October 30, 2025 • 37 mins
What does it take to run two thriving gyms and serve more than 900 clients?
Tyler Quinn has the answers: He operates two Denver fitness studios with nearly 1,000 members combined.
But here's the surprising part: He didn’t reach these members with paid ads or gimmicks like discounts. Seventy percent of his new clients come from referrals.
In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Mike Warkentin asks Tyler about the systems and strategies behind building high-volume gyms that actually work.
Tyler explains how to stand out from competitors, how to scale Two-Brain best practices such as No Sweat Intros for 1,000 clients, and why fundamentals like clean facilities and genuine care drive 16-month retention.
His gyms prove you don't need low prices to get high member counts, but you do need to build strong systems and provide great results for clients.
Tune in to hear how Tyler scaled to 900+ clients without sacrificing quality.
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1:17 - Tyler’s business model
7:59 - How his client count has changed
21:01 - Challenges of huge client counts
26:18 - How he finds so many clients
32:45 - The keys to retention
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Tyler, it's super hard to run a gym with more than
300 members.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Uh, tell me about it.
I've got two of them goingright now.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Two gyms with more than 300 members each.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
That is correct.
Yeah, we're uh two gyms atabout uh 950 some members.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Whoa, okay.
Will you share some of yoursecrets with our listeners
today?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I would absolutely love to, but looking forward to
it.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Uh nice.
This is Run a Profitable Gym.
We're gonna find out how Tylerand Christy Quinn of Alchemy 365
acquire, serve, and retainhundreds of members at two
locations.
This is a great story.
I'm Mike Workenden.
Please hit subscribe whereveryou're watching or listening.
For a little bit of context,our most recent leaderboard, top
10 gyms for client count, ranfrom 314 to 698.
(00:44):
This is monster numbers.
Industry data says most groupcoaching gyms have about 100 to
150 clients.
Good news, you can make a greatliving with 120 to 150 clients
if your services are pricedcorrectly.
We won't get into that today.
Instead, we're going big withTyler.
So Tyler's two Denver gyms,made our top 10 leaderboard.
He's gonna tell you how he didit.
Tyler, welcome from MountainTime.
(01:05):
How are you?
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I'm great.
I'm great.
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I am fired up about this.
I often talk to people who arerunning a smaller business
model.
You're going big.
And so we're gonna talk aboutit.
You got to give this the lay ofthe land first.
What's the foreign one?
Like what's the summary of yourbusiness model?
Who are you selling to whom?
What price?
Space staff.
Give me the rundown so peopleknow what we're looking at here.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah.
Uh well, the business is calledAlchemy 365, group fitness.
Everything is uh class based,so we we don't have any personal
training or uh or semi-privateor small group stuff going at
this time.
Definitely high volume.
So so the majority of ourclasses tend to be in that 15 to
30 athlete range, uh uh, sopretty crowded rooms.
(01:45):
Uh, what are we selling?
We're selling uh we're sellinghigh intensity and functional
training, but we're doing it, Ithink, in a way that for a lot
of people feels a bit moreapproachable.
And um we're selling it topeople who I think would say
that fitness is just a is just apart of their active lifestyle.
They're not actually takingtheir fitness so seriously, it's
(02:08):
not the the end-all be-all oftheir physical activity, which
is important because because ourcustomer is unique, and I think
we've done a good job trying tofocus on how we serve that
specific customer.
What do we say?
What do we say?
Uh 4,500 square feet.
You asked about size of ourspaces.
So about 4,500 square feet.
Uh, we have two closed-offtraining classrooms, so it's so
(02:30):
our facilities sort of mimic uha little bit of a yoga studio
model where you know you there'sa there's a designated lobby
space and you actually enter theclassroom.
It's not just necessarily openfloor space.
Okay.
We've got about 45 staffmembers, four four full-timers,
and then just a bunch ofpart-time support staff members,
a lot of coaches, and thensome, you know, some sales and
(02:50):
marketing, and we've got someadmin, and we've got some folks
doing other things, uh, butalmost almost entirely on a on a
part-time basis, except forthose four FTEs.
Yeah, and I think uh I thinkthat gives you the general idea.
Did I miss anything?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
No, I think that's it.
So you're looking at highintensity kind of stuff.
I want to ask a couplequestions about that.
Like you said 4,500 squarefeet, and yet you're packing in
like 17 to 20 people.
I had 6,000 and I was servinglike seven, you know, and I'd
made some really bad decisionsthat cost me a lot of money with
unused space.
Uh, what kind of high intensitystuff are you doing there?
Is it like barbell stuff?
Is it different stuff thattakes a little bit less space or
what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yeah, and and and Mike, cut me off if I'm if I go
out of out of line here, but I Ithink I think I think a little
context probably helps answerthat question, which is that I I
started Alchemy after owningand operating four CrossFit gyms
in the Twin Cities inMinneapolis and St.
Paul.
So uh came from the CrossFitspace.
There you go.
There you go.
Came from the CrossFit space.
And uh when we were when wewere playing with the idea, we
(03:47):
being me being my businesspartners and I, when we were
playing with the idea oflaunching a new concept called
Alchemy, we did, we were, wewere pretty focused on
optimizing space for one.
And and two was uh how do wedifferentiate a little bit from
CrossFit?
How do we make sure that if westart something new, people
don't just see it as you know,some sort of perversion of
(04:07):
CrossFit?
We wanted to sort of forge alittle bit of our own space to
play in.
And so we actually created apiece of equipment called the
torpedo, which looks like adumbbell with handles on the
outside.
And so what it allowed us to dowas give people who had at that
point really never been under abarbell an opportunity to put
two hands on an implement and dothings like a push press or a
(04:29):
or a power clean.
You know, I put an asterisk onthat for the Olympic
weightlifters out there, butsomething that looked like a
power clean, something thatlooked like a push press with a
two-handed implement, it alsoallowed us to swing it like a
kettlebell and then hold centerhandles like a dumbbell.
And so all of a sudden, youknow, a human being got a
parking space inside of ourclass that was about the size of
(04:49):
a yoga mat.
And that completely changed theoperating model for us because
instead of needing 4,500 squarefeet for seven people, like you
were talking about, uh, ourclassrooms are 2,000 square
feet, and yeah, we're getting,we're getting 15, 20, 25, 30
people in a classroom.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Wow, what a fascinating way to solve a crazy
problem.
Because back, I mean, werealized before the show that
we'd actually met each otherback in 2012, uh, when I was
coming to cover a cross levelone seminar at your gym, and I
saw one of your new facilities.
And like back in the day, thebig plan at that point was to
like go as big as you can andfill it with a monster amount of
people.
And like I kind of went in themiddle and picked 6,000 square
(05:23):
feet, but it was still way, way,way too much.
And now we're looking at theother end of it where there's a
lot of gyms that are around now.
They're operating in like 1200,1500, 2,500, and their their
revenue per square foot justdwarfs what I did.
And like their rent is smaller,and like they're doing all
these amazing things.
And so you found a way to nothave to have that much space and
serve large numbers of peoplebecause listeners, I'll tell you
(05:44):
this.
Uh, state of the industry datais coming out again this year.
I can tell you uh without doubtthat average group CrossFit,
not CrossFit, group class sizes,seven, maybe seven people
across the entire fitnessindustry.
This is data from Watafi, thisis data from two-brain
dashboards, uh data fromsurveys, like thousands of gym
owners.
Seven people.
That's the average.
Most gyms are not able to get15 people in there.
(06:05):
So if you're building around agiant model, you better have a
plan like Tyler's got becauseit's not going to work in a lot
of situations.
I couldn't do it, Chris Coopercouldn't do it, Tyler found a
way.
So this, do you sell thetorpedo?
Speaker 1 (06:16):
You know, we we don't anymore.
And I I'll tell you, so so thepandemic, not to, not to pull
that old sob story out that wedid that we yeah, I mean, we
were we were wholeselling thetorpedo prior to 2020.
So we were selling the gyms,hotels, apartment buildings that
had little, you know, littlegyms inside.
We were we were doing a prettygood little business there.
We also had an online conceptcalled Alchemy Anywhere, which
(06:36):
was oriented around this oneimplement.
And so we were selling directto consumer as well.
We've kind of we've kind of putthat on ice.
So we still own the patents, westill have uh you know the
manufacturing rights, but wewe're not really totally sure
what to do with itpost-pandemic.
And and just to just tocomment, what I'll tell you is I
wish we I wish I could go backand go even smaller, right?
So back to the square footageconversation because even uh
(06:58):
from 2015 to 2020, in the rampup phase of Alchemy's growth, we
were still falling into thetrap of chasing larger and
larger, more expensive spaces,uh more costly build-outs.
And now in retrospect, I lookback and I go, boy, I I I still
see areas where I could haveshaved 500, maybe even a
thousand square feet out of eachof our facilities and not had
(07:20):
any impact on the customerexperience.
And so if anyone's listening,it's like just constrain your
thinking and restrict yourselfdown to the smallest footprint
possible.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, and Chris, that echoes what Chris has said.
If you can just start small anddon't expand until you're
bursting at the seams and do itthen from a position of
strength, because every time youexpand, you've got build-out
costs, relocation costs, paintcosts, branding costs, all this
other stuff, more heat, moreeverything, and like all of a
sudden your profit margin goesdown.
You can build it back up, ofcourse.
But if you just make the wrongdecisions, like I'm going at
12,000 feet from 2,000, which alot of CrossFit gym owners did
(07:51):
back in the day, you can end upwith a horrible lease, a vacant
facility, and all of a sudden nomoney in your bank account and
you're gone.
And that that happens to toomany gyms.
So uh let's talk about this.
So let's talk about clientcount because that's what we're
here to do.
How has that changed over theyears?
Have you like started out withsmaller numbers and built up?
Did you go big right away, orhow have you built to these
impressive numbers?
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yeah, well, let's think here.
So we're well, you're asking meto go back 10 years, so I'm
trying to try to noodle onexactly how this evolved.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Because you know, we tread the same path and like you
took a very different approachand you're at a different spot.
I'm so curious about this.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, so so so when we opened, well, actually before
we opened, when we were teeingup this idea of alchemy, it was
initially just going to be aclass offering at our CrossFit
gyms, right?
It was, it was, it was justlike, you know, you hear people
talk about trying to solve basicproblems for your customers.
And we had some people who wereleaving our CrossFit gyms and
(08:49):
basically saying, look, I I'mnot interested in having my
exercise be competitive.
I'm not interested in some ofthe Olympic weightlifting or
some of the more marginalgymnastics movements.
And so we just thought maybe wecan offer a class, uh, you
know, a service inside of ourCrossFit gyms that will take
care of the these people andthese needs and keep them around
(09:10):
longer.
So we started just testing it,free classes, free, you know,
this had nothing to do with yourmembership.
You could anybody could comein, bring a friend, whatever.
We just wanted to beta testwhat we were coming up with.
And uh what we found, you know,I'd be I'd be finishing up my
5.30 p.m.
CrossFit class with seven toten people in it, and then the
door would start opening andclosing.
And by the time the 6.30 testclass rolled around, there'd be
(09:33):
like 50 or 60 people there.
Whoa.
And so that was that was whenwe knew, okay, well, there's
something attractive to uh to alot of people.
And so right off the jump, westarted to build our business
model around this idea of howcan we how can we get to million
dollar units, right?
We wanted to have each unit bea million dollars.
And so we had a membership goalthat was going to drive that
(09:54):
revenue objective at eachbusiness unit.
And that's kind of the way wewe sort of triangulated around
how many members do we want, howmuch space do we need, how do
we service them?
You know, it just kind of allworked around that that that
number.
And and that wasn't drawn outof a hat.
We did have big aspirationsabout scaling the business up to
be uh, you know, a national,national player.
(10:16):
And so we were meeting withprivate equity, and and and a
lot of private equity advice wasthat's the standard, that that
that million dollar per businessunit is the standard.
And I'll tell you, I look backon that and I think that that
was bad advice for us to try tochase it.
It was the wrong thing for usto focus on, and I think it
drove us to make a lot of reallybad decisions during our
initial growth years.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Wow.
So I'll I'm gonna point out onething that I think you did that
was brilliant, and I'm gonnaask you a question about your
mistakes.
Uh the thing that you said thatwas really, really cool was
that you you started with anidea of like, what do we want
these gyms to do?
And then you work backwardsfrom that.
Because I started with an idea,like, I want to teach squats.
And then I worked from that,and like there was honor in what
I did, but like there wasn't alot of business sense in that.
(10:58):
And like my my results showedthat.
You went the other way, andthis is what we recommend to gym
owners now is like, what do youneed to make?
This is the number.
How do we work back from this?
How many clients do we need atwhat price?
What's the marketing plan?
How do we fill it?
How many leads do we need toclose this many sales?
And then the whole thing isjust this daisy chain of
business metrics that didn'texist back in the day.
So you did a great thing.
And here's what I want, here'show I'm gonna do it.
(11:18):
But tell me about a couple ofthe mistakes.
What happened there that didn'tgo according to plan that you
said, like, ah, I should havemaybe done it differently?
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Well, I mean, I think I think that the chasing the
revenue number led us down thepath of all revenue being equal
and any revenue is good revenue.
And so I look back on the Ilook back on the you know first
five years of our business and Ilook back at situations in
which we were opening a smoothiebar at a couple of our
locations and trying and tryingto take that on and manage it
(11:47):
ourselves.
And so, so you know, I'll use aHighland Park location uh back
in Minnesota.
We open the smoothie bar withinsix months, the membership
starts to go down, but the alarmbells aren't going off because
we're we're just offsetting therevenue with food and beverage.
Right.
And then all of a sudden, youknow, I'm noticing on Slack that
um in between classes, ourgeneral manager's running down
(12:07):
to the Trader Joe's to get moreavocados for smoothies, instead
of, you know, like being therein front of our customer.
And sooner or later, you know,sooner or later, the the the
membership started to drop.
But conversely, the moment weeventually sort of said, look,
we're gonna outsource this is awho not how situation.
Let's get somebody else to runthe smoothie bar and figure that
out for us, it it justrebounded.
(12:29):
That's an example of uh uschasing all revenue at all
costs.
We we sold longboards withalchemy branding on them.
We were doing alchemy retreatsand getting people running
marathons and uh in Iceland andclimbing Kilimanjaro all through
the alchemy brand because itwas all this.
How do we just generate revenueand build this lifestyle brand?
(12:50):
And I think probably what weshould have done was that and
this is pretty fundamentalbusiness advice, I think, which
is like figure out what you canbe great at, do that thing, and
don't start chasing all theshiny objects that are that are
available to you just becauseyou're having success in one
area.
So that that's probably the thethe biggest mistake.
And I but I also would just sayyou know, you talked about how
(13:13):
we we were smart about backinginto our goals.
That came after a lot ofhard-earned lessons.
I mean, I don't think we didthat in our CrossFit business.
I just I wanted to teach squatsjust like you.
I wanted to teach CrossFit.
And um, so it was it it tooklike a second try in rebooting a
new business and thinking alittle bit differently about it
(13:34):
that allowed us to hopefullymake better decisions than we
had made the first go-around.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Okay, so that's the history.
That's very interesting.
With these two facilities thatyou've got now, did you scale up
to these member counts veryquickly?
Or was it uh like a chunk,chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, or a
slow builder?
How'd that go?
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yes, we we started to feel like we had a pretty good,
pretty dialed launch plan thatwas going to allow us to get to
a solid membership number prettyearly.
We made lots of mistakes, but Ithink we did build a strong
brand and we had good brandrecognition, and that allowed us
to kind of hit our membershipgoals within a reasonable time
(14:14):
frame.
So we we felt like we felt likeuh we wanted to be in the black
on day one, and then we wantedto be at optimization 12 months,
right?
We were at a 12-month timematuration period, right?
We sort of felt like at the 12months we need to be at this
number.
And I would say for the mostpart, our new studio launches,
we were able we were able toaccomplish that.
(14:35):
And so so yeah, we it was itwas relative, I mean I would I
would call that relativelyquick, you know, getting to 500
members at Lohi, which was a anew studio in a new market, not
in our backyard.
We did that, you know, probablyin probably in nine months, and
we were you know sitting prettypretty solid at that location.
They didn't all go that well,but that's kind of an example of
(14:57):
of uh the growth pace that wewere trying to achieve.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Okay, that's great.
And I'm gonna ask you at thetoward the end of the show about
the sales market and how youdid that, but I want to talk
about a couple of quick quickthings first.
Uh client count is awesome, butit's not awesome if the other
numbers that back it up don'tlike if you have a thousand
clients and they all pay adollar, you're not making any
money, and you see the you knowthe obvious example there.
So, two key metrics that arerelated to client client client
counts is average revenue memberand length of engagement.
(15:20):
So, like in some very largegyms, and often in these access
facilities, these numbers arelike 29 bucks and it's two
months or something like that.
Their length of engage isterrible.
They want you to sign acontract at a cheap rate and
they hope you don't come.
That's just one of the businessmodels that's out there, and it
works for these large corporatefacilities where they, you
know, they're just it'sequipment rental essentially.
What are you aiming for in yourgyms?
Because you've got a verydifferent model.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Yeah, it's a it's a really interesting question and
it's a timely one.
And again, I want to I want toprovide a little context here,
which is we were we were agrowth company from 2015 to
2020.
We were focused on becoming anationally recognized brand.
We wanted to have a hundredcorporate-owned studios around
the country.
That was our that was ourmission.
(16:04):
In 2024, in late 2024, my wifeand I ultimately made the
decision to close down seven ofour nine operating studios.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Whoa, okay.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
And I don't know if you know that.
Uh so so so it was it was amatter of it was a matter of
feeling like four and a halfyears post-pandemic, the the the
industry has changed so much.
And I bet a lot of yourlisteners can can know what I'm
talking about.
The industry changed, and itand even the customer changed.
Yep.
And we had a lot of residualmodeling that just didn't
(16:38):
reconcile with a post-pandemicworld and the industry trends.
And and moreover, I think mywife and I just we were 10 years
older, and we just thought, dowe, do we want to be flying to
all these to different citiesand opening cities?
Is that really the what we wantto do?
So why is that why is thatrelevant?
We have made lots of changesover the last 12 months to
(16:58):
downsize and refocus and thinkabout our business differently.
It's part of the reason that weultimately swapped software
providers.
We went we went from mind bodyto I don't know if you know
Wattify is our new softwareprovider and they've been a huge
partner in us sort ofrebuilding our business smarter.
It's part of the reason thatwe've plugged in with two
bringing because we don't, we'renot even sure we remember how
(17:20):
to run a two-studio business inone market.
Like it's like I didn't even, Icould, I couldn't, I couldn't
remember what that was like.
And so that's a lot of contextbecause you're asking these
really great questions about armand leg and alchemy today.
Right now, we're sitting atabout 134 uh average revenue per
member, uh, length ofengagement, roughly 16 months.
(17:41):
You know, what are we aimingfor?
My as I was thinking about thisconversation, I wrote down like
there is there's no ceiling onwhat I want to achieve on those
numbers, but all of a sudden,we're thinking about those
numbers as more critical, morefront and center than we had
been, right?
Where in the historically ithad been volume, it had been
(18:04):
about number of units, and justtop line and just like just show
investor types about how robustour business is.
And now we're trying to runsomething that is actually
healthy and profitable andsustainable.
And so now, you know, we'reworking with Peter at Two Brain,
and and and uh we're able tostart to like tinker with our
(18:27):
business in a way that'sappropriate at our size now to
drive those numbers up.
So 134 and 16, that's the shortanswer.
Yeah, but I gave you a lot ofcontext, hopefully, that's it.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
No, but it's so needed.
And what you're getting atthere is business models, and
that was again something thatdidn't exist really back in the
day.
There was like maybe like thebusiness models open across the
gym with a lot of space wherepeople show up.
That was one not very goodbusiness model.
There's also like the giantbodybuilding thing that was kind
of skitting stale at the end ofthat period, right?
Where it was like, ah, you justget all the Nautilus machines
that you can and you just funnelpeople in for 30 bucks and hope
(18:58):
they don't get huge.
Like that existed.
But like now we're talkingabout different business models.
So you've evolved from likethis one where you wanted to set
a goal like national chain.
That is a huge, huge thing thatrequires like huge CEO level
skills, right?
So you had to like completelydifferent concerns, and you're
talking about like a volumegame.
And alongside that, you're notcoaching squats anymore, like
you said back in the early days.
(19:18):
You're like private equitymeetings with investors and
replicating brands and all thisother stuff and leases and all
these crazy things.
That's a completely differentskill set.
Now you're pulling back alittle bit.
But what I want to point out toyour listeners is Tyler's got a
ton, a ton of members, but healso has a strong length of
engagement.
It used to be length ofengagement in the industry was
like eight months beforesomething pretty bad like that.
(19:40):
And in some corporatefacilities, with like the
equipment rental thing, lengthof engagement is maybe three
months.
They join in January, they'reup by February kind of thing,
maybe March, if you're lucky.
That's completely different.
And the other thing you've gotgoing on is an average revenue
per member.
130, you said I think it wassomething around there?
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Well well, 134 right now.
But um yeah, gotta do better.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
But that's pretty good considering the number of
clients you have because thereare like in a one-on-one, we'll
see one-on-one.
Like our I think our top ARMsare $500 plus at two-brain gyms.
That often comes in personaltraining and small group
facilities that are a verydifferent business model again.
So, like what we're talkinghere, Lishes, is different
business models.
And as I said in the intro, ifyour business model is 120 to
(20:20):
150 people, your pricing andstrategy and avatar are gonna be
completely different than ifyou're going for larger client
counts.
The point figure out what yourbusiness model is, a term mentor
is the perfect person to helpyou do that, because then you
can start to get these numbersin line and say, uh, this is
what I need, this is how we'regonna do it, and this is the
next metric we're gonna work on.
And it's this whole cyclicalprocess where you're not just
(20:41):
saying, I need more.
And that's how you said youwent through a little bit of
that where it's like more forthe sake of more and more for
the sake of revenue and numbersand investors.
That's a hard game to play.
When you start getting targetsin place, things are very
interesting.
So those are some really,really cool leg and arm numbers
from a very big gym.
And like, I'd I'd suggest thatthose are very out of the
ordinary and outstanding numbersfor people with 900 class.
Uh we'll go on a little bit.
I want to ask you this, becauselike you've talked about huge
(21:04):
numbers of gyms, huge numbers ofclients.
What are the challenges like uhbesides the complete level of
overwhelm that I would feelinstantly in your series?
What are the what are thechallenges and how does your
mentor help you solve theseproblems now with two big gyms?
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Yeah, so I I I think that I think the biggest
challenge is just keeping trackof people, right?
And that probably seemsobvious, right?
So But how do you do it?
Well, yeah, and essentiallylike there's just a lot, there's
a lot of human beings comingthrough the door.
And and and and and if you'retrying to be an environment
where you know people's namesand you understand their
objectives and their goals, andyou're trying to be a high touch
(21:38):
point, that that can bechallenging.
Having uh close to a thousandmembers means you have to have a
lot of classes on the schedule.
Having lots of classes meanslots of coaches, and so I would
say that quality control is achallenge for us, for sure.
You know, we talk about how thepart-time group fitness coach
is a bit of a transientpopulation, right?
(21:59):
Those people come and go.
You're constantly trying tobackfill with with good coaches,
and for us, it feels like Imean maybe not on our heels, but
certainly not on our toes,where we're we're always a bit
reactive and feeling like it thequality of our coaching staff
is never quite where we want itto be.
We always want to drive that touh to be better.
(22:20):
Churn, churn, I mean, churnprobably for all gyms is a
challenging thing, but I thinkthere's a certain natural churn
that takes place for everylocation.
And so if you just think aboutthat equilibrium, right?
You know, if if if if if you'rebattling for roughly 5% churn,
you know, 5% of a thousand is isit requires an awful lot of
selling and a lot of conversionjust to stay level.
(22:43):
And so it feels like you're ona you're on a treadmill that's
just a tiny bit too fast foryou.
You know, like you're like youcan keep up, but it's not
comfortable, and you know you'realways wondering like how do we
how do we increase efficiencyin this machine?
Uh your your question was howdoes how has our two-brain
mentor helped?
Speaker 2 (22:59):
I think Peter Burstulan, correct?
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Correct.
Yep.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Yeah, he's run some big facilities, million-dollar
guy.
Yep.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's it's been it's been so much fun.
I mean, we have to be carefulwith to stay on agenda because
we like just we like justshooting shit and going back and
forth with each other.
I think one of the primarythemes, given our size, has
been, you know, how do we takeall these best practices that
TwoBrain has uncovered,developed over the years that
they've been doing the work thatthey've been doing?
(23:26):
How do we take those bestpractices and how do we apply
them in a way that works for ourbusiness at our size?
So something like a no-sweatintro.
Like what does it look likewhen you know, based on our
first-time attendance and thenumber of folks we're trying to
draw in just to offset thatchurn of 5% at a thousand?
How do we do that in a way thatthat actually still works
(23:49):
inside of our business?
And so a lot of our work hasbeen, it's almost been like a uh
it's like a translation effort.
How do we take the bestpractice and translate it into
something that doesn't feelquite so manual and can be
applied inside of our business?
Speaker 2 (24:04):
You gotta scale a little bit, right?
Because you're one of thebigger gyms.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
You gotta scale it.
You gotta scale it a littlebit.
Yep and I and I and here again,I mean, not to, you know, look,
I I the the software transitionfor us was a huge deal.
And I think yes, as as good asthe two-brain uh mentorship has
been for us, I think the otherpart of the equation has been,
you know, we we joined uh wejoined up with Wattify, and the
software, they've been able tobring some technology into our
(24:29):
business to help us manageathlete check-ins, promotions,
retail, the kiosk system, theirworkflows.
So I'm taking, you know, I'mtaking Peter's solution,
two-brain solution, and I'moftentimes going to Wattify as
our like total side-by-side techpartner and saying, look,
(24:49):
here's this thing that I'mtrying to do.
I really think the value isthere.
How the hell am I supposed todo this based on our new visit
volume or based on this?
And what I've found is that thecombination of the great tech
along with best practices issort of the breakthrough
opportunity that we've beenlooking for.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
And that's cool.
And that's you know one of thereasons I mentioned our state of
the industry report working onit right now.
It's gonna come out in uh earlyNovember.
What if I partnered with us togive us all the data and it's
anonymized data?
We don't see what gyms have,but we know that across Watify
gyms, this many people show upto classes, this many people,
this is the demographics.
And so we we see all that datain a raw form, and we can put
(25:26):
out this industry-leadingreport.
Uh, we partner up with Whatifyand Kilo, do that.
And that's the idea is findingyou've got these best practices.
How do you scale it?
How do you use software, youknow, to figure it out and make
sure that it works for yourbusiness model?
And for you, like that's anincredible thing.
Because like with 120 to 150clients, you could literally
manage client journey and goalreview sessions and no sweat
intros on a spreadsheet if youreally wanted to.
(25:47):
There are better ways to do it,but you could do that.
500, 900 clients, that's notgonna work anymore.
It gets pretty gnarly.
So that's a really interestingway that you've got to find the
technology to link the bestpractices up with what works at
ground zero.
So I I love that one.
Let's not delay on this oneanymore because you've mentioned
a couple of times, and this islike whether this is a big one.
You've talked about clients andchurn and replacement and so
(26:09):
forth.
So sales and marketing.
I know now if you're talkingyou've got to replace 50 clients
a month to to break even atyour current number, that's a
huge pressure.
How are you doing it?
Like, how are you findingclosing and keeping so many
clients?
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah, I mean, so so you everyone's heard the term
death by a thousand paper cuts.
I sort of feel like it's likeit's like success and culture
and team building, etc., by athousand little data points,
right?
Like these little things thatkind of combine and add up.
So, so I think brand awarenessis huge.
I think we've we've we've donea lot of work to build our brand
(26:43):
out inside of our markets sothat people at least are aware
of our existence.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Through advertising or what?
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Yeah, advertising, but also a lot of organic stuff.
So, so a lot of, I mean, we dojust do an immense amount of
off-sites, pop-ups, uh freebies,special events.
And I know that you know, it'suh two brain is uh a big they're
a big proponent for this,right?
Like this is a huge low-costway of building your brand
inside of your market, is justjust put yourself out outside of
(27:11):
your gym, out into it out intothe world and let people
interact with you and interface.
I think 70% of our firstvisitors are still coming in as
referrals or buddy passes.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Are you serious?
That's huge.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Wow.
So so so it's so as as much asimportant as paid ads is and as
as important as um well you knowyeah, advertising is, uh it's
organic still drives themajority of our first-time
visitors and still drives themajority of our opportunities to
sit down and sell our productsto to prospects.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
So and then you know, when we do our paid
advertising, and when we arewhen we are speaking to our
customers, one of the thingsthat we really focus on, and I
this there's a there are ahundred different terms for
this.
We we use the term threeuniques, it comes from an
operating system called uh EOS.
Uh so our three uniques arejust the the trifecta of things
(28:05):
about our business that webelieve in combination with each
other, we do better than thananybody else in the world.
And so what we have donereally, what we've been mindful
of is clarifying what our threeuniques are and then repeating
that storyline over and over andover again, and just doubling
(28:25):
down on it.
So when successful franchisespop up a block away from us, and
that's happened so many timesover the last 10 years, berries
and rumble and the yard, andlike they're all they're a
quarter mile away from us, italways causes this like this
little blip of anxiety and andand a little bit of fear and a
little bit of scarcity mindsetinside of us.
(28:46):
And then you you remember thereare plenty of people out now in
Denver, but it used to beMinneapolis and Denver, there
are plenty of people in ourmarket who are looking for
precisely what we do.
And so now is not the time totry to emulate our competitors
or try to pretend we'resomething we're not.
Now is the time to double andtriple down on exactly what we
(29:08):
do best, why we do it, and whowe do it for.
From a sales and marketingstandpoint, you know, the
tactics are one thing, going outand doing organic marketing in
combination with some good,effective paids.
But I think like what you'resaying and the way you're
presenting yourself to prospectsis just as important, perhaps
(29:29):
maybe, maybe even moreimportant.
And um I it as a total aside,and I don't know if this is this
matters, but I invite anylistener who's out there and
interested in this.
I invite open invite to cometake some classes at Alchemy.
If you ever find your way toDenver and you want to pop in
and look me up and let's let'shave a cup of coffee and talk
about your three uniques in yourparticular facility because
(29:51):
they're not like anybody else's.
They are yours and yours alone.
And um, I'm writing somecontent right now about some of
this that's gonna be coming outcalled the fitness.
Series.
It's just going to be an opensource content on how to do some
of this work, includingdefining and articulating your
three uniques for yourprospects.
And so I don't know if TwoBrainhas a different language set or
(30:12):
angle on that, but I think justknowing who you are, what you
do, who you do it for, and whyyou do it is a very, very
important part of your sales andmarketing efforts.
So that's a long-winded answer.
Sorry about that.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
And you but you nailed it there.
And the two-brain versionessentially is like, what is
your avatar?
And every successful gym ownerthat I have from our leaderboard
that comes on the show, I askedthem and I did it to you as
well.
What's the 411 in yourbusiness?
Who are you serving?
Who are you serving?
What are you selling?
And every successful gym ownercan rattle that off in about 20
to 30 seconds.
And it's very clear.
I serve 25 to 37-year-old,predominantly females who want
to accomplish this, and they'reall busy professionals or any
(30:44):
variation thereof.
It's something like that.
Yeah.
And that's the thing.
When you know your market, youcan then dial in.
And like you said, like theworst time to like, you know,
reorganize your tent and pull uppegs is when there's a storm,
right?
That's the worst time.
And so when a business goesbeside you, like, oh, I got to
start changing all my stuff,then everything falls down.
It's the time to starthammering pegs in, right?
That I'm good at this.
This is the right location,this is the right thing.
Hammer those pegs in deep.
(31:05):
I love what you said there, andreally double down on what
you're good at.
And that's something that a lotof gyms they make the mistake
of chasing too many things.
You talked about a little bitearlier.
Yeah.
Doing all the things ratherthan doing three things really,
really well.
If you can find that focus,things will be better.
Here's something, listeners,that I want to point out.
Tyler's got like about 900,000members, and he just said he's
(31:25):
operating on organic andreferrals more than paid
advertising.
That's a really fascinatingthing.
And if you think about it, themore members you have, the more
referrals you should get becauseevery person in your gym should
connect you to at least onemore person, if not two or
three, if you're really good atthat referral process.
We teach Tim Morris how to dofour different funnels.
Referrals are, I would say, themost important one because it
(31:45):
multiplies your very bestclients for essentially free.
I mean, there might be somelittle time costs and stuff, but
just saying, hey, Tim, I knowyour buddy Derek was talking
about just feeling out of shapeon the football or the rec
league, beer league, baseballfield.
We get him in here for atwo-on-one and see if he wants
to join.
Sure.
All of a sudden you've gotthese two high-value people
working out together.
They sign up.
(32:05):
It's kind of like fishing abarrel with a hot lead.
Referrals are such an amazingthing.
Do not miss the boat onreferrals.
And then I love the organicthing that you said.
Like it's the anchor man thingwhere like you're probably kind
of a big deal in Denver, right?
People start to know they knowit, they know who you are.
You're you're known in thecommunity, they know the brand,
they know the face.
Getting out there and doing it.
That's my wife, not me.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Not me.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
And that could be the right, that's probably the
right plan, right?
Like you do the back end stuffor whatever.
She's the face, the thing.
That works.
But the idea is like they knowwho you guys are, and you're
building a brand by saying thesame thing over and over and
over again in a strong way.
And then, of course, you cantackle on that paid advertising.
Like I said, we recommend allthese different things.
You mentioned content as well,putting things out, telling
people who you are.
I want to ask you this onebecause this is the last one I'm
(32:47):
gonna ask you.
I'll let you get back torunning your business.
But length of engagement,you've got it like 900,000
people.
How are you keeping that numberof 16 months so high and
driving it up?
Like, what are you doingspecifically to keep these
people?
Because it's so easy.
I started to lose people at200.
You've got five times that.
How do you keep them?
Speaker 1 (33:07):
You know, it's a timely question because our last
our last mentor call withPeter, that was the theme.
Is like, what are the what arethe actions that we're gonna
take to drive that number upeven more?
You know, I think that I thinkthat what we've done is we I I I
wish I could give you atactical answer.
I think we've done a good job.
Keeping our facilities clean,running our business, running
(33:30):
our business professionally, uh,classes, the studios open when
you get there.
Classes start on time and theyend on time.
Fundamentals.
The fundamentals go a really,really long way.
I know this is gonna soundcrazy.
We give a shit.
We we we try really, reallyhard to demonstrate sincere,
genuine care for the people thatcome through the door.
(33:51):
That being said, there are somereally great tactics that Peter
and Two Brain has have beenintroducing us to that we're
we're kicking around right now.
So, like some athlete check-in,some goal settings, some some
uh some much better, much betternurturing on the front end,
right?
Uh so I'm really excitedbecause I think if 16 months is
good and and we got there sortof just with the fundamentals,
(34:12):
I'm really excited to see ifalongside Peter's mentorship and
if like what's gonna happen?
Can we get it up to 18?
Can we get it up to 24 months?
I mean, what what would that dofor us?
I I know that that's probablynot a great answer, but I but I
also think that there are a lotof operators out there who have
maybe taken their eye off of thefundamentals, and there are
things that like that flickeringlight in the back corner of
(34:34):
your gym that's been flickeringfor the last 12 months, like
it's become completely invisibleto you.
It's the reason why somebodyfinally says, F this, I'm done,
I pay my money, and I can't evenget these guys to restock the
teepee.
I mean, come on, you know, andso I I think that checking in on
fundamentals probably goes along way for a lot of operators.
(34:55):
Overlay that with good tactics,which is something that I'm
excited to be doing in the nextuh three, six, and nine months
in our business.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Yeah, so that's how it hits you right there with
what you're talking about withPeter, literally right now.
Like you said, 16 months, youcan get to you got to a great
spot.
Uh the top tribe gyms are 24months.
So that's a lengthy engagementthat's life-changing where a
client has now built a 24-month,two-year fitness habit, will
probably keep training for therest of their lives.
You've changed the life.
Your lifetime value for thatclient is monster at that point
(35:22):
because you're gonna go, whenyou hit that, it's gonna be
eight more months at 135 bucks,whatever it is.
So do the math on that.
Listeners times a thousandpeople.
Like this is these are hugenumbers at this point.
And the two things that youmentioned, uh, you've got to
figure out, Tyler, obviously,how to do it at scale.
But listeners, if you're in asmaller gym, and you almost
certainly are, no sweat intros,start selling with that
prescriptive model, meeting withyour clients, get your client
(35:44):
journey 90 days, and then therest of it all laid out.
Schedule goal review sessionsevery three to six months.
So you're checking in andgiving clients more.
Everything there increaseslength of engagement, lifetime
value, average revenue permember, all of it, and your
sales and close rates will goup.
So I'll tell you that is thesecret sauce for that number.
Tyler has got the challenge ofa thousand people and major
(36:05):
staffing things because he's gotso many people, he's got to
figure it out at scale.
If you've got a smaller gym,you can do that.
But master the fundamentalsfirst, build that 120 to 150
client gym, make it amazing.
Then, if you want to scale up,like Tyler did from a position
of strength, the world is youroyster.
Don't go big too soon.
That is the one thing I'll giveyou this.
Tyler, this has been awesome.
You've given us a ton to thinkabout.
(36:25):
I'm not gonna keep you anylonger from this, but thanks so
much for showing us inside uhtwo incredible businesses, and
I'm excited to see where you'llbe in about a year.
And if that length ofengagement goes up, that'll be
awesome.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
I'll keep you informed.
Thanks, thanks a lot for havingme on.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
It's been a pleasure, and I do want to connect with
you again about this because Ithink it's gonna be a pretty
cool story.
That was Tyler Quinn.
This is Run a Profitable Gym.
I'm Mike Warkinen.
Thank you so much for watchingor listening.
Please hit subscribe on yourway out the door so you see more
shows just like this.
And now here's Two BrainFounder Chris Cooper with a
final message.
Speaker (36:52):
Hey, it's TwoBrain Founder Chris Cooper with a
quick note.
We created the Gym OwnersUnited Facebook group to help
you run a profitable gym.
Thousands of gym owners justlike you have already joined.
In the group, we share soundadvice about the business of
fitness every day.
I answer questions, I run freewebinars, and I give away all
kinds of great resources to helpyou grow your gym.
(37:13):
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.
Tyler, it's super hard to run a gym with more than
300 members.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Uh, tell me about it.
I've got two of them goingright now.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Two gyms with more than 300 members each.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
That is correct.
Yeah, we're uh two gyms atabout uh 950 some members.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Whoa, okay.
Will you share some of yoursecrets with our listeners
today?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I would absolutely love to, but looking forward to
it.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Uh nice.
This is Run a Profitable Gym.
We're gonna find out how Tylerand Christy Quinn of Alchemy 365
acquire, serve, and retainhundreds of members at two
locations.
This is a great story.
I'm Mike Workenden.
Please hit subscribe whereveryou're watching or listening.
For a little bit of context,our most recent leaderboard, top
10 gyms for client count, ranfrom 314 to 698.
(00:44):
This is monster numbers.
Industry data says most groupcoaching gyms have about 100 to
150 clients.
Good news, you can make a greatliving with 120 to 150 clients
if your services are pricedcorrectly.
We won't get into that today.
Instead, we're going big withTyler.
So Tyler's two Denver gyms,made our top 10 leaderboard.
He's gonna tell you how he didit.
Tyler, welcome from MountainTime.
(01:05):
How are you?
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I'm great.
I'm great.
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I am fired up about this.
I often talk to people who arerunning a smaller business
model.
You're going big.
And so we're gonna talk aboutit.
You got to give this the lay ofthe land first.
What's the foreign one?
Like what's the summary of yourbusiness model?
Who are you selling to whom?
What price?
Space staff.
Give me the rundown so peopleknow what we're looking at here.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah.
Uh well, the business is calledAlchemy 365, group fitness.
Everything is uh class based,so we we don't have any personal
training or uh or semi-privateor small group stuff going at
this time.
Definitely high volume.
So so the majority of ourclasses tend to be in that 15 to
30 athlete range, uh uh, sopretty crowded rooms.
(01:45):
Uh, what are we selling?
We're selling uh we're sellinghigh intensity and functional
training, but we're doing it, Ithink, in a way that for a lot
of people feels a bit moreapproachable.
And um we're selling it topeople who I think would say
that fitness is just a is just apart of their active lifestyle.
They're not actually takingtheir fitness so seriously, it's
(02:08):
not the the end-all be-all oftheir physical activity, which
is important because because ourcustomer is unique, and I think
we've done a good job trying tofocus on how we serve that
specific customer.
What do we say?
What do we say?
Uh 4,500 square feet.
You asked about size of ourspaces.
So about 4,500 square feet.
Uh, we have two closed-offtraining classrooms, so it's so
(02:30):
our facilities sort of mimic uha little bit of a yoga studio
model where you know you there'sa there's a designated lobby
space and you actually enter theclassroom.
It's not just necessarily openfloor space.
Okay.
We've got about 45 staffmembers, four four full-timers,
and then just a bunch ofpart-time support staff members,
a lot of coaches, and thensome, you know, some sales and
(02:50):
marketing, and we've got someadmin, and we've got some folks
doing other things, uh, butalmost almost entirely on a on a
part-time basis, except forthose four FTEs.
Yeah, and I think uh I thinkthat gives you the general idea.
Did I miss anything?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
No, I think that's it.
So you're looking at highintensity kind of stuff.
I want to ask a couplequestions about that.
Like you said 4,500 squarefeet, and yet you're packing in
like 17 to 20 people.
I had 6,000 and I was servinglike seven, you know, and I'd
made some really bad decisionsthat cost me a lot of money with
unused space.
Uh, what kind of high intensitystuff are you doing there?
Is it like barbell stuff?
Is it different stuff thattakes a little bit less space or
what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yeah, and and and Mike, cut me off if I'm if I go
out of out of line here, but I Ithink I think I think a little
context probably helps answerthat question, which is that I I
started Alchemy after owningand operating four CrossFit gyms
in the Twin Cities inMinneapolis and St.
Paul.
So uh came from the CrossFitspace.
There you go.
There you go.
Came from the CrossFit space.
And uh when we were when wewere playing with the idea, we
(03:47):
being me being my businesspartners and I, when we were
playing with the idea oflaunching a new concept called
Alchemy, we did, we were, wewere pretty focused on
optimizing space for one.
And and two was uh how do wedifferentiate a little bit from
CrossFit?
How do we make sure that if westart something new, people
don't just see it as you know,some sort of perversion of
(04:07):
CrossFit?
We wanted to sort of forge alittle bit of our own space to
play in.
And so we actually created apiece of equipment called the
torpedo, which looks like adumbbell with handles on the
outside.
And so what it allowed us to dowas give people who had at that
point really never been under abarbell an opportunity to put
two hands on an implement and dothings like a push press or a
(04:29):
or a power clean.
You know, I put an asterisk onthat for the Olympic
weightlifters out there, butsomething that looked like a
power clean, something thatlooked like a push press with a
two-handed implement, it alsoallowed us to swing it like a
kettlebell and then hold centerhandles like a dumbbell.
And so all of a sudden, youknow, a human being got a
parking space inside of ourclass that was about the size of
(04:49):
a yoga mat.
And that completely changed theoperating model for us because
instead of needing 4,500 squarefeet for seven people, like you
were talking about, uh, ourclassrooms are 2,000 square
feet, and yeah, we're getting,we're getting 15, 20, 25, 30
people in a classroom.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Wow, what a fascinating way to solve a crazy
problem.
Because back, I mean, werealized before the show that
we'd actually met each otherback in 2012, uh, when I was
coming to cover a cross levelone seminar at your gym, and I
saw one of your new facilities.
And like back in the day, thebig plan at that point was to
like go as big as you can andfill it with a monster amount of
people.
And like I kind of went in themiddle and picked 6,000 square
(05:23):
feet, but it was still way, way,way too much.
And now we're looking at theother end of it where there's a
lot of gyms that are around now.
They're operating in like 1200,1500, 2,500, and their their
revenue per square foot justdwarfs what I did.
And like their rent is smaller,and like they're doing all
these amazing things.
And so you found a way to nothave to have that much space and
serve large numbers of peoplebecause listeners, I'll tell you
(05:44):
this.
Uh, state of the industry datais coming out again this year.
I can tell you uh without doubtthat average group CrossFit,
not CrossFit, group class sizes,seven, maybe seven people
across the entire fitnessindustry.
This is data from Watafi, thisis data from two-brain
dashboards, uh data fromsurveys, like thousands of gym
owners.
Seven people.
That's the average.
Most gyms are not able to get15 people in there.
(06:05):
So if you're building around agiant model, you better have a
plan like Tyler's got becauseit's not going to work in a lot
of situations.
I couldn't do it, Chris Coopercouldn't do it, Tyler found a
way.
So this, do you sell thetorpedo?
Speaker 1 (06:16):
You know, we we don't anymore.
And I I'll tell you, so so thepandemic, not to, not to pull
that old sob story out that wedid that we yeah, I mean, we
were we were wholeselling thetorpedo prior to 2020.
So we were selling the gyms,hotels, apartment buildings that
had little, you know, littlegyms inside.
We were we were doing a prettygood little business there.
We also had an online conceptcalled Alchemy Anywhere, which
(06:36):
was oriented around this oneimplement.
And so we were selling directto consumer as well.
We've kind of we've kind of putthat on ice.
So we still own the patents, westill have uh you know the
manufacturing rights, but wewe're not really totally sure
what to do with itpost-pandemic.
And and just to just tocomment, what I'll tell you is I
wish we I wish I could go backand go even smaller, right?
So back to the square footageconversation because even uh
(06:58):
from 2015 to 2020, in the rampup phase of Alchemy's growth, we
were still falling into thetrap of chasing larger and
larger, more expensive spaces,uh more costly build-outs.
And now in retrospect, I lookback and I go, boy, I I I still
see areas where I could haveshaved 500, maybe even a
thousand square feet out of eachof our facilities and not had
(07:20):
any impact on the customerexperience.
And so if anyone's listening,it's like just constrain your
thinking and restrict yourselfdown to the smallest footprint
possible.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, and Chris, that echoes what Chris has said.
If you can just start small anddon't expand until you're
bursting at the seams and do itthen from a position of
strength, because every time youexpand, you've got build-out
costs, relocation costs, paintcosts, branding costs, all this
other stuff, more heat, moreeverything, and like all of a
sudden your profit margin goesdown.
You can build it back up, ofcourse.
But if you just make the wrongdecisions, like I'm going at
12,000 feet from 2,000, which alot of CrossFit gym owners did
(07:51):
back in the day, you can end upwith a horrible lease, a vacant
facility, and all of a sudden nomoney in your bank account and
you're gone.
And that that happens to toomany gyms.
So uh let's talk about this.
So let's talk about clientcount because that's what we're
here to do.
How has that changed over theyears?
Have you like started out withsmaller numbers and built up?
Did you go big right away, orhow have you built to these
impressive numbers?
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yeah, well, let's think here.
So we're well, you're asking meto go back 10 years, so I'm
trying to try to noodle onexactly how this evolved.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Because you know, we tread the same path and like you
took a very different approachand you're at a different spot.
I'm so curious about this.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, so so so when we opened, well, actually before
we opened, when we were teeingup this idea of alchemy, it was
initially just going to be aclass offering at our CrossFit
gyms, right?
It was, it was, it was justlike, you know, you hear people
talk about trying to solve basicproblems for your customers.
And we had some people who wereleaving our CrossFit gyms and
(08:49):
basically saying, look, I I'mnot interested in having my
exercise be competitive.
I'm not interested in some ofthe Olympic weightlifting or
some of the more marginalgymnastics movements.
And so we just thought maybe wecan offer a class, uh, you
know, a service inside of ourCrossFit gyms that will take
care of the these people andthese needs and keep them around
(09:10):
longer.
So we started just testing it,free classes, free, you know,
this had nothing to do with yourmembership.
You could anybody could comein, bring a friend, whatever.
We just wanted to beta testwhat we were coming up with.
And uh what we found, you know,I'd be I'd be finishing up my
5.30 p.m.
CrossFit class with seven toten people in it, and then the
door would start opening andclosing.
And by the time the 6.30 testclass rolled around, there'd be
(09:33):
like 50 or 60 people there.
Whoa.
And so that was that was whenwe knew, okay, well, there's
something attractive to uh to alot of people.
And so right off the jump, westarted to build our business
model around this idea of howcan we how can we get to million
dollar units, right?
We wanted to have each unit bea million dollars.
And so we had a membership goalthat was going to drive that
(09:54):
revenue objective at eachbusiness unit.
And that's kind of the way wewe sort of triangulated around
how many members do we want, howmuch space do we need, how do
we service them?
You know, it just kind of allworked around that that that
number.
And and that wasn't drawn outof a hat.
We did have big aspirationsabout scaling the business up to
be uh, you know, a national,national player.
(10:16):
And so we were meeting withprivate equity, and and and a
lot of private equity advice wasthat's the standard, that that
that million dollar per businessunit is the standard.
And I'll tell you, I look backon that and I think that that
was bad advice for us to try tochase it.
It was the wrong thing for usto focus on, and I think it
drove us to make a lot of reallybad decisions during our
initial growth years.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Wow.
So I'll I'm gonna point out onething that I think you did that
was brilliant, and I'm gonnaask you a question about your
mistakes.
Uh the thing that you said thatwas really, really cool was
that you you started with anidea of like, what do we want
these gyms to do?
And then you work backwardsfrom that.
Because I started with an idea,like, I want to teach squats.
And then I worked from that,and like there was honor in what
I did, but like there wasn't alot of business sense in that.
(10:58):
And like my my results showedthat.
You went the other way, andthis is what we recommend to gym
owners now is like, what do youneed to make?
This is the number.
How do we work back from this?
How many clients do we need atwhat price?
What's the marketing plan?
How do we fill it?
How many leads do we need toclose this many sales?
And then the whole thing isjust this daisy chain of
business metrics that didn'texist back in the day.
So you did a great thing.
And here's what I want, here'show I'm gonna do it.
(11:18):
But tell me about a couple ofthe mistakes.
What happened there that didn'tgo according to plan that you
said, like, ah, I should havemaybe done it differently?
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Well, I mean, I think I think that the chasing the
revenue number led us down thepath of all revenue being equal
and any revenue is good revenue.
And so I look back on the Ilook back on the you know first
five years of our business and Ilook back at situations in
which we were opening a smoothiebar at a couple of our
locations and trying and tryingto take that on and manage it
(11:47):
ourselves.
And so, so you know, I'll use aHighland Park location uh back
in Minnesota.
We open the smoothie bar withinsix months, the membership
starts to go down, but the alarmbells aren't going off because
we're we're just offsetting therevenue with food and beverage.
Right.
And then all of a sudden, youknow, I'm noticing on Slack that
um in between classes, ourgeneral manager's running down
(12:07):
to the Trader Joe's to get moreavocados for smoothies, instead
of, you know, like being therein front of our customer.
And sooner or later, you know,sooner or later, the the the
membership started to drop.
But conversely, the moment weeventually sort of said, look,
we're gonna outsource this is awho not how situation.
Let's get somebody else to runthe smoothie bar and figure that
out for us, it it justrebounded.
(12:29):
That's an example of uh uschasing all revenue at all
costs.
We we sold longboards withalchemy branding on them.
We were doing alchemy retreatsand getting people running
marathons and uh in Iceland andclimbing Kilimanjaro all through
the alchemy brand because itwas all this.
How do we just generate revenueand build this lifestyle brand?
(12:50):
And I think probably what weshould have done was that and
this is pretty fundamentalbusiness advice, I think, which
is like figure out what you canbe great at, do that thing, and
don't start chasing all theshiny objects that are that are
available to you just becauseyou're having success in one
area.
So that that's probably the thethe biggest mistake.
And I but I also would just sayyou know, you talked about how
(13:13):
we we were smart about backinginto our goals.
That came after a lot ofhard-earned lessons.
I mean, I don't think we didthat in our CrossFit business.
I just I wanted to teach squatsjust like you.
I wanted to teach CrossFit.
And um, so it was it it tooklike a second try in rebooting a
new business and thinking alittle bit differently about it
(13:34):
that allowed us to hopefullymake better decisions than we
had made the first go-around.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Okay, so that's the history.
That's very interesting.
With these two facilities thatyou've got now, did you scale up
to these member counts veryquickly?
Or was it uh like a chunk,chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, or a
slow builder?
How'd that go?
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yes, we we started to feel like we had a pretty good,
pretty dialed launch plan thatwas going to allow us to get to
a solid membership number prettyearly.
We made lots of mistakes, but Ithink we did build a strong
brand and we had good brandrecognition, and that allowed us
to kind of hit our membershipgoals within a reasonable time
(14:14):
frame.
So we we felt like we felt likeuh we wanted to be in the black
on day one, and then we wantedto be at optimization 12 months,
right?
We were at a 12-month timematuration period, right?
We sort of felt like at the 12months we need to be at this
number.
And I would say for the mostpart, our new studio launches,
we were able we were able toaccomplish that.
(14:35):
And so so yeah, we it was itwas relative, I mean I would I
would call that relativelyquick, you know, getting to 500
members at Lohi, which was a anew studio in a new market, not
in our backyard.
We did that, you know, probablyin probably in nine months, and
we were you know sitting prettypretty solid at that location.
They didn't all go that well,but that's kind of an example of
(14:57):
of uh the growth pace that wewere trying to achieve.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Okay, that's great.
And I'm gonna ask you at thetoward the end of the show about
the sales market and how youdid that, but I want to talk
about a couple of quick quickthings first.
Uh client count is awesome, butit's not awesome if the other
numbers that back it up don'tlike if you have a thousand
clients and they all pay adollar, you're not making any
money, and you see the you knowthe obvious example there.
So, two key metrics that arerelated to client client client
counts is average revenue memberand length of engagement.
(15:20):
So, like in some very largegyms, and often in these access
facilities, these numbers arelike 29 bucks and it's two
months or something like that.
Their length of engage isterrible.
They want you to sign acontract at a cheap rate and
they hope you don't come.
That's just one of the businessmodels that's out there, and it
works for these large corporatefacilities where they, you
know, they're just it'sequipment rental essentially.
What are you aiming for in yourgyms?
Because you've got a verydifferent model.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Yeah, it's a it's a really interesting question and
it's a timely one.
And again, I want to I want toprovide a little context here,
which is we were we were agrowth company from 2015 to
2020.
We were focused on becoming anationally recognized brand.
We wanted to have a hundredcorporate-owned studios around
the country.
That was our that was ourmission.
(16:04):
In 2024, in late 2024, my wifeand I ultimately made the
decision to close down seven ofour nine operating studios.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Whoa, okay.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
And I don't know if you know that.
Uh so so so it was it was amatter of it was a matter of
feeling like four and a halfyears post-pandemic, the the the
industry has changed so much.
And I bet a lot of yourlisteners can can know what I'm
talking about.
The industry changed, and itand even the customer changed.
Yep.
And we had a lot of residualmodeling that just didn't
(16:38):
reconcile with a post-pandemicworld and the industry trends.
And and moreover, I think mywife and I just we were 10 years
older, and we just thought, dowe, do we want to be flying to
all these to different citiesand opening cities?
Is that really the what we wantto do?
So why is that why is thatrelevant?
We have made lots of changesover the last 12 months to
(16:58):
downsize and refocus and thinkabout our business differently.
It's part of the reason that weultimately swapped software
providers.
We went we went from mind bodyto I don't know if you know
Wattify is our new softwareprovider and they've been a huge
partner in us sort ofrebuilding our business smarter.
It's part of the reason thatwe've plugged in with two
bringing because we don't, we'renot even sure we remember how
(17:20):
to run a two-studio business inone market.
Like it's like I didn't even, Icould, I couldn't, I couldn't
remember what that was like.
And so that's a lot of contextbecause you're asking these
really great questions about armand leg and alchemy today.
Right now, we're sitting atabout 134 uh average revenue per
member, uh, length ofengagement, roughly 16 months.
(17:41):
You know, what are we aimingfor?
My as I was thinking about thisconversation, I wrote down like
there is there's no ceiling onwhat I want to achieve on those
numbers, but all of a sudden,we're thinking about those
numbers as more critical, morefront and center than we had
been, right?
Where in the historically ithad been volume, it had been
(18:04):
about number of units, and justtop line and just like just show
investor types about how robustour business is.
And now we're trying to runsomething that is actually
healthy and profitable andsustainable.
And so now, you know, we'reworking with Peter at Two Brain,
and and and uh we're able tostart to like tinker with our
(18:27):
business in a way that'sappropriate at our size now to
drive those numbers up.
So 134 and 16, that's the shortanswer.
Yeah, but I gave you a lot ofcontext, hopefully, that's it.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
No, but it's so needed.
And what you're getting atthere is business models, and
that was again something thatdidn't exist really back in the
day.
There was like maybe like thebusiness models open across the
gym with a lot of space wherepeople show up.
That was one not very goodbusiness model.
There's also like the giantbodybuilding thing that was kind
of skitting stale at the end ofthat period, right?
Where it was like, ah, you justget all the Nautilus machines
that you can and you just funnelpeople in for 30 bucks and hope
(18:58):
they don't get huge.
Like that existed.
But like now we're talkingabout different business models.
So you've evolved from likethis one where you wanted to set
a goal like national chain.
That is a huge, huge thing thatrequires like huge CEO level
skills, right?
So you had to like completelydifferent concerns, and you're
talking about like a volumegame.
And alongside that, you're notcoaching squats anymore, like
you said back in the early days.
(19:18):
You're like private equitymeetings with investors and
replicating brands and all thisother stuff and leases and all
these crazy things.
That's a completely differentskill set.
Now you're pulling back alittle bit.
But what I want to point out toyour listeners is Tyler's got a
ton, a ton of members, but healso has a strong length of
engagement.
It used to be length ofengagement in the industry was
like eight months beforesomething pretty bad like that.
(19:40):
And in some corporatefacilities, with like the
equipment rental thing, lengthof engagement is maybe three
months.
They join in January, they'reup by February kind of thing,
maybe March, if you're lucky.
That's completely different.
And the other thing you've gotgoing on is an average revenue
per member.
130, you said I think it wassomething around there?
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Well well, 134 right now.
But um yeah, gotta do better.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
But that's pretty good considering the number of
clients you have because thereare like in a one-on-one, we'll
see one-on-one.
Like our I think our top ARMsare $500 plus at two-brain gyms.
That often comes in personaltraining and small group
facilities that are a verydifferent business model again.
So, like what we're talkinghere, Lishes, is different
business models.
And as I said in the intro, ifyour business model is 120 to
(20:20):
150 people, your pricing andstrategy and avatar are gonna be
completely different than ifyou're going for larger client
counts.
The point figure out what yourbusiness model is, a term mentor
is the perfect person to helpyou do that, because then you
can start to get these numbersin line and say, uh, this is
what I need, this is how we'regonna do it, and this is the
next metric we're gonna work on.
And it's this whole cyclicalprocess where you're not just
(20:41):
saying, I need more.
And that's how you said youwent through a little bit of
that where it's like more forthe sake of more and more for
the sake of revenue and numbersand investors.
That's a hard game to play.
When you start getting targetsin place, things are very
interesting.
So those are some really,really cool leg and arm numbers
from a very big gym.
And like, I'd I'd suggest thatthose are very out of the
ordinary and outstanding numbersfor people with 900 class.
Uh we'll go on a little bit.
I want to ask you this, becauselike you've talked about huge
(21:04):
numbers of gyms, huge numbers ofclients.
What are the challenges like uhbesides the complete level of
overwhelm that I would feelinstantly in your series?
What are the what are thechallenges and how does your
mentor help you solve theseproblems now with two big gyms?
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Yeah, so I I I think that I think the biggest
challenge is just keeping trackof people, right?
And that probably seemsobvious, right?
So But how do you do it?
Well, yeah, and essentiallylike there's just a lot, there's
a lot of human beings comingthrough the door.
And and and and and if you'retrying to be an environment
where you know people's namesand you understand their
objectives and their goals, andyou're trying to be a high touch
(21:38):
point, that that can bechallenging.
Having uh close to a thousandmembers means you have to have a
lot of classes on the schedule.
Having lots of classes meanslots of coaches, and so I would
say that quality control is achallenge for us, for sure.
You know, we talk about how thepart-time group fitness coach
is a bit of a transientpopulation, right?
(21:59):
Those people come and go.
You're constantly trying tobackfill with with good coaches,
and for us, it feels like Imean maybe not on our heels, but
certainly not on our toes,where we're we're always a bit
reactive and feeling like it thequality of our coaching staff
is never quite where we want itto be.
We always want to drive that touh to be better.
(22:20):
Churn, churn, I mean, churnprobably for all gyms is a
challenging thing, but I thinkthere's a certain natural churn
that takes place for everylocation.
And so if you just think aboutthat equilibrium, right?
You know, if if if if if you'rebattling for roughly 5% churn,
you know, 5% of a thousand is isit requires an awful lot of
selling and a lot of conversionjust to stay level.
(22:43):
And so it feels like you're ona you're on a treadmill that's
just a tiny bit too fast foryou.
You know, like you're like youcan keep up, but it's not
comfortable, and you know you'realways wondering like how do we
how do we increase efficiencyin this machine?
Uh your your question was howdoes how has our two-brain
mentor helped?
Speaker 2 (22:59):
I think Peter Burstulan, correct?
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Correct.
Yep.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Yeah, he's run some big facilities, million-dollar
guy.
Yep.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's it's been it's been so much fun.
I mean, we have to be carefulwith to stay on agenda because
we like just we like justshooting shit and going back and
forth with each other.
I think one of the primarythemes, given our size, has
been, you know, how do we takeall these best practices that
TwoBrain has uncovered,developed over the years that
they've been doing the work thatthey've been doing?
(23:26):
How do we take those bestpractices and how do we apply
them in a way that works for ourbusiness at our size?
So something like a no-sweatintro.
Like what does it look likewhen you know, based on our
first-time attendance and thenumber of folks we're trying to
draw in just to offset thatchurn of 5% at a thousand?
How do we do that in a way thatthat actually still works
(23:49):
inside of our business?
And so a lot of our work hasbeen, it's almost been like a uh
it's like a translation effort.
How do we take the bestpractice and translate it into
something that doesn't feelquite so manual and can be
applied inside of our business?
Speaker 2 (24:04):
You gotta scale a little bit, right?
Because you're one of thebigger gyms.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
You gotta scale it.
You gotta scale it a littlebit.
Yep and I and I and here again,I mean, not to, you know, look,
I I the the software transitionfor us was a huge deal.
And I think yes, as as good asthe two-brain uh mentorship has
been for us, I think the otherpart of the equation has been,
you know, we we joined uh wejoined up with Wattify, and the
software, they've been able tobring some technology into our
(24:29):
business to help us manageathlete check-ins, promotions,
retail, the kiosk system, theirworkflows.
So I'm taking, you know, I'mtaking Peter's solution,
two-brain solution, and I'moftentimes going to Wattify as
our like total side-by-side techpartner and saying, look,
(24:49):
here's this thing that I'mtrying to do.
I really think the value isthere.
How the hell am I supposed todo this based on our new visit
volume or based on this?
And what I've found is that thecombination of the great tech
along with best practices issort of the breakthrough
opportunity that we've beenlooking for.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
And that's cool.
And that's you know one of thereasons I mentioned our state of
the industry report working onit right now.
It's gonna come out in uh earlyNovember.
What if I partnered with us togive us all the data and it's
anonymized data?
We don't see what gyms have,but we know that across Watify
gyms, this many people show upto classes, this many people,
this is the demographics.
And so we we see all that datain a raw form, and we can put
(25:26):
out this industry-leadingreport.
Uh, we partner up with Whatifyand Kilo, do that.
And that's the idea is findingyou've got these best practices.
How do you scale it?
How do you use software, youknow, to figure it out and make
sure that it works for yourbusiness model?
And for you, like that's anincredible thing.
Because like with 120 to 150clients, you could literally
manage client journey and goalreview sessions and no sweat
intros on a spreadsheet if youreally wanted to.
(25:47):
There are better ways to do it,but you could do that.
500, 900 clients, that's notgonna work anymore.
It gets pretty gnarly.
So that's a really interestingway that you've got to find the
technology to link the bestpractices up with what works at
ground zero.
So I I love that one.
Let's not delay on this oneanymore because you've mentioned
a couple of times, and this islike whether this is a big one.
You've talked about clients andchurn and replacement and so
(26:09):
forth.
So sales and marketing.
I know now if you're talkingyou've got to replace 50 clients
a month to to break even atyour current number, that's a
huge pressure.
How are you doing it?
Like, how are you findingclosing and keeping so many
clients?
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah, I mean, so so you everyone's heard the term
death by a thousand paper cuts.
I sort of feel like it's likeit's like success and culture
and team building, etc., by athousand little data points,
right?
Like these little things thatkind of combine and add up.
So, so I think brand awarenessis huge.
I think we've we've we've donea lot of work to build our brand
(26:43):
out inside of our markets sothat people at least are aware
of our existence.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Through advertising or what?
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Yeah, advertising, but also a lot of organic stuff.
So, so a lot of, I mean, we dojust do an immense amount of
off-sites, pop-ups, uh freebies,special events.
And I know that you know, it'suh two brain is uh a big they're
a big proponent for this,right?
Like this is a huge low-costway of building your brand
inside of your market, is justjust put yourself out outside of
(27:11):
your gym, out into it out intothe world and let people
interact with you and interface.
I think 70% of our firstvisitors are still coming in as
referrals or buddy passes.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Are you serious?
That's huge.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Wow.
So so so it's so as as much asimportant as paid ads is and as
as important as um well you knowyeah, advertising is, uh it's
organic still drives themajority of our first-time
visitors and still drives themajority of our opportunities to
sit down and sell our productsto to prospects.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
So and then you know, when we do our paid
advertising, and when we arewhen we are speaking to our
customers, one of the thingsthat we really focus on, and I
this there's a there are ahundred different terms for
this.
We we use the term threeuniques, it comes from an
operating system called uh EOS.
Uh so our three uniques arejust the the trifecta of things
(28:05):
about our business that webelieve in combination with each
other, we do better than thananybody else in the world.
And so what we have donereally, what we've been mindful
of is clarifying what our threeuniques are and then repeating
that storyline over and over andover again, and just doubling
(28:25):
down on it.
So when successful franchisespop up a block away from us, and
that's happened so many timesover the last 10 years, berries
and rumble and the yard, andlike they're all they're a
quarter mile away from us, italways causes this like this
little blip of anxiety and andand a little bit of fear and a
little bit of scarcity mindsetinside of us.
(28:46):
And then you you remember thereare plenty of people out now in
Denver, but it used to beMinneapolis and Denver, there
are plenty of people in ourmarket who are looking for
precisely what we do.
And so now is not the time totry to emulate our competitors
or try to pretend we'resomething we're not.
Now is the time to double andtriple down on exactly what we
(29:08):
do best, why we do it, and whowe do it for.
From a sales and marketingstandpoint, you know, the
tactics are one thing, going outand doing organic marketing in
combination with some good,effective paids.
But I think like what you'resaying and the way you're
presenting yourself to prospectsis just as important, perhaps
(29:29):
maybe, maybe even moreimportant.
And um I it as a total aside,and I don't know if this is this
matters, but I invite anylistener who's out there and
interested in this.
I invite open invite to cometake some classes at Alchemy.
If you ever find your way toDenver and you want to pop in
and look me up and let's let'shave a cup of coffee and talk
about your three uniques in yourparticular facility because
(29:51):
they're not like anybody else's.
They are yours and yours alone.
And um, I'm writing somecontent right now about some of
this that's gonna be coming outcalled the fitness.
Series.
It's just going to be an opensource content on how to do some
of this work, includingdefining and articulating your
three uniques for yourprospects.
And so I don't know if TwoBrainhas a different language set or
(30:12):
angle on that, but I think justknowing who you are, what you
do, who you do it for, and whyyou do it is a very, very
important part of your sales andmarketing efforts.
So that's a long-winded answer.
Sorry about that.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
And you but you nailed it there.
And the two-brain versionessentially is like, what is
your avatar?
And every successful gym ownerthat I have from our leaderboard
that comes on the show, I askedthem and I did it to you as
well.
What's the 411 in yourbusiness?
Who are you serving?
Who are you serving?
What are you selling?
And every successful gym ownercan rattle that off in about 20
to 30 seconds.
And it's very clear.
I serve 25 to 37-year-old,predominantly females who want
to accomplish this, and they'reall busy professionals or any
(30:44):
variation thereof.
It's something like that.
Yeah.
And that's the thing.
When you know your market, youcan then dial in.
And like you said, like theworst time to like, you know,
reorganize your tent and pull uppegs is when there's a storm,
right?
That's the worst time.
And so when a business goesbeside you, like, oh, I got to
start changing all my stuff,then everything falls down.
It's the time to starthammering pegs in, right?
That I'm good at this.
This is the right location,this is the right thing.
Hammer those pegs in deep.
(31:05):
I love what you said there, andreally double down on what
you're good at.
And that's something that a lotof gyms they make the mistake
of chasing too many things.
You talked about a little bitearlier.
Yeah.
Doing all the things ratherthan doing three things really,
really well.
If you can find that focus,things will be better.
Here's something, listeners,that I want to point out.
Tyler's got like about 900,000members, and he just said he's
(31:25):
operating on organic andreferrals more than paid
advertising.
That's a really fascinatingthing.
And if you think about it, themore members you have, the more
referrals you should get becauseevery person in your gym should
connect you to at least onemore person, if not two or
three, if you're really good atthat referral process.
We teach Tim Morris how to dofour different funnels.
Referrals are, I would say, themost important one because it
(31:45):
multiplies your very bestclients for essentially free.
I mean, there might be somelittle time costs and stuff, but
just saying, hey, Tim, I knowyour buddy Derek was talking
about just feeling out of shapeon the football or the rec
league, beer league, baseballfield.
We get him in here for atwo-on-one and see if he wants
to join.
Sure.
All of a sudden you've gotthese two high-value people
working out together.
They sign up.
(32:05):
It's kind of like fishing abarrel with a hot lead.
Referrals are such an amazingthing.
Do not miss the boat onreferrals.
And then I love the organicthing that you said.
Like it's the anchor man thingwhere like you're probably kind
of a big deal in Denver, right?
People start to know they knowit, they know who you are.
You're you're known in thecommunity, they know the brand,
they know the face.
Getting out there and doing it.
That's my wife, not me.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Not me.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
And that could be the right, that's probably the
right plan, right?
Like you do the back end stuffor whatever.
She's the face, the thing.
That works.
But the idea is like they knowwho you guys are, and you're
building a brand by saying thesame thing over and over and
over again in a strong way.
And then, of course, you cantackle on that paid advertising.
Like I said, we recommend allthese different things.
You mentioned content as well,putting things out, telling
people who you are.
I want to ask you this onebecause this is the last one I'm
(32:47):
gonna ask you.
I'll let you get back torunning your business.
But length of engagement,you've got it like 900,000
people.
How are you keeping that numberof 16 months so high and
driving it up?
Like, what are you doingspecifically to keep these
people?
Because it's so easy.
I started to lose people at200.
You've got five times that.
How do you keep them?
Speaker 1 (33:07):
You know, it's a timely question because our last
our last mentor call withPeter, that was the theme.
Is like, what are the what arethe actions that we're gonna
take to drive that number upeven more?
You know, I think that I thinkthat what we've done is we I I I
wish I could give you atactical answer.
I think we've done a good job.
Keeping our facilities clean,running our business, running
(33:30):
our business professionally, uh,classes, the studios open when
you get there.
Classes start on time and theyend on time.
Fundamentals.
The fundamentals go a really,really long way.
I know this is gonna soundcrazy.
We give a shit.
We we we try really, reallyhard to demonstrate sincere,
genuine care for the people thatcome through the door.
(33:51):
That being said, there are somereally great tactics that Peter
and Two Brain has have beenintroducing us to that we're
we're kicking around right now.
So, like some athlete check-in,some goal settings, some some
uh some much better, much betternurturing on the front end,
right?
Uh so I'm really excitedbecause I think if 16 months is
good and and we got there sortof just with the fundamentals,
(34:12):
I'm really excited to see ifalongside Peter's mentorship and
if like what's gonna happen?
Can we get it up to 18?
Can we get it up to 24 months?
I mean, what what would that dofor us?
I I know that that's probablynot a great answer, but I but I
also think that there are a lotof operators out there who have
maybe taken their eye off of thefundamentals, and there are
things that like that flickeringlight in the back corner of
(34:34):
your gym that's been flickeringfor the last 12 months, like
it's become completely invisibleto you.
It's the reason why somebodyfinally says, F this, I'm done,
I pay my money, and I can't evenget these guys to restock the
teepee.
I mean, come on, you know, andso I I think that checking in on
fundamentals probably goes along way for a lot of operators.
(34:55):
Overlay that with good tactics,which is something that I'm
excited to be doing in the nextuh three, six, and nine months
in our business.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Yeah, so that's how it hits you right there with
what you're talking about withPeter, literally right now.
Like you said, 16 months, youcan get to you got to a great
spot.
Uh the top tribe gyms are 24months.
So that's a lengthy engagementthat's life-changing where a
client has now built a 24-month,two-year fitness habit, will
probably keep training for therest of their lives.
You've changed the life.
Your lifetime value for thatclient is monster at that point
(35:22):
because you're gonna go, whenyou hit that, it's gonna be
eight more months at 135 bucks,whatever it is.
So do the math on that.
Listeners times a thousandpeople.
Like this is these are hugenumbers at this point.
And the two things that youmentioned, uh, you've got to
figure out, Tyler, obviously,how to do it at scale.
But listeners, if you're in asmaller gym, and you almost
certainly are, no sweat intros,start selling with that
prescriptive model, meeting withyour clients, get your client
(35:44):
journey 90 days, and then therest of it all laid out.
Schedule goal review sessionsevery three to six months.
So you're checking in andgiving clients more.
Everything there increaseslength of engagement, lifetime
value, average revenue permember, all of it, and your
sales and close rates will goup.
So I'll tell you that is thesecret sauce for that number.
Tyler has got the challenge ofa thousand people and major
(36:05):
staffing things because he's gotso many people, he's got to
figure it out at scale.
If you've got a smaller gym,you can do that.
But master the fundamentalsfirst, build that 120 to 150
client gym, make it amazing.
Then, if you want to scale up,like Tyler did from a position
of strength, the world is youroyster.
Don't go big too soon.
That is the one thing I'll giveyou this.
Tyler, this has been awesome.
You've given us a ton to thinkabout.
(36:25):
I'm not gonna keep you anylonger from this, but thanks so
much for showing us inside uhtwo incredible businesses, and
I'm excited to see where you'llbe in about a year.
And if that length ofengagement goes up, that'll be
awesome.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
I'll keep you informed.
Thanks, thanks a lot for havingme on.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
It's been a pleasure, and I do want to connect with
you again about this because Ithink it's gonna be a pretty
cool story.
That was Tyler Quinn.
This is Run a Profitable Gym.
I'm Mike Warkinen.
Thank you so much for watchingor listening.
Please hit subscribe on yourway out the door so you see more
shows just like this.
And now here's Two BrainFounder Chris Cooper with a
final message.
Speaker (36:52):
Hey, it's TwoBrain Founder Chris Cooper with a
quick note.
We created the Gym OwnersUnited Facebook group to help
you run a profitable gym.
Thousands of gym owners justlike you have already joined.
In the group, we share soundadvice about the business of
fitness every day.
I answer questions, I run freewebinars, and I give away all
kinds of great resources to helpyou grow your gym.
(37:13):
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.
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