should be releasing your
(01:57):
gym's schedule on a quarterlybasis anyway. What that means
is that going forward, startingfrom now, you should be
announcing your schedule onceevery three months. So for
example, you would say, here'sour summer 2025 schedule at
Catalyst. Get your clients usedto seeing slight variations in
(02:17):
the schedule. Position it as wewant to accommodate your
changing needs over thewintertime. You know, maybe the
in you start half an hour laterin the wintertime if, if you're
up north like I am becausepeople just can't get outta bed
quite as earlier , their carmight not start. Maybe you
start a little bit later in thesummertime or you have fewer
classes in the summer, or youdo more on the weekends or less
(02:38):
on the weekends. For me, forexample, we do fewer classes on
the weekends in the summertimebecause everybody where I live
goes to their cottage or goesto camp in the summertime, and
that means there's nobody inthe city on the weekends. And
so we do more classes in theweek, they start a little bit
earlier and we do less on theweekends. And this is all fine.
And you avoid this stress oflike, oh, I gotta take away
(03:01):
this class time, or I gottachange this class, because you
get people used to it inadvance. And so later down the
track, if you have a class timethat's really serving only one
or two people, it's pretty easyto remove that from the
schedule if your schedulechanges every quarter and your
clients are used to that. Sothis is the best opportunity to
start that practice. Now, ifit's too late and we wanna beat
(03:21):
the summer slump, let's getthrough the tips on how to do
that right now. The first trickis to get people ready for the
fall. And so you're sellingengagement. So what you wanna
do here is plan a Septemberevent like an in-house
competition. This should happenthe weekend after Labor Day and
start selling registrationstoday. It works because you
(03:42):
create a reason for clients tostay active and train hard
through the summer. So forexample, you would say, sign up
now you're gonna train hardthrough the summer and compete
in September. A couple of tipsthat I've learned over the last
decade of doing this thatreally help , number one, make
it a partners or a teamcompetition so that people
don't wanna let down the otherson their team. And number two,
(04:02):
charge enough that they can'tjust slough off. You know, if
you charge 20 bucks for toregister for this competition,
they're gonna be like, Matt ,it's 20 bucks. If you charge a
hundred bucks, that creates alittle bit more incentive for
them to train. So charge ahundred bucks, make it worth a
hundred bucks. Go offsite, renta facility, get them nice
t-shirts, charge 200 or even$300 and you'll get people to
(04:24):
train hard all summer for thatevent. If you don't wanna run a
competition or an event, whatyou can do is have pre-sales.
So you can set up challengesstarting the first week of
September for which people canregister in June. You can set
up a specialty program inSeptember that's gonna sell
out, and people canpre-register for that in June.
You can have a nutritionchallenge starting in
(04:45):
September, et cetera . But thequestion you wanna ask yourself
right now is, what's the onething that you could put on the
calendar for September thatwould get your clients excited
today, excited enough to eitherpre-register for it or to train
all summer to be ready for it?
Next option is seasonal offersfor new and current clients. So
for example, you could run aspecialty program for people
(05:07):
that will work, you know,especially right now. So an
extra little revenue boostmight be a couch to 5K program.
So you market to people in yourgym who wanna get better at
their 5K run, their first 5K,and also to people outside your
gym who are thinking aboutdoing their first 5K. It's
called couch to 5K. So it'sgreat for beginners and it can
(05:28):
actually be a funnel to bringpeople into your gym. For
example, when this was workingbest for us, we would get about
34, 35 people registering forthese couch to 5K programs.
They would meet one a week, itwas 99 bucks, and the coach
would meet with them, run withthem as a group, and give them
some homework to do on theirown. That way it didn't
interfere with our clientscoming to their group classes
(05:49):
and beginners could slowly rampup to it to really promote it.
What we would do is we wouldpartner with some of the local
five Ks and say, Hey, we canget more people to register for
your race if you promote ourcouch to 5K program. And then
they'll show up and they'reready and they're enthusiastic,
et cetera. And we had a greatpartnership with this for a
decade. Um, what this alsomeans is that at the end of the
(06:12):
couch to 5K, you've got a bunchof people who are new to
fitness, they're excited forthe next step, and you can talk
to 'em about your on-rampprogram. You could even do this
remotely if you want to, andyou can build relationships
with run clubs or , uh, localrace organizers too. Another
idea that a lot of gyms and twobrain do is called summer
bingo. It's a really funretention play. So you give
(06:33):
people a bingo card at thestart of the summer and you
tell people complete thesetasks over the summer and you
win win a prize. So a tile onthat bingo card might be a
class, attend class three timesa week for a month, or bring a
friend on a certain date or trya new skill or post a sweaty
selfie on Instagram. Sometimesit could even be leave a five
star review for the gym. Youjust wanna make sure that most
(06:54):
of the bingo card is aboutthem. A similar idea that some
gyms and two brain use iscalled Summer League. And what
you do is a lot like theintramural open. You draft
people into four teams and youcreate fitness games through
July and August. You wanna keepthis light in social, but with
a small competitive twist. Andyou definitely want to have ,
uh, points for showing up. Youcan charge a small fee, which
(07:17):
is great , uh, it means they'vegot some skin in the game, give
them t-shirts or prizes. Butwhat you wanna do here at this
point is say like, what is oneextra thing that we could offer
people who are already in ourgym that would create value for
them that they'd wanna pay forand would boost our revenues
over the next month or two? Thethird option is to run summer
(07:40):
camps and programs for offseason athletes. These are
usually best for kids. And Ijust wanna remind you that if
you're listening to thispodcast, you probably train
athletes, but maybe not. Andsome of the most successful
micro gym models out therecater only to kids. I'm talking
about Parisi speed school. I'mtalking about cheer camps,
gymnastics camps, swimprograms, summer camps for
(08:03):
kids. I mean, people will payto put their kids in something
before they'll pay to putthemselves in something. So the
people who are canceling theirgym memberships, because their
schedule is all wonky, areprobably putting their kids
into summer camps and they haveto deliver their kids to summer
camps, and that's why theirschedule is wonky. So think
about that opportunity for yourgym. Now you have to have the
right pro coach doing thisprogram, but here's how to do
(08:26):
it. So first, if you're alreadyrunning a kid's program, this
is just such a layup. But ifeven if you're not, what you do
is you talk to the parents ofkids in your gym about the
sports that their kids play,then you market strength and
conditioning to those youthteams or to athletes who season
just ended. So for example,this is great for baseball. It
hasn't really started yet.
Soccer, hockey, amazing speedskating, volleyball teams
(08:51):
looking to keep athletesmoving. And the bonus is that
this builds long-termrelationships with the parents
and local sports clubs. On thenext podcast, we're gonna have
Debbie Roslyn talking about howshe does summertime volleyball
camps, and that just blows upher business. A fourth option
is to offer a remote programthat's an upgrade. Now what
this does is it gives yourclients a remote training
(09:13):
upgrade to so that they cantake vacation and still get
coached, or they can take timeat the cottage and still get
coached. And the package wouldprobably include workouts,
accountability check-ins, maybesome nutrition tips. Maybe it's
like I'm available through text, 18 hours a day or whatever.
This keeps your clients engagedand paying while they're away,
(09:34):
while they're outside of thegym. I , I'll be honest with
you, I think like in thesummertime, especially where I
live, it's so fleeting thatpeople should be getting
outside of the gym more. Thatdoesn't mean they should be
coached less. So if they'regoing to be on their bike, if
they're gonna be jogging, ifthey're gonna be swimming at
camp, if they're gonna be, youknow, playing pickleball or
whatever, they should still becoached. But their program
(09:55):
should shift to coaching themto do well at those sports.
They should be in the gym less,but coach the same amount. And
if you get ahead of this bycreating this package right now
and offering it to people whoyou think might fall off,
you'll probably retain a lot ofthem. So earlier I shared an
email that I got from a clientlast Thursday at my gym and the
(10:17):
response of the manager, ofcourse was like, okay, let's
put them on, let's cancel them'cause we don't do holds. And
instead I said, no, no, we haveto go up market with these
people. What they're asking foris not, I wanna lose my
fitness, cancel my membership.
What they're asking for is moreflexibility. More flexibility
is available in one-on-onetraining than in our group
(10:38):
program. Our group program islower tier because it, you
know, it works for everybodyand it's scheduled and you have
to make decisions about yourtiming. But one-on-one works
for other people because thetiming is flexible and the
accountability is, you know ,uh, liquid, like it's plastic.
I can keep up to you whenever Iwant to. Um, you know, I can
(11:01):
change what I'm doing. And ifyour gym is running a
prescriptive model, this is avery easy change to make. Hey,
it's May, let's bring everybodyin for a goal review one at a
time, especially the grouptraining clients. What are you
gonna be doing this summer?
Here's the plan. You know,there's no need for them to
cancel their membership. Youjust pivot your coaching
service to them a little bit.
So you could also offer thisfor non-clients, and you could
(11:25):
just ask yourself right now,who in your local community
could use your help stayingstrong through the summer? And
how can you reach them rightnow this month? Well, if you
create a package today, thenext step is marketing that
package. So think about whatthe perfect package would be
for people who are gonna bekind of outside the gym in the
summer. Do you want to takethem through your on ramp ?
Now's the time. Okay ? The nextoption is to give people a
(11:47):
summer prescription. So don'tjust hope that they stay
engaged. Don't wait for them tosay, I want to cancel 'em and
present them with analternative. Give them a plan.
So ask them in a goal review,are you gonna be staying home?
Well, then let's focus onattendance at the gym and a
progress p plan and maintainingyour habits. If they're going
away, shift to a remote optionor a vacation workout plan. Use
(12:09):
your goal reviews, you know,heavy right now to keep them
focused. Frame this as helpingthem stay consistent, not
trying to sell them more stuff.
The key here is that you haveto ask yourself, like, are you
asking your clients what theirplans are this summer? Or are
you just waiting for them tosee who disappears and crossing
your fingers and covering yourhead and cowering, right? The
next option is to create avacation plan for people who
(12:33):
are actually traveling. So forme, a vacation plan usually
means they're staying local,but they're going away from the
city, they're going away fromthe gym. If your clients are
actually traveling, going onvacation, you can have a
different plan. So here's whatthe , the different plan is.
First you ask them wherethey're going. I'm going to
Greece, I'm going to Australia.
(12:54):
I've never been there before.
That's fantastic. I think it'sreally important for you to
keep up your fitness whileyou're there. Do you agree?
Great. Here are some optionsfor you. Number one, I can give
you body weight workouts sothat you're doing stretches
while you're in the airport.
You're not doing, you know,wind sprints while you're in
the airport. You're doing somestretches when you get there.
You're gonna need to do a shortbody weight workout in the
(13:16):
hotel so that you're not, youknow, losing your whole first
day of jet lag. Then , um, I'mgonna give you like a good
eating plan that will help youand give you some workouts that
will maintain your level offitness. You can do them early
before the family gets up andit won't disrupt your plans on
the way home. I'm gonna giveyou some stretches to do in the
airport. Again, I'm gonna giveyou a body weight workout to do
(13:37):
the morning. You arrive homeand then we're gonna get you
back into the gym from there.
How does that sound? Great. Andadd on to this option could be
that, hey, I want you to lookat the location where you are
going to be. So you're going toCanada this summer. Wonderful.
What's the name of the CedarCity? Peterborough, Ontario.
Great. Let me find a gym inPeterborough, Ontario. Okay ,
(14:00):
CrossFit Peterborough. And letme contact the owner of that
gym . Tell 'em you're gonna becoming. Do you think that you
can come twice or three times?
Okay , I will pay for itbecause they're paying you a
membership. You can pay thatother gym's drop in fees or
whatever, but I want you to bethere. Can you commit to doing
that? Okay. And if they'relike, well, I might commit to
doing it once or twice, thengreat, you know, you contact
(14:21):
the owner of that gym, I've gota client coming into town, can
you accommodate them? I willcover the drop in fee. They can
do your program, they can do myprogram, whatever. You can work
that out. We do this quiteoften with semi-private
clients. They're coming northfor the summertime. They train
with us. The gym follows theirprogram. Uh , we do this in the
wintertime for clients who aregoing to Florida Sweat. Factory
(14:43):
CrossFit is a great example. Ifsomebody's taking a cruise,
they're probably embarkingclose to Sweat Factory
CrossFit. And so our clients gothere and we just pay them a
membership. You don't have tohave a formal agreement with
these gyms. You just have to bea caring coach and call ahead
and say, can this person dropin and can I pay their drop in
fee? Okay, look, the summerslump is coming, but it's
(15:07):
optional if you plan for it.
You can't avoid the summer, butyou can avoid the revenue
slump. I can remember on myworst period of gym ownership,
this would've been August,2008. I was right at the end of
the summer slump, which means Ihad had a membership slowdown
for the two months before that.
Uh, I had no money left in thebank. I had , uh, a tax payment
(15:29):
for my property coming up likein September. I had to pay the
rent. I hadn't paid myself intwo weeks. This was like my
lowest point. And I said, nomatter what happens, I am not
going through August like thisagain. And right there in
August, 2008, I wrote the planfor the next summer because I
was desperate. I was starving,I was hungry. And frankly, I
(15:51):
just couldn't go through thatagain. I was at my lowest
point. And so the next summerwe already had a plan. We knew
that we were gonna be offeringkids camps, et cetera . Now, if
you're working with Two Brain,you've already got a plan for
the summer. And so the stuffthat I'm telling you might be a
different idea than what you'recurrently doing, but you're
probably not freaking outbecause you've already got a
plan to get through the summerslump. If you're not working
(16:12):
with a two brain mentor, look,it's pretty close to being too
late. You need to take actionon this stuff right now. You ,
you also need to have a plan.
Like you can't be going throughthese roller coasters up and
down every summer and expect tostay in business too long.
You'll just burn out. Youdeserve to be financially
stable and secure. Okay, so tosum up, the first thing that
(16:33):
you want to do is startannouncing your calendar in
quarters. Even if it neverreally changes, it gets people
used to that cadence of thecalendar might change. Second,
you wanna offer seasonalprograms like a coach to 5K or
a Summer League. Third, you canengage off season athletes,
especially kids who wanna comein and train and get better for
their sport. Fourth, there aresome retention tools that you
(16:55):
can use like Summer Bingo andprescriptions for summertime
travel. The key though, is thatyou pick one or two of these
strategies and put it intoaction this week. Instead of
just taking notes and writingdown all five or six, I need to
do those. Let's put them in thebinder somewhere and then
moving on to the next podcastand getting the next
information, whatever. Pick oneor two of the things that I've
(17:16):
just said and act on it rightnow. Block yourself off another
30 minutes and you can get anyone of these done. Look, what
I'd invite you to do if youhave questions is just go to
gym owners united.com, ask yourquestions there. We've got free
resources all the time, likehow to start a Kid's summer
program. You can just searchthe group for those resources
(17:37):
and you can have this stuffalready by tomorrow. You don't
have to lose sleep for anothernight. You don't have to be
living in this constant stateof panic all the time. You can
fix your business, you can planin advance, and you can avoid
the summer slop . I'm ChrisCooper. This is Run a
Profitable Gym and I hope youare.
Hey, can I put my membership on hold with the
kids being done school for thesummer? Now my schedule changes
and I can't make it to any ofthe group class times anymore.
I'm Chris Cooper. This is Run aProfitable Gym and the summer
slump is coming. That was anemail that I actually got at my
gym last Thursday, and I'mgonna tell you what we did
about it today and how we planto overcome and beat the summer
(00:26):
slump so that it doesn't hurtus first. The summer slump is
natural, especially in thenorthern part of the world.
There's a seasonal drop off forgym memberships. As people
embrace the sunlight, they wantto go outside, their schedule
is changing, they go onvacation, the kids are outta
school, their routines are allinterrupted. The problem is
that your gym still has to goon. And more than that, these
(00:50):
clients will go backward forthree or four months if they
just step away from theirfitness. The mistake that most
gym owners make is to justbrace for impact instead of
planning for opportunity. Andso today I'm gonna give you
tactical ways to keep yourrevenue steady or even grow it
and keep your clients engagedthrough the summer. I'm gonna
share my own experience withsome summer slowdowns from
(01:12):
Catalyst and from the thousandother gyms that we currently
work with in the two Brainmodel. And I'm gonna tell you
why this matters. The problemis that retention is the big
issue here, and if people dropoff, it's hard to get them to
restart. So this is more thanjust revenue, it's more than
just number of people inclasses. It's more than just
needing more lead gen. It'skeeping people engaged long
(01:34):
enough to maintain theirhabits, to get them good
results and maintain yourrevenue so that when the fall
comes and there's another surgeof clients, you're already
going into it strong. Before westart, I want you to think
about how you present yourclass times and your schedule.
Your clients needs change overthe course of the year. So do
yours, so do your coaches. Andso you should be releasing your
(01:57):
gym's schedule on a quarterlybasis anyway. What that means
is that going forward, startingfrom now, you should be
announcing your schedule onceevery three months. So for
example, you would say, here'sour summer 2025 schedule at
Catalyst. Get your clients usedto seeing slight variations in
(02:17):
the schedule. Position it as wewant to accommodate your
changing needs over thewintertime. You know, maybe the
in you start half an hour laterin the wintertime if, if you're
up north like I am becausepeople just can't get outta bed
quite as earlier , their carmight not start. Maybe you
start a little bit later in thesummertime or you have fewer
classes in the summer, or youdo more on the weekends or less
(02:38):
on the weekends. For me, forexample, we do fewer classes on
the weekends in the summertimebecause everybody where I live
goes to their cottage or goesto camp in the summertime, and
that means there's nobody inthe city on the weekends. And
so we do more classes in theweek, they start a little bit
earlier and we do less on theweekends. And this is all fine.
And you avoid this stress oflike, oh, I gotta take away
(03:01):
this class time, or I gottachange this class, because you
get people used to it inadvance. And so later down the
track, if you have a class timethat's really serving only one
or two people, it's pretty easyto remove that from the
schedule if your schedulechanges every quarter and your
clients are used to that. Sothis is the best opportunity to
start that practice. Now, ifit's too late and we wanna beat
(03:21):
the summer slump, let's getthrough the tips on how to do
that right now. The first trickis to get people ready for the
fall. And so you're sellingengagement. So what you wanna
do here is plan a Septemberevent like an in-house
competition. This should happenthe weekend after Labor Day and
start selling registrationstoday. It works because you
(03:42):
create a reason for clients tostay active and train hard
through the summer. So forexample, you would say, sign up
now you're gonna train hardthrough the summer and compete
in September. A couple of tipsthat I've learned over the last
decade of doing this thatreally help , number one, make
it a partners or a teamcompetition so that people
don't wanna let down the otherson their team. And number two,
(04:02):
charge enough that they can'tjust slough off. You know, if
you charge 20 bucks for toregister for this competition,
they're gonna be like, Matt ,it's 20 bucks. If you charge a
hundred bucks, that creates alittle bit more incentive for
them to train. So charge ahundred bucks, make it worth a
hundred bucks. Go offsite, renta facility, get them nice
t-shirts, charge 200 or even$300 and you'll get people to
(04:24):
train hard all summer for thatevent. If you don't wanna run a
competition or an event, whatyou can do is have pre-sales.
So you can set up challengesstarting the first week of
September for which people canregister in June. You can set
up a specialty program inSeptember that's gonna sell
out, and people canpre-register for that in June.
You can have a nutritionchallenge starting in
(04:45):
September, et cetera . But thequestion you wanna ask yourself
right now is, what's the onething that you could put on the
calendar for September thatwould get your clients excited
today, excited enough to eitherpre-register for it or to train
all summer to be ready for it?
Next option is seasonal offersfor new and current clients. So
for example, you could run aspecialty program for people
(05:07):
that will work, you know,especially right now. So an
extra little revenue boostmight be a couch to 5K program.
So you market to people in yourgym who wanna get better at
their 5K run, their first 5K,and also to people outside your
gym who are thinking aboutdoing their first 5K. It's
called couch to 5K. So it'sgreat for beginners and it can
(05:28):
actually be a funnel to bringpeople into your gym. For
example, when this was workingbest for us, we would get about
34, 35 people registering forthese couch to 5K programs.
They would meet one a week, itwas 99 bucks, and the coach
would meet with them, run withthem as a group, and give them
some homework to do on theirown. That way it didn't
interfere with our clientscoming to their group classes
(05:49):
and beginners could slowly rampup to it to really promote it.
What we would do is we wouldpartner with some of the local
five Ks and say, Hey, we canget more people to register for
your race if you promote ourcouch to 5K program. And then
they'll show up and they'reready and they're enthusiastic,
et cetera. And we had a greatpartnership with this for a
decade. Um, what this alsomeans is that at the end of the
(06:12):
couch to 5K, you've got a bunchof people who are new to
fitness, they're excited forthe next step, and you can talk
to 'em about your on-rampprogram. You could even do this
remotely if you want to, andyou can build relationships
with run clubs or , uh, localrace organizers too. Another
idea that a lot of gyms and twobrain do is called summer
bingo. It's a really funretention play. So you give
(06:33):
people a bingo card at thestart of the summer and you
tell people complete thesetasks over the summer and you
win win a prize. So a tile onthat bingo card might be a
class, attend class three timesa week for a month, or bring a
friend on a certain date or trya new skill or post a sweaty
selfie on Instagram. Sometimesit could even be leave a five
star review for the gym. Youjust wanna make sure that most
(06:54):
of the bingo card is aboutthem. A similar idea that some
gyms and two brain use iscalled Summer League. And what
you do is a lot like theintramural open. You draft
people into four teams and youcreate fitness games through
July and August. You wanna keepthis light in social, but with
a small competitive twist. Andyou definitely want to have ,
uh, points for showing up. Youcan charge a small fee, which
(07:17):
is great , uh, it means they'vegot some skin in the game, give
them t-shirts or prizes. Butwhat you wanna do here at this
point is say like, what is oneextra thing that we could offer
people who are already in ourgym that would create value for
them that they'd wanna pay forand would boost our revenues
over the next month or two? Thethird option is to run summer
(07:40):
camps and programs for offseason athletes. These are
usually best for kids. And Ijust wanna remind you that if
you're listening to thispodcast, you probably train
athletes, but maybe not. Andsome of the most successful
micro gym models out therecater only to kids. I'm talking
about Parisi speed school. I'mtalking about cheer camps,
gymnastics camps, swimprograms, summer camps for
(08:03):
kids. I mean, people will payto put their kids in something
before they'll pay to putthemselves in something. So the
people who are canceling theirgym memberships, because their
schedule is all wonky, areprobably putting their kids
into summer camps and they haveto deliver their kids to summer
camps, and that's why theirschedule is wonky. So think
about that opportunity for yourgym. Now you have to have the
right pro coach doing thisprogram, but here's how to do
(08:26):
it. So first, if you're alreadyrunning a kid's program, this
is just such a layup. But ifeven if you're not, what you do
is you talk to the parents ofkids in your gym about the
sports that their kids play,then you market strength and
conditioning to those youthteams or to athletes who season
just ended. So for example,this is great for baseball. It
hasn't really started yet.
Soccer, hockey, amazing speedskating, volleyball teams
(08:51):
looking to keep athletesmoving. And the bonus is that
this builds long-termrelationships with the parents
and local sports clubs. On thenext podcast, we're gonna have
Debbie Roslyn talking about howshe does summertime volleyball
camps, and that just blows upher business. A fourth option
is to offer a remote programthat's an upgrade. Now what
this does is it gives yourclients a remote training
(09:13):
upgrade to so that they cantake vacation and still get
coached, or they can take timeat the cottage and still get
coached. And the package wouldprobably include workouts,
accountability check-ins, maybesome nutrition tips. Maybe it's
like I'm available through text, 18 hours a day or whatever.
This keeps your clients engagedand paying while they're away,
(09:34):
while they're outside of thegym. I , I'll be honest with
you, I think like in thesummertime, especially where I
live, it's so fleeting thatpeople should be getting
outside of the gym more. Thatdoesn't mean they should be
coached less. So if they'regoing to be on their bike, if
they're gonna be jogging, ifthey're gonna be swimming at
camp, if they're gonna be, youknow, playing pickleball or
whatever, they should still becoached. But their program
(09:55):
should shift to coaching themto do well at those sports.
They should be in the gym less,but coach the same amount. And
if you get ahead of this bycreating this package right now
and offering it to people whoyou think might fall off,
you'll probably retain a lot ofthem. So earlier I shared an
email that I got from a clientlast Thursday at my gym and the
(10:17):
response of the manager, ofcourse was like, okay, let's
put them on, let's cancel them'cause we don't do holds. And
instead I said, no, no, we haveto go up market with these
people. What they're asking foris not, I wanna lose my
fitness, cancel my membership.
What they're asking for is moreflexibility. More flexibility
is available in one-on-onetraining than in our group
(10:38):
program. Our group program islower tier because it, you
know, it works for everybodyand it's scheduled and you have
to make decisions about yourtiming. But one-on-one works
for other people because thetiming is flexible and the
accountability is, you know ,uh, liquid, like it's plastic.
I can keep up to you whenever Iwant to. Um, you know, I can
(11:01):
change what I'm doing. And ifyour gym is running a
prescriptive model, this is avery easy change to make. Hey,
it's May, let's bring everybodyin for a goal review one at a
time, especially the grouptraining clients. What are you
gonna be doing this summer?
Here's the plan. You know,there's no need for them to
cancel their membership. Youjust pivot your coaching
service to them a little bit.
So you could also offer thisfor non-clients, and you could
(11:25):
just ask yourself right now,who in your local community
could use your help stayingstrong through the summer? And
how can you reach them rightnow this month? Well, if you
create a package today, thenext step is marketing that
package. So think about whatthe perfect package would be
for people who are gonna bekind of outside the gym in the
summer. Do you want to takethem through your on ramp ?
Now's the time. Okay ? The nextoption is to give people a
(11:47):
summer prescription. So don'tjust hope that they stay
engaged. Don't wait for them tosay, I want to cancel 'em and
present them with analternative. Give them a plan.
So ask them in a goal review,are you gonna be staying home?
Well, then let's focus onattendance at the gym and a
progress p plan and maintainingyour habits. If they're going
away, shift to a remote optionor a vacation workout plan. Use
(12:09):
your goal reviews, you know,heavy right now to keep them
focused. Frame this as helpingthem stay consistent, not
trying to sell them more stuff.
The key here is that you haveto ask yourself, like, are you
asking your clients what theirplans are this summer? Or are
you just waiting for them tosee who disappears and crossing
your fingers and covering yourhead and cowering, right? The
next option is to create avacation plan for people who
(12:33):
are actually traveling. So forme, a vacation plan usually
means they're staying local,but they're going away from the
city, they're going away fromthe gym. If your clients are
actually traveling, going onvacation, you can have a
different plan. So here's whatthe , the different plan is.
First you ask them wherethey're going. I'm going to
Greece, I'm going to Australia.
(12:54):
I've never been there before.
That's fantastic. I think it'sreally important for you to
keep up your fitness whileyou're there. Do you agree?
Great. Here are some optionsfor you. Number one, I can give
you body weight workouts sothat you're doing stretches
while you're in the airport.
You're not doing, you know,wind sprints while you're in
the airport. You're doing somestretches when you get there.
You're gonna need to do a shortbody weight workout in the
(13:16):
hotel so that you're not, youknow, losing your whole first
day of jet lag. Then , um, I'mgonna give you like a good
eating plan that will help youand give you some workouts that
will maintain your level offitness. You can do them early
before the family gets up andit won't disrupt your plans on
the way home. I'm gonna giveyou some stretches to do in the
airport. Again, I'm gonna giveyou a body weight workout to do
(13:37):
the morning. You arrive homeand then we're gonna get you
back into the gym from there.
How does that sound? Great. Andadd on to this option could be
that, hey, I want you to lookat the location where you are
going to be. So you're going toCanada this summer. Wonderful.
What's the name of the CedarCity? Peterborough, Ontario.
Great. Let me find a gym inPeterborough, Ontario. Okay ,
(14:00):
CrossFit Peterborough. And letme contact the owner of that
gym . Tell 'em you're gonna becoming. Do you think that you
can come twice or three times?
Okay , I will pay for itbecause they're paying you a
membership. You can pay thatother gym's drop in fees or
whatever, but I want you to bethere. Can you commit to doing
that? Okay. And if they'relike, well, I might commit to
doing it once or twice, thengreat, you know, you contact
(14:21):
the owner of that gym, I've gota client coming into town, can
you accommodate them? I willcover the drop in fee. They can
do your program, they can do myprogram, whatever. You can work
that out. We do this quiteoften with semi-private
clients. They're coming northfor the summertime. They train
with us. The gym follows theirprogram. Uh , we do this in the
wintertime for clients who aregoing to Florida Sweat. Factory
(14:43):
CrossFit is a great example. Ifsomebody's taking a cruise,
they're probably embarkingclose to Sweat Factory
CrossFit. And so our clients gothere and we just pay them a
membership. You don't have tohave a formal agreement with
these gyms. You just have to bea caring coach and call ahead
and say, can this person dropin and can I pay their drop in
fee? Okay, look, the summerslump is coming, but it's
(15:07):
optional if you plan for it.
You can't avoid the summer, butyou can avoid the revenue
slump. I can remember on myworst period of gym ownership,
this would've been August,2008. I was right at the end of
the summer slump, which means Ihad had a membership slowdown
for the two months before that.
Uh, I had no money left in thebank. I had , uh, a tax payment
(15:29):
for my property coming up likein September. I had to pay the
rent. I hadn't paid myself intwo weeks. This was like my
lowest point. And I said, nomatter what happens, I am not
going through August like thisagain. And right there in
August, 2008, I wrote the planfor the next summer because I
was desperate. I was starving,I was hungry. And frankly, I
(15:51):
just couldn't go through thatagain. I was at my lowest
point. And so the next summerwe already had a plan. We knew
that we were gonna be offeringkids camps, et cetera . Now, if
you're working with Two Brain,you've already got a plan for
the summer. And so the stuffthat I'm telling you might be a
different idea than what you'recurrently doing, but you're
probably not freaking outbecause you've already got a
plan to get through the summerslump. If you're not working
(16:12):
with a two brain mentor, look,it's pretty close to being too
late. You need to take actionon this stuff right now. You ,
you also need to have a plan.
Like you can't be going throughthese roller coasters up and
down every summer and expect tostay in business too long.
You'll just burn out. Youdeserve to be financially
stable and secure. Okay, so tosum up, the first thing that
(16:33):
you want to do is startannouncing your calendar in
quarters. Even if it neverreally changes, it gets people
used to that cadence of thecalendar might change. Second,
you wanna offer seasonalprograms like a coach to 5K or
a Summer League. Third, you canengage off season athletes,
especially kids who wanna comein and train and get better for
their sport. Fourth, there aresome retention tools that you
(16:55):
can use like Summer Bingo andprescriptions for summertime
travel. The key though, is thatyou pick one or two of these
strategies and put it intoaction this week. Instead of
just taking notes and writingdown all five or six, I need to
do those. Let's put them in thebinder somewhere and then
moving on to the next podcastand getting the next
information, whatever. Pick oneor two of the things that I've
(17:16):
just said and act on it rightnow. Block yourself off another
30 minutes and you can get anyone of these done. Look, what
I'd invite you to do if youhave questions is just go to
gym owners united.com, ask yourquestions there. We've got free
resources all the time, likehow to start a Kid's summer
program. You can just searchthe group for those resources
(17:37):
and you can have this stuffalready by tomorrow. You don't
have to lose sleep for anothernight. You don't have to be
living in this constant stateof panic all the time. You can
fix your business, you can planin advance, and you can avoid
the summer slop . I'm ChrisCooper. This is Run a
Profitable Gym and I hope youare.
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