September 1, 2025 • 20 mins
Many gym owners burn out because they reinvent everything daily. In this episode, Chris Cooper shows you how to systemize your gym without killing your creativity.
He introduces the concept of “freedom within a framework”—the solution to decision fatigue, staff chaos and businesses that get stuck in the Founder Phase forever.
Coop explains exactly where to systemize and where to be creative in each area of your business:
- Marketing
- Sales
- Retention
- Operations
- Leadership
You’ll also hear how Two-Brain Business mentors help fitness entrepreneurs build solid systems that support their gyms’ growth without forcing a model or method.
Stop starting from scratch every day and start building the stable, profitable gym you want to run.
Links
Gym Owners United
Book a Call
0:19 - The problem and its solution
4:41 - Marketing and sales systems
9:26 - Retention and referral systems
11:53 - Ops and leadership systems
17:26 - Mentorship gives you freedom
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
you became an entrepreneur because you wanted
freedom i know it i'm the sameway you wanted to reap the
eventual rewards from your hardwork you wanted to do it your
own way determine your own pathright and that means you wanted
the freedom to be creative buthere's the problem almost every
(00:21):
entrepreneur tries to be toocreative they wind up
reinventing the wheel everysingle day.
They create exceptions for everyclient.
They want to negotiate differentdeals for different people.
They want to design their ownt-shirts and they want to create
their own protein powders andthey want to write their own
programming and they want to dothe art for their logos and
their signs.
(00:41):
And so everything that they dois done from scratch.
And that means that every singleday at the gym is like its first
iteration.
It's like playing 51st dateswith your business where you're
starting over again every singleday.
I'm Chris Cooper.
This is Run a Profitable Gym.
And today I'm going to introduceyou to a concept that I call
freedom within a framework.
(01:02):
I actually learned this systemfrom Good to Great.
It's a fantastic book that Irecommend just about every year
when I give you my top books.
But I want to tell you how thisapplies to your gym.
Now, first, the reason that youcan't just be creative and vent
everything from scratch all thetime is because this creates a
ton of stress and Your businessexists only in your head and
every decision has to be madeover and over and over again.
(01:24):
And you get decision fatigue.
You get burned out.
You're constantly changingthings and tweaking things and
inventing.
And to you, this feels likeyou're really thinking fast and
being smart.
But to your clients and yourstaff, it looks like absolute
chaos.
It looks like there's noorganization or no plan and
there's nothing that'spredictable.
Nothing makes sense because whatyou said today might actually
(01:46):
change tomorrow.
Now, after five years of doingthis, your business is still
going to be in founder phasebecause everything is always
brand new and it might feelfresh to you for a little while,
but eventually you're going toburn out and get tired of making
decisions.
And when somebody comes to youand you say, I've told you that
already, what they're not sayingis, yeah, but you've told me
five different things and Ican't remember which one is
(02:06):
still correct.
And this has a grinding effecton people.
you, your clients, and yourstaff because it feels
unpredictable and thereforeunsafe.
It also doesn't help you growbecause you're just making
random efforts over and over andover again until you're
exhausted.
That means that your servicedelivery is inconsistent, your
staff performance isinconsistent, your workouts are
(02:28):
inconsistent, and you're gettingworse, never better.
So you start to get decisionfatigue and you get frustrated
and you wonder why your staffcan't just step up and just do
their job, but only you knowwhat that job is and it keeps
changing all the time.
So eventually you get burnedout.
It might take two years or itmight take 20, but that whole
(02:49):
burn it to the ground fantasyjust shows up more and more
often.
And this is because you're beingtoo creative in your business.
You're starting from scratchevery single day on every single
decision.
The answer is is not to open afranchise and follow somebody
else's system.
That's sometimes tempting, butyou didn't sign up to be a cog
in somebody else's machine,right?
(03:09):
The two brains of your businessare creativity, the right side
of your brain, and consistency,the left side of your brain,
creativity and consistency.
You need systems or you havechaos, but you also need to feel
creative or what's the point?
When they work together, youhave this beautiful business
that makes you money, makescareers for your staff, and
(03:30):
makes a big difference for yourclients.
So the answer is to createsystems for your operations that
allow you to be creative.
We call this freedom within aframework.
So it's not a matter of onething or the other, complete
creative control versus a boringfixed model.
It's a matter of learning whereyou should set things in stone
and do them exactly the same wayevery time, and where you can be
(03:52):
creative without harming yourbusiness.
We call this freedom within aframework.
You structure the business in away that lets you be creative
without tearing it all down andstarting from scratch every
single morning.
Now, if you've ever readDiscipline Equals Freedom by
Jocko Willink, then you alreadyknow what I'm going to tell you
here.
Structure the non-negotiables inyour life and the rest of your
(04:12):
life will feel free andcreative.
If you create unbreakable rulesabout the important parts, you
can just kind of float a littlebit with the rest.
Even if you haven't read thatbook, you've undoubtedly said
this to your coaching clients inyour gym.
Book your appointments for nextweek so that you know your
workouts are going to get done.
Wrap your meals on Sunday sothat you don't have to scramble
(04:33):
and make poor choices all week.
Now, here's how to do it in yourbusiness.
And I'm going to go through thissystem by system, metric by
metric.
We're going to start withmarketing because that's the
first thing people always wantto hear about all these
podcasts, isn't it?
In your marketing, it feels likeyou need to be an artist.
Like you have to be creative andyou need to invent the perfect
ad copy.
You need to make the perfectsocial media post.
(04:54):
And the answer is that there isroom for some creativity, but
you need to be systemized inyour ads and creative in your
conversations, right?
So what that means is that youdon't try to dream up the
perfect ad and then be surprisedwhen it doesn't work.
What you need to do are testthree ads at once, run them for
two weeks, let the algorithmlearn, just figure out which
(05:15):
one's working the best, and thenkill the two that are performing
the least best, keep the one,duplicate it, tweak one word,
two words, run another threeads.
And what you're going toconstantly be doing is like
pruning the bush and and makingthe ads better and better and
better as you go.
This needs to be your system.
(05:36):
So you start with three, youpick the one that's working the
best, you double down on that,and that is your system over
time.
And you don't stop.
You let the algorithm continueto learn and your ads get better
and better.
What you don't do is look for anad that's working for other
people right now because that'snot going to work for you.
That's trying to do art andbusiness is not about art.
(05:57):
Business is a science andincreasingly advertising is even
a science.
Likewise, just like you need tobe systemized in your ads and
creative in your conversationsthat the ads lead to with real
people, you need to besystemized in your branding and
creative in your content.
So you want to get a very basic,easy to understand brand, right?
(06:18):
If you look at the brand for TwoBrain Business, it's really,
really easy to read here.
There's a simple logo and words,right?
If you look at the brand for mygym, it's Catalyst Fitness,
green and white with a littlegreen arrow.
That's all you want.
You don't want to be artistic.
You don't want this complicatedlogo that appeals to the artist
within you, but nobody can readwhen they're driving by in their
(06:38):
car.
Then you want to be creative inyour content.
So in your content, You want tohave videos, you want to have
podcasts, you want to have blogposts that talk about a wide
variety of subjects so that whenpeople are looking for that
subject, they will find yourbrand.
People never go looking for yourbrand, right?
They're not Googling CatalystFitness.
(06:58):
What they're Googling is Jimnyor me.
They're Googling nutritionprogram that works.
They're looking for like fitnessin Sault Ste.
Marie.
And then that content guidesthem to my brand, which is
simple to understand andmemorable.
So you want to be systemized inyour branding and creative in
your content, just like you wantto be systemized in your ads and
creative in the conversationsthat the ads lead to.
(07:20):
Sales is the next thing that wetrack.
And we coach gym owners on salesbecause we all come into this
thinking like, oh, sales aregross.
I don't want to be good atsales.
Salespeople are slimy.
But the reality is that sales isthe first act of coaching that
you get to perform on anybody.
You need to coach them to committo your coaching.
And that means sales.
(07:41):
Just like you need to besystemized in some things in
marketing and creative in otherparts, you need to be systemized
in your pricing and creative inyour prescriptions.
A lot of people try to make upfor their poor sales habits or
their feeling of ickiness bybeing creative in their pricing.
So they've got a discount forthat guy and a discount for her,
and it's completely different.
And every time somebody comesin, it's a completely different
(08:02):
conversation where they'restarting from scratch and rarely
succeeding.
You need to be systemized inyour pricing and creative in
your prescriptions.
What that means is that you needto have three options, no more,
and have the exact same pricefor each of those options each
time.
Then when somebody comes in, youcan have a conversation like a
(08:23):
human and be creative in yourprescription.
I recommend this.
Here's the price.
So you need to eliminatediscounts, set the precedent
instead of needing to make adifferent decision for every
single client who comes in.
Because I know you, you'regenerous like me.
You want to give everybody thebest deal you can.
And so you start thinking like,how can I give this nurse the
(08:44):
same 30% off that the firemangets, right?
So get rid of the discounts.
Your price is the price.
That's the system.
Then follow a no sweat introprocess the same way every time.
You ask the same questions, butmake different recommendations
depending on the client's needs.
You don't need to be creative inyour sales process.
Just creative in yourprescription, depending on what
(09:04):
the client needs.
You also don't need to make up asales pitch that's different for
every single client.
You need to be systemized abouthow you sell your program and
then creative in what yourrecommendation is based on what
the client actually needs.
Be creative with theirprogramming and their
prescriptions.
Be systemized about the way thatyou sell your system and your
pricing.
(09:25):
Let's talk about retention.
You need to be systemized inyour goal reviews and creative
in your gifting and gratitude.
So a lot of people, they want toapproach retention with
creativity, right?
They want to turn it into anarts and crafts project.
They want to make badges.
They want to make a leaderboardup on their wall.
They want to like celebrate thethousand visits club or
whatever, but none of thesethings really matter.
(09:47):
We choose to do them becausethey're fun.
It feels like arts and craftsand, you know, it doesn't really
take a lot of work, but it alsodoesn't work that well.
You need to do the big thingsreally, really well if you want
to have good retention.
And that includes goal reviews.
It means asking for referrals.
It means getting clientsresults.
Those are big, hard things, butthat's what keeps people around.
(10:09):
And that's what retention is allabout.
And so you need a system whereyou're regularly meeting with
your client, updating theirprogress and making a new
prescription for them.
Again, you're systemized in thegoal reviews, you're creative in
the prescription, and you alsoneed a system to where you ask
for referrals every single time.
And you need a system whereyou're getting clients' results
(10:30):
and you're measuring thoseresults every single time.
You need a system that allowsyou to have a one-on-one
relationship with your client,whether they're in a group
program or one-on-one or smallgroup or semi-private or
whatever, you need to have thatone-on-one touch point.
That's the system that you needto build with retention.
What do you say at a goalreview?
Well, how are things going?
Are you completely happy withyour progress?
(10:53):
And Are you tempted to speedthis up?
Or do you know somebody close toyou who would benefit from our
coaching?
More specifically, would yourhusband benefit?
Would your coworkers benefit?
And if you've got a name, that'seven better.
That's how a system works.
If your retention program isjust like, huh, I'll make every
workout fun and I'll high fivepeople and I'll make the
(11:15):
programming interesting.
That is not a system.
That's a wish.
And you're just hoping thatpeople stick around because of
it.
It's not enough.
So be systemized in doing goalreviews, the things that
actually matter and creative inyour gifting and gratitude.
Say welcome a different way toevery single person in your
class tomorrow.
Give every single person adifferent thank you for being
(11:36):
such a great client after thefive-year mark.
That's fine, right?
Be creative about what you writein the holiday card.
Be creative in how you set upthe potluck, but do not ignore
having a solid system thatrepeats for every client and
that's what's going to retainthem.
Operations.
This is kind of the easyexample.
It's also the one that nobodywants to talk about, but the
(11:58):
reality about your operations isyou should be able to set them
and forget them.
And so this is wheresystemization helps a lot.
So you might ask yourself like,well, where can I really be
creative in my systems?
If I don't want people runningclasses differently every time,
if I don't want differentpricing every time, if I don't
want a different cleaner everytime, where's the opportunity to
(12:19):
be creative in your systems?
Well, Let's talk about where youneed to be systemized in your
operations, and then I'll tellyou where you can be creative in
the delivery.
So first, you need to simplifyyour operations with clear
instructions.
Make the experience exactly thesame for every client.
You should not have clientsgetting a different experience
at 7 a.m.
because you've got this amazingcoach than they would get at
(12:42):
noon when you've got kind of aB-plus coach, okay?
Then you need to audit yoursystems.
You need to plan the clientjourney in advance.
Make sure that everybody'sgetting that same experience.
Then you can be creative in yourmessaging, your celebrations,
and your gratitude.
So simplify your operations withclear instructions, make the
experience exactly the same forevery client, but be creative in
your messaging and yourdelivery.
(13:04):
Be systemized in your planning.
You should have a calendar threemonths out of which events
you're going to do, whatspecialty programs you're going
to be running, who's on scheduleto run what class.
But be creative within theclass.
Different coaches can usedifferent cues.
That's fine.
Be creative in your programmingbetween two clients.
If you've got two personaltraining clients, be creative in
their programming, depending onwhat will get them to their
(13:25):
results.
You want to be predictable inyour operations.
You don't want clients havingdifferent experiences on
different days.
You always want your class tostart on time, but you can be
creative in your delivery.
Coaches can have differentstyles and personalities, and
that's fine.
Be predictable in your systemsand creative in your delivery.
Now let's talk about leadership,right?
This is the hard one.
(13:46):
You need to eliminate decisionfatigue with a staff playbook.
That means you need to systemizethe way that your business
actually runs.
And you need to do this to apoint where a 12-year-old could
read it and understand it.
And if you were hit by a bustomorrow, your staff could walk
into the gym, open up thisplaybook and say, okay, I know
what I have to do.
And here's how I process thisclient's payment.
(14:08):
Here's how I book an Oswegointro.
Here's how I run an Oswegointro.
Everything.
should not depend on you.
Then you need to teach yourstaff these unbreakable rules.
We do this exactly the sameevery time, okay?
We start the class precisely ontime and we fill the hour and we
end exactly on time.
We show up early.
We message the client at Xpoint.
If we have to cancel, we find areplacement by this date, okay?
(14:31):
Then you can exercise yourcreativity in other areas.
So once you learn to delegateeffectively, which means, you
know, doing it exactly the sameway every time and using task
lists and checklists and SOPs,then you can be creative with a
staff's career roadmap.
So you can sit down with yourstaff, you can set up a career
roadmap with them.
(14:51):
You can be creative in how theyreach their goals in their
business, right?
You can give them options.
You can map different paths fordifferent clients.
Different staff, you can saylike, hey, look, if you want to
make more money, you want morehours, I've got this option.
You can start a nutritionprogram.
I've got this option.
You can start a kid's program.
You can take more personaltraining.
I've got a couple of extragroups you could do on the
(15:12):
weekend, right?
So you want to systemize howthey do things, but be creative
in their career path.
Let them make some options.
Give them some agency.
That means you need to tell yourstaff when to show up and what
to wear so that they don't haveto guess, right?
Be creative in your teamapparel, but inflexible in the
requirement to wear it.
So for example, the staff at mygym have about three or four
(15:34):
different coach shirts.
When they get up in the morning,they can choose which coach
shirt they want to wear, butthey have to wear a coach shirt
when they're coaching at my gym.
So that means you systemize thethings that are not negotiable,
the things that you want to bepredictable, the things that you
don't want to be getting mad atevery single day, but then be
creative in how they canimplement that.
(15:55):
So Here's my number one rule.
This is my system.
Every single day, do one thingto grow my business.
That is a non-negotiable for me.
So every single day at 5.30 AM,I am down here in this office.
I'm sitting on a couch.
I've got coffee in my hand andI'm doing one thing to grow my
business before I do anythingelse.
I'm on a 500 day streak as I dothis podcast.
(16:17):
It's But the thing that I dothat day can change.
So on Monday, for example, I'mgoing to record a podcast.
On Tuesday, I'm going to work ondistributing that podcast.
On Wednesday, I'm going to checkin with five clients.
On Thursday, I'm going to checkin with 10 leads.
On Friday, I'm going to schedulemy social media posts for next
week.
This is a great routine for me.
(16:38):
You need to adopt this everyday, do one thing to grow my
business habit, but you don'tnecessarily do the same things
in that hour that I do.
A lot of people who do thegolden hour challenge, follow
the exact same pattern that I dobecause they aren't really sure
what else they should do.
But after you've done this for amonth or two or three months,
you can change what happens onWednesdays, but you do not
(16:59):
change that first hour of theday.
You can get too creative.
And if you get too creative inyour business where you're
trying to paint every graphicand you're designing every
t-shirt and you're solving everyproblem without help, that's
going to lead to bankruptcy orburnout.
On the other hand, if you don'tget to feel creative control and
you're just kind of a cog in thewheel and you're doing what the
(17:21):
franchisor tells you, thenwhat's the point of owning the
business?
I get it.
At 2Brain, what we do with yourgym is we help you build solid
frameworks.
We set the non-negotiables instone, but we don't force a
franchise model on you.
I'd love for you to buy all yourequipment from Rogue, but you
don't have to.
We don't tell everybody to runbig groups and we don't tell
(17:42):
anybody not to run big groups.
We teach you frameworks.
You want to just run groupclasses?
That's cool.
Here's how to make it work withyour profit and loss statement.
And now we're going to build theframework that supports you
having a successful gym withjust big group classes.
Want to do this all one-on-one?
Okay.
Here's how to surviveone-on-one.
(18:04):
We're going to make this work onyour P&L.
And, you know, let's build aframework.
Let's set the things in stoneand give you some creativity on
how you deliver it.
If you never want to run groupclasses, if you don't want to do
semi-private, if you do want tomove to semi-private, if you
want to go to small group, wecan help you build frameworks
for all of those.
The key is that mentorship doesnot mean pounding one model into
(18:26):
your head.
What we like to do is help youbuild your model and then let
you be flexible on your method.
You can do CrossFit for yourmethod and you can do CrossFit
in a big group.
You can do CrossFit one-on-one.
You can do CrossFit in a smallgroup.
You can do CrossFit assemi-private.
Or you can do somethingcompletely different.
You can do yoga in a big group.
You can do yoga one-on-one, etcetera.
You pick your method.
(18:46):
That's part of the creativityand part of the beauty of owning
the gym will help you build amodel that supports you making a
living with that method.
So our mentors can give youspecific tasks to do, not just
advice or opinions, because theytoo have the freedom to work
within a mentorship frameworkthat we give them.
They're not just good at runninga CrossFit gym or good at
running a sports-specifictraining gym or good at running
(19:08):
a kid's gym.
They're good at running abusiness.
They're good at building modelsthat will support your business.
How do I know?
Because they've all been throughour program.
We've seen their metrics.
They're proven and we know thatthey can do it.
They're not just selling randombusiness advice to people like
unfortunately a lot of businesscoaches are.
You don't need a franchise tofix your chaotic gym.
(19:31):
You don't need to burn it down.
You don't need to start fromscratch.
You just need a framework.
And if you're solid where youneed to be and creative where
you can be, then you're going tohave a gym that is stable and
profitable and fun to run.
And you'll free yourself frommaking every decision all over
from scratch every single day.
I'm Chris Cooper.
This is Run a Profitable Gym.
Look, I know it's going to keepyour gym going for 30 years.
(19:54):
It has to be profitable.
It has to be stable.
It can't just be like workingwith a schizophrenic business,
but it also has to be fun.
And the day that you don't seeyourself having fun in the
future, you don't see yourselfmaking money in the future, is
probably the day you startthinking seriously about
closing.
I don't want that to happen toyou.
Book a call with my team andlet's talk about freedom within
(20:15):
a framework.
you became an entrepreneur because you wanted
freedom i know it i'm the sameway you wanted to reap the
eventual rewards from your hardwork you wanted to do it your
own way determine your own pathright and that means you wanted
the freedom to be creative buthere's the problem almost every
(00:21):
entrepreneur tries to be toocreative they wind up
reinventing the wheel everysingle day.
They create exceptions for everyclient.
They want to negotiate differentdeals for different people.
They want to design their ownt-shirts and they want to create
their own protein powders andthey want to write their own
programming and they want to dothe art for their logos and
their signs.
(00:41):
And so everything that they dois done from scratch.
And that means that every singleday at the gym is like its first
iteration.
It's like playing 51st dateswith your business where you're
starting over again every singleday.
I'm Chris Cooper.
This is Run a Profitable Gym.
And today I'm going to introduceyou to a concept that I call
freedom within a framework.
(01:02):
I actually learned this systemfrom Good to Great.
It's a fantastic book that Irecommend just about every year
when I give you my top books.
But I want to tell you how thisapplies to your gym.
Now, first, the reason that youcan't just be creative and vent
everything from scratch all thetime is because this creates a
ton of stress and Your businessexists only in your head and
every decision has to be madeover and over and over again.
(01:24):
And you get decision fatigue.
You get burned out.
You're constantly changingthings and tweaking things and
inventing.
And to you, this feels likeyou're really thinking fast and
being smart.
But to your clients and yourstaff, it looks like absolute
chaos.
It looks like there's noorganization or no plan and
there's nothing that'spredictable.
Nothing makes sense because whatyou said today might actually
(01:46):
change tomorrow.
Now, after five years of doingthis, your business is still
going to be in founder phasebecause everything is always
brand new and it might feelfresh to you for a little while,
but eventually you're going toburn out and get tired of making
decisions.
And when somebody comes to youand you say, I've told you that
already, what they're not sayingis, yeah, but you've told me
five different things and Ican't remember which one is
(02:06):
still correct.
And this has a grinding effecton people.
you, your clients, and yourstaff because it feels
unpredictable and thereforeunsafe.
It also doesn't help you growbecause you're just making
random efforts over and over andover again until you're
exhausted.
That means that your servicedelivery is inconsistent, your
staff performance isinconsistent, your workouts are
(02:28):
inconsistent, and you're gettingworse, never better.
So you start to get decisionfatigue and you get frustrated
and you wonder why your staffcan't just step up and just do
their job, but only you knowwhat that job is and it keeps
changing all the time.
So eventually you get burnedout.
It might take two years or itmight take 20, but that whole
(02:49):
burn it to the ground fantasyjust shows up more and more
often.
And this is because you're beingtoo creative in your business.
You're starting from scratchevery single day on every single
decision.
The answer is is not to open afranchise and follow somebody
else's system.
That's sometimes tempting, butyou didn't sign up to be a cog
in somebody else's machine,right?
(03:09):
The two brains of your businessare creativity, the right side
of your brain, and consistency,the left side of your brain,
creativity and consistency.
You need systems or you havechaos, but you also need to feel
creative or what's the point?
When they work together, youhave this beautiful business
that makes you money, makescareers for your staff, and
(03:30):
makes a big difference for yourclients.
So the answer is to createsystems for your operations that
allow you to be creative.
We call this freedom within aframework.
So it's not a matter of onething or the other, complete
creative control versus a boringfixed model.
It's a matter of learning whereyou should set things in stone
and do them exactly the same wayevery time, and where you can be
(03:52):
creative without harming yourbusiness.
We call this freedom within aframework.
You structure the business in away that lets you be creative
without tearing it all down andstarting from scratch every
single morning.
Now, if you've ever readDiscipline Equals Freedom by
Jocko Willink, then you alreadyknow what I'm going to tell you
here.
Structure the non-negotiables inyour life and the rest of your
(04:12):
life will feel free andcreative.
If you create unbreakable rulesabout the important parts, you
can just kind of float a littlebit with the rest.
Even if you haven't read thatbook, you've undoubtedly said
this to your coaching clients inyour gym.
Book your appointments for nextweek so that you know your
workouts are going to get done.
Wrap your meals on Sunday sothat you don't have to scramble
(04:33):
and make poor choices all week.
Now, here's how to do it in yourbusiness.
And I'm going to go through thissystem by system, metric by
metric.
We're going to start withmarketing because that's the
first thing people always wantto hear about all these
podcasts, isn't it?
In your marketing, it feels likeyou need to be an artist.
Like you have to be creative andyou need to invent the perfect
ad copy.
You need to make the perfectsocial media post.
(04:54):
And the answer is that there isroom for some creativity, but
you need to be systemized inyour ads and creative in your
conversations, right?
So what that means is that youdon't try to dream up the
perfect ad and then be surprisedwhen it doesn't work.
What you need to do are testthree ads at once, run them for
two weeks, let the algorithmlearn, just figure out which
(05:15):
one's working the best, and thenkill the two that are performing
the least best, keep the one,duplicate it, tweak one word,
two words, run another threeads.
And what you're going toconstantly be doing is like
pruning the bush and and makingthe ads better and better and
better as you go.
This needs to be your system.
(05:36):
So you start with three, youpick the one that's working the
best, you double down on that,and that is your system over
time.
And you don't stop.
You let the algorithm continueto learn and your ads get better
and better.
What you don't do is look for anad that's working for other
people right now because that'snot going to work for you.
That's trying to do art andbusiness is not about art.
(05:57):
Business is a science andincreasingly advertising is even
a science.
Likewise, just like you need tobe systemized in your ads and
creative in your conversationsthat the ads lead to with real
people, you need to besystemized in your branding and
creative in your content.
So you want to get a very basic,easy to understand brand, right?
(06:18):
If you look at the brand for TwoBrain Business, it's really,
really easy to read here.
There's a simple logo and words,right?
If you look at the brand for mygym, it's Catalyst Fitness,
green and white with a littlegreen arrow.
That's all you want.
You don't want to be artistic.
You don't want this complicatedlogo that appeals to the artist
within you, but nobody can readwhen they're driving by in their
(06:38):
car.
Then you want to be creative inyour content.
So in your content, You want tohave videos, you want to have
podcasts, you want to have blogposts that talk about a wide
variety of subjects so that whenpeople are looking for that
subject, they will find yourbrand.
People never go looking for yourbrand, right?
They're not Googling CatalystFitness.
(06:58):
What they're Googling is Jimnyor me.
They're Googling nutritionprogram that works.
They're looking for like fitnessin Sault Ste.
Marie.
And then that content guidesthem to my brand, which is
simple to understand andmemorable.
So you want to be systemized inyour branding and creative in
your content, just like you wantto be systemized in your ads and
creative in the conversationsthat the ads lead to.
(07:20):
Sales is the next thing that wetrack.
And we coach gym owners on salesbecause we all come into this
thinking like, oh, sales aregross.
I don't want to be good atsales.
Salespeople are slimy.
But the reality is that sales isthe first act of coaching that
you get to perform on anybody.
You need to coach them to committo your coaching.
And that means sales.
(07:41):
Just like you need to besystemized in some things in
marketing and creative in otherparts, you need to be systemized
in your pricing and creative inyour prescriptions.
A lot of people try to make upfor their poor sales habits or
their feeling of ickiness bybeing creative in their pricing.
So they've got a discount forthat guy and a discount for her,
and it's completely different.
And every time somebody comesin, it's a completely different
(08:02):
conversation where they'restarting from scratch and rarely
succeeding.
You need to be systemized inyour pricing and creative in
your prescriptions.
What that means is that you needto have three options, no more,
and have the exact same pricefor each of those options each
time.
Then when somebody comes in, youcan have a conversation like a
(08:23):
human and be creative in yourprescription.
I recommend this.
Here's the price.
So you need to eliminatediscounts, set the precedent
instead of needing to make adifferent decision for every
single client who comes in.
Because I know you, you'regenerous like me.
You want to give everybody thebest deal you can.
And so you start thinking like,how can I give this nurse the
(08:44):
same 30% off that the firemangets, right?
So get rid of the discounts.
Your price is the price.
That's the system.
Then follow a no sweat introprocess the same way every time.
You ask the same questions, butmake different recommendations
depending on the client's needs.
You don't need to be creative inyour sales process.
Just creative in yourprescription, depending on what
(09:04):
the client needs.
You also don't need to make up asales pitch that's different for
every single client.
You need to be systemized abouthow you sell your program and
then creative in what yourrecommendation is based on what
the client actually needs.
Be creative with theirprogramming and their
prescriptions.
Be systemized about the way thatyou sell your system and your
pricing.
(09:25):
Let's talk about retention.
You need to be systemized inyour goal reviews and creative
in your gifting and gratitude.
So a lot of people, they want toapproach retention with
creativity, right?
They want to turn it into anarts and crafts project.
They want to make badges.
They want to make a leaderboardup on their wall.
They want to like celebrate thethousand visits club or
whatever, but none of thesethings really matter.
(09:47):
We choose to do them becausethey're fun.
It feels like arts and craftsand, you know, it doesn't really
take a lot of work, but it alsodoesn't work that well.
You need to do the big thingsreally, really well if you want
to have good retention.
And that includes goal reviews.
It means asking for referrals.
It means getting clientsresults.
Those are big, hard things, butthat's what keeps people around.
(10:09):
And that's what retention is allabout.
And so you need a system whereyou're regularly meeting with
your client, updating theirprogress and making a new
prescription for them.
Again, you're systemized in thegoal reviews, you're creative in
the prescription, and you alsoneed a system to where you ask
for referrals every single time.
And you need a system whereyou're getting clients' results
(10:30):
and you're measuring thoseresults every single time.
You need a system that allowsyou to have a one-on-one
relationship with your client,whether they're in a group
program or one-on-one or smallgroup or semi-private or
whatever, you need to have thatone-on-one touch point.
That's the system that you needto build with retention.
What do you say at a goalreview?
Well, how are things going?
Are you completely happy withyour progress?
(10:53):
And Are you tempted to speedthis up?
Or do you know somebody close toyou who would benefit from our
coaching?
More specifically, would yourhusband benefit?
Would your coworkers benefit?
And if you've got a name, that'seven better.
That's how a system works.
If your retention program isjust like, huh, I'll make every
workout fun and I'll high fivepeople and I'll make the
(11:15):
programming interesting.
That is not a system.
That's a wish.
And you're just hoping thatpeople stick around because of
it.
It's not enough.
So be systemized in doing goalreviews, the things that
actually matter and creative inyour gifting and gratitude.
Say welcome a different way toevery single person in your
class tomorrow.
Give every single person adifferent thank you for being
(11:36):
such a great client after thefive-year mark.
That's fine, right?
Be creative about what you writein the holiday card.
Be creative in how you set upthe potluck, but do not ignore
having a solid system thatrepeats for every client and
that's what's going to retainthem.
Operations.
This is kind of the easyexample.
It's also the one that nobodywants to talk about, but the
(11:58):
reality about your operations isyou should be able to set them
and forget them.
And so this is wheresystemization helps a lot.
So you might ask yourself like,well, where can I really be
creative in my systems?
If I don't want people runningclasses differently every time,
if I don't want differentpricing every time, if I don't
want a different cleaner everytime, where's the opportunity to
(12:19):
be creative in your systems?
Well, Let's talk about where youneed to be systemized in your
operations, and then I'll tellyou where you can be creative in
the delivery.
So first, you need to simplifyyour operations with clear
instructions.
Make the experience exactly thesame for every client.
You should not have clientsgetting a different experience
at 7 a.m.
because you've got this amazingcoach than they would get at
(12:42):
noon when you've got kind of aB-plus coach, okay?
Then you need to audit yoursystems.
You need to plan the clientjourney in advance.
Make sure that everybody'sgetting that same experience.
Then you can be creative in yourmessaging, your celebrations,
and your gratitude.
So simplify your operations withclear instructions, make the
experience exactly the same forevery client, but be creative in
your messaging and yourdelivery.
(13:04):
Be systemized in your planning.
You should have a calendar threemonths out of which events
you're going to do, whatspecialty programs you're going
to be running, who's on scheduleto run what class.
But be creative within theclass.
Different coaches can usedifferent cues.
That's fine.
Be creative in your programmingbetween two clients.
If you've got two personaltraining clients, be creative in
their programming, depending onwhat will get them to their
(13:25):
results.
You want to be predictable inyour operations.
You don't want clients havingdifferent experiences on
different days.
You always want your class tostart on time, but you can be
creative in your delivery.
Coaches can have differentstyles and personalities, and
that's fine.
Be predictable in your systemsand creative in your delivery.
Now let's talk about leadership,right?
This is the hard one.
(13:46):
You need to eliminate decisionfatigue with a staff playbook.
That means you need to systemizethe way that your business
actually runs.
And you need to do this to apoint where a 12-year-old could
read it and understand it.
And if you were hit by a bustomorrow, your staff could walk
into the gym, open up thisplaybook and say, okay, I know
what I have to do.
And here's how I process thisclient's payment.
(14:08):
Here's how I book an Oswegointro.
Here's how I run an Oswegointro.
Everything.
should not depend on you.
Then you need to teach yourstaff these unbreakable rules.
We do this exactly the sameevery time, okay?
We start the class precisely ontime and we fill the hour and we
end exactly on time.
We show up early.
We message the client at Xpoint.
If we have to cancel, we find areplacement by this date, okay?
(14:31):
Then you can exercise yourcreativity in other areas.
So once you learn to delegateeffectively, which means, you
know, doing it exactly the sameway every time and using task
lists and checklists and SOPs,then you can be creative with a
staff's career roadmap.
So you can sit down with yourstaff, you can set up a career
roadmap with them.
(14:51):
You can be creative in how theyreach their goals in their
business, right?
You can give them options.
You can map different paths fordifferent clients.
Different staff, you can saylike, hey, look, if you want to
make more money, you want morehours, I've got this option.
You can start a nutritionprogram.
I've got this option.
You can start a kid's program.
You can take more personaltraining.
I've got a couple of extragroups you could do on the
(15:12):
weekend, right?
So you want to systemize howthey do things, but be creative
in their career path.
Let them make some options.
Give them some agency.
That means you need to tell yourstaff when to show up and what
to wear so that they don't haveto guess, right?
Be creative in your teamapparel, but inflexible in the
requirement to wear it.
So for example, the staff at mygym have about three or four
(15:34):
different coach shirts.
When they get up in the morning,they can choose which coach
shirt they want to wear, butthey have to wear a coach shirt
when they're coaching at my gym.
So that means you systemize thethings that are not negotiable,
the things that you want to bepredictable, the things that you
don't want to be getting mad atevery single day, but then be
creative in how they canimplement that.
(15:55):
So Here's my number one rule.
This is my system.
Every single day, do one thingto grow my business.
That is a non-negotiable for me.
So every single day at 5.30 AM,I am down here in this office.
I'm sitting on a couch.
I've got coffee in my hand andI'm doing one thing to grow my
business before I do anythingelse.
I'm on a 500 day streak as I dothis podcast.
(16:17):
It's But the thing that I dothat day can change.
So on Monday, for example, I'mgoing to record a podcast.
On Tuesday, I'm going to work ondistributing that podcast.
On Wednesday, I'm going to checkin with five clients.
On Thursday, I'm going to checkin with 10 leads.
On Friday, I'm going to schedulemy social media posts for next
week.
This is a great routine for me.
(16:38):
You need to adopt this everyday, do one thing to grow my
business habit, but you don'tnecessarily do the same things
in that hour that I do.
A lot of people who do thegolden hour challenge, follow
the exact same pattern that I dobecause they aren't really sure
what else they should do.
But after you've done this for amonth or two or three months,
you can change what happens onWednesdays, but you do not
(16:59):
change that first hour of theday.
You can get too creative.
And if you get too creative inyour business where you're
trying to paint every graphicand you're designing every
t-shirt and you're solving everyproblem without help, that's
going to lead to bankruptcy orburnout.
On the other hand, if you don'tget to feel creative control and
you're just kind of a cog in thewheel and you're doing what the
(17:21):
franchisor tells you, thenwhat's the point of owning the
business?
I get it.
At 2Brain, what we do with yourgym is we help you build solid
frameworks.
We set the non-negotiables instone, but we don't force a
franchise model on you.
I'd love for you to buy all yourequipment from Rogue, but you
don't have to.
We don't tell everybody to runbig groups and we don't tell
(17:42):
anybody not to run big groups.
We teach you frameworks.
You want to just run groupclasses?
That's cool.
Here's how to make it work withyour profit and loss statement.
And now we're going to build theframework that supports you
having a successful gym withjust big group classes.
Want to do this all one-on-one?
Okay.
Here's how to surviveone-on-one.
(18:04):
We're going to make this work onyour P&L.
And, you know, let's build aframework.
Let's set the things in stoneand give you some creativity on
how you deliver it.
If you never want to run groupclasses, if you don't want to do
semi-private, if you do want tomove to semi-private, if you
want to go to small group, wecan help you build frameworks
for all of those.
The key is that mentorship doesnot mean pounding one model into
(18:26):
your head.
What we like to do is help youbuild your model and then let
you be flexible on your method.
You can do CrossFit for yourmethod and you can do CrossFit
in a big group.
You can do CrossFit one-on-one.
You can do CrossFit in a smallgroup.
You can do CrossFit assemi-private.
Or you can do somethingcompletely different.
You can do yoga in a big group.
You can do yoga one-on-one, etcetera.
You pick your method.
(18:46):
That's part of the creativityand part of the beauty of owning
the gym will help you build amodel that supports you making a
living with that method.
So our mentors can give youspecific tasks to do, not just
advice or opinions, because theytoo have the freedom to work
within a mentorship frameworkthat we give them.
They're not just good at runninga CrossFit gym or good at
running a sports-specifictraining gym or good at running
(19:08):
a kid's gym.
They're good at running abusiness.
They're good at building modelsthat will support your business.
How do I know?
Because they've all been throughour program.
We've seen their metrics.
They're proven and we know thatthey can do it.
They're not just selling randombusiness advice to people like
unfortunately a lot of businesscoaches are.
You don't need a franchise tofix your chaotic gym.
(19:31):
You don't need to burn it down.
You don't need to start fromscratch.
You just need a framework.
And if you're solid where youneed to be and creative where
you can be, then you're going tohave a gym that is stable and
profitable and fun to run.
And you'll free yourself frommaking every decision all over
from scratch every single day.
I'm Chris Cooper.
This is Run a Profitable Gym.
Look, I know it's going to keepyour gym going for 30 years.
(19:54):
It has to be profitable.
It has to be stable.
It can't just be like workingwith a schizophrenic business,
but it also has to be fun.
And the day that you don't seeyourself having fun in the
future, you don't see yourselfmaking money in the future, is
probably the day you startthinking seriously about
closing.
I don't want that to happen toyou.
Book a call with my team andlet's talk about freedom within
(20:15):
a framework.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.