April 7, 2025 • 23 mins
Economic uncertainty is coming, but that doesn’t mean your gym has to struggle.
In fact, the best gym owners use challenging times as an opportunity to grow, refine their businesses and come out stronger on the other side.
In today’s episode, Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper lays out the exact steps gym owners can take to thrive during an economic downturn.
Slashing membership rates is the wrong move—Chris shares smarter strategies for growing top-line revenue, from prioritizing high-value services to improving retention by strengthening relationships with existing clients.
He also explains how to cut unnecessary costs before you’re forced to and optimize your sales process to convert more leads.
Tune in to learn how to build resilience, stay ahead of financial challenges and run a profitable gym—no matter what the economy brings.
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Gym Owners United
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01:19 - Go upmarket, not down
05:34 - Market for retention
08:44 - Improve your weakest metric
10:38 - Grow top-line revenue 20%
13:17 - Plan for the worst, hope for the best
16:26 - Cut spending & maximize ROI
19:42 - Lean on your network
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Economic uncertainty is coming. We don't know how
bad it will be, how long itwill last, or how it will
impact your gym. In fact, youmight not even worry about
economic uncertainty, but youcan be sure that there's going
to be some among your clients.
And no matter what your levelof concern is, if they're
(00:23):
concerned about economicuncertainty, that's when they
start to pause. Gymmemberships. However, we do
know one thing. In times ofeconomic uncertainty, the best
gyms actually use it as anopportunity to come out
stronger with less competition.
It's more of a blue ocean onthe other side of it, this is
run a profitable gym . I'mChris Cooper, and today I'm
gonna tell you how to grow yourgym in times of economic
(00:47):
uncertainty. This episode isabout how to grow in uncertain
times, not just survive treadwater and hope to fight your
way through. So I'm gonna giveyou some very specific
instructions to do. I hope thatyou take action on these. If
you want to talk about them, dothat with friendly other gym
owners. Go to gym ownersunited.com. There's over 10,000
(01:09):
gym owners in that group. Wetalk about these podcasts, we
talk about our blog posts allthe time, answer questions and
make sure that you've got thetools and knowledge to move
your gym ahead. So the firststrategy is the biggest one,
and that's go up market , notdown the knee-Jerk reaction in
an economic downturn or timesof uncertainty is to drop your
(01:31):
prices or add low costservices. Oh man, my clients
can't afford this anymore, andthat's the wrong move. Instead,
you need to focus on highervalue clients and services that
are resilient. I can rememberback in 2008 and you know, a
lot of you haven't been in the,in the business that long, but
this type of thing is cyclical.
(01:51):
And in 2008 there was a massivemarket downturn led by the
subprime mortgage crisis. Andat the same time, the tech
bubble was bursting. And I hadthis , uh, stockbroker as a
client, her name was Jennifer,and she said, Chris , when this
market crashes, we go into arecession. You are done buddy.
You better start looking foranother job because the first
(02:13):
thing everybody's gonna cancelis their gym membership. Now,
even at that time I was doingpersonal training only and a
couple of CrossFit classes atnight. I wasn't selling gym
memberships at all, andJennifer was right about one
thing. A lot of people pausedtheir gym memberships, but very
few people stopped doingpersonal training because they
(02:35):
were higher value clients whowere less affected by rising
commodity prices or eveninflation. They didn't worry
about a one to 2% rise in theirmortgage rates because either
they didn't even have amortgage anymore or that amount
of money really didn't scarethem. It's the people who are
unfortunately, like on thefinancial bottom, who usually
(02:56):
get stung the most and have tomake the biggest changes in
their life. And a gymmembership might be one of the
things that gets cut. So intimes of economic crisis, you
really wanna focus on yourhighest value clients, your
highest value services, insteadof dropping your prices,
offering access only to thebudget conscious, because
that's not gonna save them. Youknow, my motto is always make
(03:18):
lots of money and give it away.
The best way to help the peoplewho are on the bottom is to
serve the people who are on thetop, make money from them. And
then you can afford to donateto the people who are on the
bottom. So here's someexamples. If you've got a lot
of people who are doingpersonal training, but they're
starting to say like, I can'tafford this, offer a
semi-private option, right? Donot offer a discount
(03:41):
membership. If you've gotpeople who are , uh, doing
group classes, for example, andthey're coming four times a
week or paying for unlimited,but they can't do it anymore,
offer a three times a week, youknow, package or whatever,
don't give them a discount. Thething is, once you start
discounting your rates, you cannever take that discount away
again because you've now set alower bar for the value of your
(04:02):
service. And people are gonnasay, well, I was paying 20
bucks more last month, or 20bucks less last month. Why am I
paying 20 bucks more for theexact same service? Now , it's
almost impossible to go up inprice and offer the same
service. Once you start goingdown, it's this ratchet effect
and it creates this downwardspiral to nowhere. The next
thing that you can do is addnutrition and accountability
(04:24):
coaching instead of cuttingrates. So this might seem
foreign to you, like, oh, whyam I adding more services? Why
am I adding higher valueprices? Because the higher
value clients that will carryyour gym through this crisis,
that's what they want. And nowis the time to really start
doing that. If you're notadding or offering a premium
service right now, likehigh-touch personal training or
a specialty program, now isactually the time to do that so
(04:47):
that you can start building alittle bit of a buffer before
the price conscious , uh,clients that you have start
really looking at gas prices,eggs, milk, can I really afford
this anymore? The last thingthat you want to do is say,
give up your daily Starbuckshabit for the price of one
Starbucks. You could pay forfitness. Nobody wants to choose
between you and Starbucks. Youdon't want people choosing
(05:08):
between you and Starbucks. Andso like, don't play that game.
Instead, focus on higher value,move up market , okay? Identify
your most profitable engagedclients and build offers for
them, not bargain hunters. Sothe first thing is move up
market in times of financialcrisis, not down focus on those
(05:28):
people who are least affectedby inflation or rising
commodity prices. Your secondstrategy is to market smarter
use , uh, market marketing thataffects your retention. Okay?
So in tough times, retentionbecomes even more important
than marketing. You know, ifyou look at the state of the
(05:49):
industry report that we publishevery year, you'll see that the
average gym is getting maybeabout six new clients a month
and losing three in times ofeconomic downturn. Getting
those six is tougher andtougher, but that's what most
gyms focus on. Instead, youshould be focusing on losing
fewer than three, bringing yourchurn rate down to two, down to
one, et cetera. And so yourmarketing should not just bring
(06:10):
in new clients, but it shouldalso strengthen the
relationships that you havewith your current clients. And
so the best marketingstrategies now are going to be
telling clients successstories, making them famous,
doing a blog post, doing apodcast interview with them,
telling their stories, sharingit on social, but also sharing
it on your website. Second,introducing your clients to
(06:32):
each other. Don't just assumethat people will meet each
other in class and becomefriends on their own. Community
is not about one client'srelationship with the other
hundred in the group. Communityis built one relationship at a
time. It's all about myrelationship with that one
person in my class and myrelationship with that other
(06:54):
person in the class, not myrelationship with the class as
a whole. That's the way that wethink about community is quite
often wrong. We think about ahundred people all in a group,
and it should really be ahundred one-on-one
relationships. And the more ofthose relationships that you
can foster, the stronger yourcommunity will actually be. But
it's done one on one , onerelationship at a time, not
(07:18):
introducing people to a hundrednew people all at once. The
next thing is booking goalreviews . To keep people
committed, you wanna be infront of their decision. You
wanna be talking to them aboutthe next three months before
they've made up their mind toquit. Because if you're just
trying to talk them out ofquitting, that's kind of an
uphill battle. If you'retalking to them before they
decide to quit, you'll make aplan for the next three months
(07:41):
and they'll say, okay, wellI'll stick with it for three
months, and then think aboutit. And then you meet them
again and you make another planfor three months. Okay, well
I'll finish out this plan. Ifthey can see a future, see the
next step, they're way morelikely to stay. And before you
know it, things have turnedaround, we're through the
crisis, and you know, you don'treally have to worry about it
as much anymore, but you'llprobably stick with goal
(08:01):
reviews anyway. So here's youraction plan. In times of
economic crisis, focus a littlebit less on your paid ads
funnel and more on referrals,more on content and engagement
strategies. So the marketingthat you're doing is also
boosting your retention. Youcan't stop marketing in an
economic crisis. You can't stopmarketing ever. And if you're
(08:21):
not doing any formal plannedstrategic marketing yet,
starting it when the economiccrisis starts is too late, you
need to start now. Build upsome momentum. But if you're
doing content and engagementstrategies with your current
clients that increase retentionwhile also attracting
like-minded people, then you'llbe ahead of the game and you'll
be really well set up for theother side of this too. The
(08:44):
third most important thing togrowing your gym in an economic
crisis is to improve yourweakest metrics. So when fewer
leads are coming in at the topof the funnel, every lead
matters more. And that meansthere are three key areas to
optimize. First is leadgeneration. So if your leads
that you're getting are lowerright now, increase your lead
gen efforts, do more ads, startworking harder on referrals,
(09:07):
asking for more, start gettingreally consistent on your
social media. Start postingmore , more content. Build all
four of the funnels that weteach you how to do in tube ,
right ? So improve lead gen,yes, but more important is that
you need to improve your leadnurture. So if people are
booking a no sweat intro butnot showing up, that's your
show rate. And you need totighten up your follow up
sequences. You need to useautomated texting and you need
(09:30):
to call people, make surethey're coming in, add more
personal touches. And finally,if people are coming in but
they're not signing up, if yourclose rates are low, then you
need to be role-playing moresales conversations. You need
to refine your script and focuson value-based selling a
prescriptive model. If you'renot doing any kind of
consultative sales process andyou're just doing like a free
(09:52):
trial, those are gonna go awayin an economic downturn. And
now is the time to pivot to aone-on-one consultative sales
process. And of course, we helpyou do all of this, including
the role play , including thesetting your rates, including
having the conversations,including handling the
objections in the two brainmentorship program. The action
step here is to auditeverything in your sales
(10:13):
process. A lot of people willsay, coop , I just need more
leads. And that's just becausethey don't know the difference
between a lead and a client.
And so you have to break downthat funnel. Is leads really
the problem is conversion. Yourproblem is sales your problem,
and then you identify theweakest one, you fix that and
that's gonna fix everything. Alot of the times getting more
(10:33):
leads is the hard part, andthere's a much easier solution
to getting more clients. Thefourth thing you need to do to
grow your gym in times ofeconomic uncertainty is to ask
yourself, how can I grow my topline revenue by 20%? So you're
not saying, how do I get moreclients, right? Like that's,
that's a red herring. You wannaask yourself, how can I grow my
(10:54):
top line revenue by 20%? You'regonna need an economic , uh,
uh, revenue buffer here tonavigate economic uncertainty.
You're gonna need a little bitof cash in the bank. So instead
of starting by cutting costs,focus on increasing revenue
first. There's a few ways thatyou can quickly boost your
revenue by 20%. The first is byraising rates. Now, a lot of
(11:15):
you're gonna be nervous hearingthat because you're like, well,
if things are gonna get tighterfor people, why am I raising
rates? Again, it's not gonnaaffect the people who are your
highest value clients, okay?
But if you're nervous, that'sokay, you can go to number two.
The second is add high valueservices like accountability
services , uh, semi-privatetraining or small group
training, adding nutrition.
(11:36):
This is a good time to do that.
Add valuable services andcharge more for them now to
build up a little bit of bufferjust in case things get rough.
Look, the the worst positionyou wanna be in right now is
just breaking even, becausethat means you're really
fragile. And a five to 10%swing in revenue is gonna be
catastrophic for you. You needto get profitable by 10 to 20%
(11:59):
for at least a few monthsbefore the big effects of an
economic downturn hit so thatyou've got a little bit of a
buffer there and you're notfragile if you're breaking even
right now, or if you're losingmoney. A a 10% downturn is
gonna mean the end of your gym.
You do not have time to waitand hope that things turn
around on their own. The nextthing you wanna do to improve
(12:20):
revenue is to upsell toexisting members instead of
chasing new ones. There'sprobably 10% of people in your
gym right now who want more andthey're waiting for you to
offer it. They want moret-shirts. They want you to tell
'em what supplements to buy.
They wanna do a one-on-onesession with you every week,
every month they want to havenutrition coaching from you.
They wanna have more. Theydon't know what to ask for.
(12:40):
That's up to you to tell 'embecause you're their coach. It
should be up to you to knowwhat they need and say, here it
is. And so what I want you todo right now is to write down
three ways that you couldincrease revenue by 20% and
then just commit to one. Go outthere and just take action on
it. You know, if you're in Tubebrain , this is gonna be really
simple. Hey, mentor, which oneof these things do I do first?
(13:01):
What's my deadline? And it'sdone. If you're in gym owners
united.com, you can look forthe free guides, follow those
to the best of your ability,take action, and it will work
if you do the work, right?
Obviously, everything's easierwith coaching. I don't have to
tell you that because you're acoach. The number five thing to
prepare you for times ofeconomic uncertainty is to plan
(13:22):
for the worst, but hope for thebest during the CO lockdowns,
which were in between two weeksand two years depending where
you were in the world, but thegyms that survived came out way
stronger. And in an economicdownturn, no matter how bad it
is, if it's just tiny or ifit's really, really deep, the
same thing's gonna happen. Thestrong gyms will survive and
(13:42):
have a huge advantage on theother side. So the goal isn't
to get scared or worried orfollow the social media
accounts or try to decipherwho's telling the truth or
watch the stock market. Eventhe goal is prepare for it.
Even if it doesn't happen,doing these steps will make you
a stronger gym, right? So whatthis means in practice is
(14:03):
ensuring that you have enoughcash flow . You know, look at
your profit and loss statementevery month. If you're scared
of looking at your businessfinancials or you just don't
even know what to look at,we'll help you do that in two
brain mentorship because wewanna make you stronger, more
resilient entrepreneurs whounderstand your financials so
that you can take control ofyour business. That's the first
thing. The second thing is tomake smart cuts before you're
(14:23):
forced to. Now, this doesn'tmean you fire all your staff,
you start selling yourequipment on eBay. What it does
mean is that you do an audit,you take a day or even a
morning and you say, which ofthese classes do I not need?
Which of these classes arelosing me money? Look around
your gym. Hey, there's 300square feet right there that
I've been calling the coachesCrash zone. It's always a mess.
(14:46):
The couches are stinky. Why amI paying rent on that? That
costs me $700 a month toprovide that there . Nobody's
using it. You know, do Iactually need to invest right
now in cold plunge? No. Youknow, do I really need all this
space or can I sublease some ofit to a massage therapist or
whatever, right? You know, I'vegot two staff who are only like
trading for two classes amonth. If I break down what
(15:10):
they're pay getting paid forthose classes against their
membership, like am Ioverpaying them? Should I be
putting other people duringtimes of economic crisis? I
wanna always get smaller butbetter with my staff, with my
operations, with my space, withmy equipment. And of course,
making these smart cuts beforeyou're forced to, it helps you
long term too, because everygame that you make there
(15:31):
compounds, right? So you needto stay focused on the long
game. Any economic cycle is notpermanent, whether it's good
times or bad things go up anddown. But if you review your
finances regularly and youcreate a contingency plan for
worst case scenarios, you'reprepared and you're ready to
go. Because I'll tell yousomething, after every economic
(15:53):
downturn, there's always acorrection that means a surge.
That's what we called it afterCovid. The couple of months
right after covid, a lot ofgyms saw their membership
increase by up to 40%. And ifyou make these changes now,
you'll be ready for that. Evenif the economic downturn is
mild, even if it goes awayafter a week or two and people
(16:13):
feel confident again andthey're ready to buy, you'll be
better prepared by taking thesesteps and ready to welcome
these, these new clients in andmake more revenue. You'll be
running a leader , a leaner,better gym . The sixth thing
that you need to do in aneconomic downturn is get lean
and get focused. So cutwasteful spending, but invest
(16:33):
heavier where you're getting agood ROI. So for example, let's
say that you know, you're,you're paying too much in rent
and there's an opportunity tosublease some of your space to
a jiujitsu school, like now isa great time to do that and
then take that money. And ifyou're already profitable,
invest that in something thatmakes you more money, right?
Invest it in marketing, investit in mentorship, invest it in
(16:57):
a , uh, an accountant that'sgonna save you taxes, that kind
of thing. You want to takemoney away from places where
it's not giving you a goodreturn and put it in places
where it is giving you a goodreturn. Okay? So if something's
working double down, the lastthing you wanna do is cut your
marketing budget in bad timesbecause now you've lost your
(17:18):
engine to create new revenue,right? It's like, I'm gonna
sell the gas in my tank , uh,so that my car will go faster.
That doesn't make any sense.
You want to , um, double downon your marketing spend when
something's working. Ifsomething's not working, either
fix it fast or cut it. Youwanna double down on mentorship
when times get tough. Coachingand strategy are way more
valuable because you just can'tafford to make mistakes and you
(17:40):
can't afford to waste time. Youwanna look at your high traffic
gym areas, right? Where areyour members naturally
gathering, optimize thoseplaces for engagement and sales
opportunities. This is a greattime to implement a banner
program. All of your clientswho own businesses are going
through this same conversationright now, like, we need to
only talk to the best clients.
(18:01):
We can't afford to be running30 grand a month in Facebook
ads for our car dealership, butif there's anybody who's gonna
buy an Audi, it's the people atmy gym. Let's pay to put a
banner up there and take, pullmoney from something that's not
working and invest it somewherethat it is. So a banner a year,
if you Google two brainbusiness a banner year, you'll
get the step-by-step guide todoing that program, and it's,
(18:22):
it's a great win for everybodyinvolved. So the action step
here is to audit your expensesand reallocate spending to your
highest areas of return oninvestment. Okay? I'll give you
one more tip here. Look, ifyou're working with a mentor,
there's a difference betweenreturn on investment and return
on commitment. Investment isthe payment that you make,
okay? You're committed to thatcommitment, is you actually
(18:45):
doing the work? Now, these areoff often independent. Like
once you sign up for amentorship program or software
or uh , rent a lease, you'remaking that payment no matter
what. Commitment means thatyou're gonna make the most of
that investment. You know, it'soften that you see people
commit to a lease, they don'tmaximize that space, and then
they complain about paying thelease every month. Well, that's
(19:07):
not the landlord's fault. It'snot the bank's fault. It's not
the government's fault. It'syour fault. You've made a good
investment, but you haven'tmade good commitment to using
that space. We see that inmentorship. You're gonna see
that in software. I'moverpaying for this thing.
While you're paying $400 amonth, are you using the
features to get a good return?
(19:27):
You're making the investment,are you making the commitment
to using it? And that's areally good audit to make. Look
at your p and l. Look at everyplace that you're investing
money. Are you actuallycommitting to using that thing?
You should if you're makingthat investment. Okay .
Finally, lean on your network.
You're not alone here. The bestgym owners support each other.
(19:47):
If you're struggling, don'tisolate. Don't pull back, don't
put yourself on a littleisland. Engage with your
community of like-minded peers.
So through this, the next sixweeks , uh, in our growth phase
of mentorship, two Brain isproviding extra support through
mentor calls and office hours.
You should take advantage ofit. If you're not in Two Brain
and you're in gym ownersUnited, start sharing more in
(20:11):
that group. Start askingquestions. That that group has
10,000 gym owners in it. It'snot there for you to vent or
cry. It's there for you to findsolutions. And so turn to your
spouse, turn to your bestfriend. Things are bad, have a
good cry. Get it outta yoursystem if you want to. And then
you go into Jim Owners Unitedand you say, let's fix this.
Let's find the solution. Andthat, that group is where
(20:31):
you're gonna find it short ofhiring a mentor who's gonna
find it really fast and tellyou exactly what to do. Look,
we all want you to win.
Starting with me. The mentorsat Two Brain , the gym owners
in two Brain , the gym ownersin the free group, gym owners
united.com , we all want you tobe successful here. The only
way out though is throughyou've, you're gonna have to go
(20:53):
through this whether you likeit or not. Even if you don't
think there is an economicdownturn, perception is
reality. And if your clientsstart thinking that way,
they're gonna get scared unlessyou take control of the
conversation right now. So stayfocused on what you can
control, the story you'retelling, the services you're
offering, the people you'refocused on. Stay focused on
learning your finances. Be agood leader by knowing these
(21:16):
things. Being a good leader inyour gym doesn't mean being a
better coach than all the othercoaches. It means doing the
stuff, even the stuff you don'twant to do, even the stuff that
scares you, that createssustainability so they don't
lose their jobs, and yourclients don't lose their home.
It is your duty as a gym ownerto be familiar with your
finances. It's your duty as agym owner to make hard
(21:38):
decisions about your coachingstaff, your space, your
expenses. It's your duty as agym owner to find the answer.
If you don't know it, andfinding the answer probably
means investing in mentorship.
It's your duty as a gym ownerto stop guessing and do the
thing that's gonna actuallywork. Whether you're not
comfortable with it or it's newor acquires change or growth.
(21:58):
Internally, growing your gymalmost always means growing
yourself first. Okay? Here'swhat I want you to do. Pick one
thing from the list toimplement this week. Doing
anything that I've mentioned inthis show will make you more
resilient. And while it's notlike full bulletproof armor, at
(22:19):
least, it'll mean that you cantake the first hit and react
and you're not gonna getknocked out in the first round.
And if you buy yourself alittle bit more time, you can
implement the next thing thatI've suggested. The next thing
and the next thing. Whetheryou're thinking about an
economic downturn or not, ifyou implement these strategies,
you will run a leaner, tighter,faster growing gym because you
wanna have all the baggage.
(22:39):
That's why sometimes aneconomic downturn or you know,
any other financial crisis canbe a blessing in the long run
because it forces you to takeaction in the short term that
you know that you probablyshould do. Anyway, I'm Chris
Cooper. This is Run aProfitable Gym. And if you
wanna talk more about this,just go to gym owners
united.com, join that group.
(23:00):
It's free, and we'll talk morethere.
Economic uncertainty is coming. We don't know how
bad it will be, how long itwill last, or how it will
impact your gym. In fact, youmight not even worry about
economic uncertainty, but youcan be sure that there's going
to be some among your clients.
And no matter what your levelof concern is, if they're
(00:23):
concerned about economicuncertainty, that's when they
start to pause. Gymmemberships. However, we do
know one thing. In times ofeconomic uncertainty, the best
gyms actually use it as anopportunity to come out
stronger with less competition.
It's more of a blue ocean onthe other side of it, this is
run a profitable gym . I'mChris Cooper, and today I'm
gonna tell you how to grow yourgym in times of economic
(00:47):
uncertainty. This episode isabout how to grow in uncertain
times, not just survive treadwater and hope to fight your
way through. So I'm gonna giveyou some very specific
instructions to do. I hope thatyou take action on these. If
you want to talk about them, dothat with friendly other gym
owners. Go to gym ownersunited.com. There's over 10,000
(01:09):
gym owners in that group. Wetalk about these podcasts, we
talk about our blog posts allthe time, answer questions and
make sure that you've got thetools and knowledge to move
your gym ahead. So the firststrategy is the biggest one,
and that's go up market , notdown the knee-Jerk reaction in
an economic downturn or timesof uncertainty is to drop your
(01:31):
prices or add low costservices. Oh man, my clients
can't afford this anymore, andthat's the wrong move. Instead,
you need to focus on highervalue clients and services that
are resilient. I can rememberback in 2008 and you know, a
lot of you haven't been in the,in the business that long, but
this type of thing is cyclical.
(01:51):
And in 2008 there was a massivemarket downturn led by the
subprime mortgage crisis. Andat the same time, the tech
bubble was bursting. And I hadthis , uh, stockbroker as a
client, her name was Jennifer,and she said, Chris , when this
market crashes, we go into arecession. You are done buddy.
You better start looking foranother job because the first
(02:13):
thing everybody's gonna cancelis their gym membership. Now,
even at that time I was doingpersonal training only and a
couple of CrossFit classes atnight. I wasn't selling gym
memberships at all, andJennifer was right about one
thing. A lot of people pausedtheir gym memberships, but very
few people stopped doingpersonal training because they
(02:35):
were higher value clients whowere less affected by rising
commodity prices or eveninflation. They didn't worry
about a one to 2% rise in theirmortgage rates because either
they didn't even have amortgage anymore or that amount
of money really didn't scarethem. It's the people who are
unfortunately, like on thefinancial bottom, who usually
(02:56):
get stung the most and have tomake the biggest changes in
their life. And a gymmembership might be one of the
things that gets cut. So intimes of economic crisis, you
really wanna focus on yourhighest value clients, your
highest value services, insteadof dropping your prices,
offering access only to thebudget conscious, because
that's not gonna save them. Youknow, my motto is always make
(03:18):
lots of money and give it away.
The best way to help the peoplewho are on the bottom is to
serve the people who are on thetop, make money from them. And
then you can afford to donateto the people who are on the
bottom. So here's someexamples. If you've got a lot
of people who are doingpersonal training, but they're
starting to say like, I can'tafford this, offer a
semi-private option, right? Donot offer a discount
(03:41):
membership. If you've gotpeople who are , uh, doing
group classes, for example, andthey're coming four times a
week or paying for unlimited,but they can't do it anymore,
offer a three times a week, youknow, package or whatever,
don't give them a discount. Thething is, once you start
discounting your rates, you cannever take that discount away
again because you've now set alower bar for the value of your
(04:02):
service. And people are gonnasay, well, I was paying 20
bucks more last month, or 20bucks less last month. Why am I
paying 20 bucks more for theexact same service? Now , it's
almost impossible to go up inprice and offer the same
service. Once you start goingdown, it's this ratchet effect
and it creates this downwardspiral to nowhere. The next
thing that you can do is addnutrition and accountability
(04:24):
coaching instead of cuttingrates. So this might seem
foreign to you, like, oh, whyam I adding more services? Why
am I adding higher valueprices? Because the higher
value clients that will carryyour gym through this crisis,
that's what they want. And nowis the time to really start
doing that. If you're notadding or offering a premium
service right now, likehigh-touch personal training or
a specialty program, now isactually the time to do that so
(04:47):
that you can start building alittle bit of a buffer before
the price conscious , uh,clients that you have start
really looking at gas prices,eggs, milk, can I really afford
this anymore? The last thingthat you want to do is say,
give up your daily Starbuckshabit for the price of one
Starbucks. You could pay forfitness. Nobody wants to choose
between you and Starbucks. Youdon't want people choosing
(05:08):
between you and Starbucks. Andso like, don't play that game.
Instead, focus on higher value,move up market , okay? Identify
your most profitable engagedclients and build offers for
them, not bargain hunters. Sothe first thing is move up
market in times of financialcrisis, not down focus on those
(05:28):
people who are least affectedby inflation or rising
commodity prices. Your secondstrategy is to market smarter
use , uh, market marketing thataffects your retention. Okay?
So in tough times, retentionbecomes even more important
than marketing. You know, ifyou look at the state of the
(05:49):
industry report that we publishevery year, you'll see that the
average gym is getting maybeabout six new clients a month
and losing three in times ofeconomic downturn. Getting
those six is tougher andtougher, but that's what most
gyms focus on. Instead, youshould be focusing on losing
fewer than three, bringing yourchurn rate down to two, down to
one, et cetera. And so yourmarketing should not just bring
(06:10):
in new clients, but it shouldalso strengthen the
relationships that you havewith your current clients. And
so the best marketingstrategies now are going to be
telling clients successstories, making them famous,
doing a blog post, doing apodcast interview with them,
telling their stories, sharingit on social, but also sharing
it on your website. Second,introducing your clients to
(06:32):
each other. Don't just assumethat people will meet each
other in class and becomefriends on their own. Community
is not about one client'srelationship with the other
hundred in the group. Communityis built one relationship at a
time. It's all about myrelationship with that one
person in my class and myrelationship with that other
(06:54):
person in the class, not myrelationship with the class as
a whole. That's the way that wethink about community is quite
often wrong. We think about ahundred people all in a group,
and it should really be ahundred one-on-one
relationships. And the more ofthose relationships that you
can foster, the stronger yourcommunity will actually be. But
it's done one on one , onerelationship at a time, not
(07:18):
introducing people to a hundrednew people all at once. The
next thing is booking goalreviews . To keep people
committed, you wanna be infront of their decision. You
wanna be talking to them aboutthe next three months before
they've made up their mind toquit. Because if you're just
trying to talk them out ofquitting, that's kind of an
uphill battle. If you'retalking to them before they
decide to quit, you'll make aplan for the next three months
(07:41):
and they'll say, okay, wellI'll stick with it for three
months, and then think aboutit. And then you meet them
again and you make another planfor three months. Okay, well
I'll finish out this plan. Ifthey can see a future, see the
next step, they're way morelikely to stay. And before you
know it, things have turnedaround, we're through the
crisis, and you know, you don'treally have to worry about it
as much anymore, but you'llprobably stick with goal
(08:01):
reviews anyway. So here's youraction plan. In times of
economic crisis, focus a littlebit less on your paid ads
funnel and more on referrals,more on content and engagement
strategies. So the marketingthat you're doing is also
boosting your retention. Youcan't stop marketing in an
economic crisis. You can't stopmarketing ever. And if you're
(08:21):
not doing any formal plannedstrategic marketing yet,
starting it when the economiccrisis starts is too late, you
need to start now. Build upsome momentum. But if you're
doing content and engagementstrategies with your current
clients that increase retentionwhile also attracting
like-minded people, then you'llbe ahead of the game and you'll
be really well set up for theother side of this too. The
(08:44):
third most important thing togrowing your gym in an economic
crisis is to improve yourweakest metrics. So when fewer
leads are coming in at the topof the funnel, every lead
matters more. And that meansthere are three key areas to
optimize. First is leadgeneration. So if your leads
that you're getting are lowerright now, increase your lead
gen efforts, do more ads, startworking harder on referrals,
(09:07):
asking for more, start gettingreally consistent on your
social media. Start postingmore , more content. Build all
four of the funnels that weteach you how to do in tube ,
right ? So improve lead gen,yes, but more important is that
you need to improve your leadnurture. So if people are
booking a no sweat intro butnot showing up, that's your
show rate. And you need totighten up your follow up
sequences. You need to useautomated texting and you need
(09:30):
to call people, make surethey're coming in, add more
personal touches. And finally,if people are coming in but
they're not signing up, if yourclose rates are low, then you
need to be role-playing moresales conversations. You need
to refine your script and focuson value-based selling a
prescriptive model. If you'renot doing any kind of
consultative sales process andyou're just doing like a free
(09:52):
trial, those are gonna go awayin an economic downturn. And
now is the time to pivot to aone-on-one consultative sales
process. And of course, we helpyou do all of this, including
the role play , including thesetting your rates, including
having the conversations,including handling the
objections in the two brainmentorship program. The action
step here is to auditeverything in your sales
(10:13):
process. A lot of people willsay, coop , I just need more
leads. And that's just becausethey don't know the difference
between a lead and a client.
And so you have to break downthat funnel. Is leads really
the problem is conversion. Yourproblem is sales your problem,
and then you identify theweakest one, you fix that and
that's gonna fix everything. Alot of the times getting more
(10:33):
leads is the hard part, andthere's a much easier solution
to getting more clients. Thefourth thing you need to do to
grow your gym in times ofeconomic uncertainty is to ask
yourself, how can I grow my topline revenue by 20%? So you're
not saying, how do I get moreclients, right? Like that's,
that's a red herring. You wannaask yourself, how can I grow my
(10:54):
top line revenue by 20%? You'regonna need an economic , uh,
uh, revenue buffer here tonavigate economic uncertainty.
You're gonna need a little bitof cash in the bank. So instead
of starting by cutting costs,focus on increasing revenue
first. There's a few ways thatyou can quickly boost your
revenue by 20%. The first is byraising rates. Now, a lot of
(11:15):
you're gonna be nervous hearingthat because you're like, well,
if things are gonna get tighterfor people, why am I raising
rates? Again, it's not gonnaaffect the people who are your
highest value clients, okay?
But if you're nervous, that'sokay, you can go to number two.
The second is add high valueservices like accountability
services , uh, semi-privatetraining or small group
training, adding nutrition.
(11:36):
This is a good time to do that.
Add valuable services andcharge more for them now to
build up a little bit of bufferjust in case things get rough.
Look, the the worst positionyou wanna be in right now is
just breaking even, becausethat means you're really
fragile. And a five to 10%swing in revenue is gonna be
catastrophic for you. You needto get profitable by 10 to 20%
(11:59):
for at least a few monthsbefore the big effects of an
economic downturn hit so thatyou've got a little bit of a
buffer there and you're notfragile if you're breaking even
right now, or if you're losingmoney. A a 10% downturn is
gonna mean the end of your gym.
You do not have time to waitand hope that things turn
around on their own. The nextthing you wanna do to improve
(12:20):
revenue is to upsell toexisting members instead of
chasing new ones. There'sprobably 10% of people in your
gym right now who want more andthey're waiting for you to
offer it. They want moret-shirts. They want you to tell
'em what supplements to buy.
They wanna do a one-on-onesession with you every week,
every month they want to havenutrition coaching from you.
They wanna have more. Theydon't know what to ask for.
(12:40):
That's up to you to tell 'embecause you're their coach. It
should be up to you to knowwhat they need and say, here it
is. And so what I want you todo right now is to write down
three ways that you couldincrease revenue by 20% and
then just commit to one. Go outthere and just take action on
it. You know, if you're in Tubebrain , this is gonna be really
simple. Hey, mentor, which oneof these things do I do first?
(13:01):
What's my deadline? And it'sdone. If you're in gym owners
united.com, you can look forthe free guides, follow those
to the best of your ability,take action, and it will work
if you do the work, right?
Obviously, everything's easierwith coaching. I don't have to
tell you that because you're acoach. The number five thing to
prepare you for times ofeconomic uncertainty is to plan
(13:22):
for the worst, but hope for thebest during the CO lockdowns,
which were in between two weeksand two years depending where
you were in the world, but thegyms that survived came out way
stronger. And in an economicdownturn, no matter how bad it
is, if it's just tiny or ifit's really, really deep, the
same thing's gonna happen. Thestrong gyms will survive and
(13:42):
have a huge advantage on theother side. So the goal isn't
to get scared or worried orfollow the social media
accounts or try to decipherwho's telling the truth or
watch the stock market. Eventhe goal is prepare for it.
Even if it doesn't happen,doing these steps will make you
a stronger gym, right? So whatthis means in practice is
(14:03):
ensuring that you have enoughcash flow . You know, look at
your profit and loss statementevery month. If you're scared
of looking at your businessfinancials or you just don't
even know what to look at,we'll help you do that in two
brain mentorship because wewanna make you stronger, more
resilient entrepreneurs whounderstand your financials so
that you can take control ofyour business. That's the first
thing. The second thing is tomake smart cuts before you're
(14:23):
forced to. Now, this doesn'tmean you fire all your staff,
you start selling yourequipment on eBay. What it does
mean is that you do an audit,you take a day or even a
morning and you say, which ofthese classes do I not need?
Which of these classes arelosing me money? Look around
your gym. Hey, there's 300square feet right there that
I've been calling the coachesCrash zone. It's always a mess.
(14:46):
The couches are stinky. Why amI paying rent on that? That
costs me $700 a month toprovide that there . Nobody's
using it. You know, do Iactually need to invest right
now in cold plunge? No. Youknow, do I really need all this
space or can I sublease some ofit to a massage therapist or
whatever, right? You know, I'vegot two staff who are only like
trading for two classes amonth. If I break down what
(15:10):
they're pay getting paid forthose classes against their
membership, like am Ioverpaying them? Should I be
putting other people duringtimes of economic crisis? I
wanna always get smaller butbetter with my staff, with my
operations, with my space, withmy equipment. And of course,
making these smart cuts beforeyou're forced to, it helps you
long term too, because everygame that you make there
(15:31):
compounds, right? So you needto stay focused on the long
game. Any economic cycle is notpermanent, whether it's good
times or bad things go up anddown. But if you review your
finances regularly and youcreate a contingency plan for
worst case scenarios, you'reprepared and you're ready to
go. Because I'll tell yousomething, after every economic
(15:53):
downturn, there's always acorrection that means a surge.
That's what we called it afterCovid. The couple of months
right after covid, a lot ofgyms saw their membership
increase by up to 40%. And ifyou make these changes now,
you'll be ready for that. Evenif the economic downturn is
mild, even if it goes awayafter a week or two and people
(16:13):
feel confident again andthey're ready to buy, you'll be
better prepared by taking thesesteps and ready to welcome
these, these new clients in andmake more revenue. You'll be
running a leader , a leaner,better gym . The sixth thing
that you need to do in aneconomic downturn is get lean
and get focused. So cutwasteful spending, but invest
(16:33):
heavier where you're getting agood ROI. So for example, let's
say that you know, you're,you're paying too much in rent
and there's an opportunity tosublease some of your space to
a jiujitsu school, like now isa great time to do that and
then take that money. And ifyou're already profitable,
invest that in something thatmakes you more money, right?
Invest it in marketing, investit in mentorship, invest it in
(16:57):
a , uh, an accountant that'sgonna save you taxes, that kind
of thing. You want to takemoney away from places where
it's not giving you a goodreturn and put it in places
where it is giving you a goodreturn. Okay? So if something's
working double down, the lastthing you wanna do is cut your
marketing budget in bad timesbecause now you've lost your
(17:18):
engine to create new revenue,right? It's like, I'm gonna
sell the gas in my tank , uh,so that my car will go faster.
That doesn't make any sense.
You want to , um, double downon your marketing spend when
something's working. Ifsomething's not working, either
fix it fast or cut it. Youwanna double down on mentorship
when times get tough. Coachingand strategy are way more
valuable because you just can'tafford to make mistakes and you
(17:40):
can't afford to waste time. Youwanna look at your high traffic
gym areas, right? Where areyour members naturally
gathering, optimize thoseplaces for engagement and sales
opportunities. This is a greattime to implement a banner
program. All of your clientswho own businesses are going
through this same conversationright now, like, we need to
only talk to the best clients.
(18:01):
We can't afford to be running30 grand a month in Facebook
ads for our car dealership, butif there's anybody who's gonna
buy an Audi, it's the people atmy gym. Let's pay to put a
banner up there and take, pullmoney from something that's not
working and invest it somewherethat it is. So a banner a year,
if you Google two brainbusiness a banner year, you'll
get the step-by-step guide todoing that program, and it's,
(18:22):
it's a great win for everybodyinvolved. So the action step
here is to audit your expensesand reallocate spending to your
highest areas of return oninvestment. Okay? I'll give you
one more tip here. Look, ifyou're working with a mentor,
there's a difference betweenreturn on investment and return
on commitment. Investment isthe payment that you make,
okay? You're committed to thatcommitment, is you actually
(18:45):
doing the work? Now, these areoff often independent. Like
once you sign up for amentorship program or software
or uh , rent a lease, you'remaking that payment no matter
what. Commitment means thatyou're gonna make the most of
that investment. You know, it'soften that you see people
commit to a lease, they don'tmaximize that space, and then
they complain about paying thelease every month. Well, that's
(19:07):
not the landlord's fault. It'snot the bank's fault. It's not
the government's fault. It'syour fault. You've made a good
investment, but you haven'tmade good commitment to using
that space. We see that inmentorship. You're gonna see
that in software. I'moverpaying for this thing.
While you're paying $400 amonth, are you using the
features to get a good return?
(19:27):
You're making the investment,are you making the commitment
to using it? And that's areally good audit to make. Look
at your p and l. Look at everyplace that you're investing
money. Are you actuallycommitting to using that thing?
You should if you're makingthat investment. Okay .
Finally, lean on your network.
You're not alone here. The bestgym owners support each other.
(19:47):
If you're struggling, don'tisolate. Don't pull back, don't
put yourself on a littleisland. Engage with your
community of like-minded peers.
So through this, the next sixweeks , uh, in our growth phase
of mentorship, two Brain isproviding extra support through
mentor calls and office hours.
You should take advantage ofit. If you're not in Two Brain
and you're in gym ownersUnited, start sharing more in
(20:11):
that group. Start askingquestions. That that group has
10,000 gym owners in it. It'snot there for you to vent or
cry. It's there for you to findsolutions. And so turn to your
spouse, turn to your bestfriend. Things are bad, have a
good cry. Get it outta yoursystem if you want to. And then
you go into Jim Owners Unitedand you say, let's fix this.
Let's find the solution. Andthat, that group is where
(20:31):
you're gonna find it short ofhiring a mentor who's gonna
find it really fast and tellyou exactly what to do. Look,
we all want you to win.
Starting with me. The mentorsat Two Brain , the gym owners
in two Brain , the gym ownersin the free group, gym owners
united.com , we all want you tobe successful here. The only
way out though is throughyou've, you're gonna have to go
(20:53):
through this whether you likeit or not. Even if you don't
think there is an economicdownturn, perception is
reality. And if your clientsstart thinking that way,
they're gonna get scared unlessyou take control of the
conversation right now. So stayfocused on what you can
control, the story you'retelling, the services you're
offering, the people you'refocused on. Stay focused on
learning your finances. Be agood leader by knowing these
(21:16):
things. Being a good leader inyour gym doesn't mean being a
better coach than all the othercoaches. It means doing the
stuff, even the stuff you don'twant to do, even the stuff that
scares you, that createssustainability so they don't
lose their jobs, and yourclients don't lose their home.
It is your duty as a gym ownerto be familiar with your
finances. It's your duty as agym owner to make hard
(21:38):
decisions about your coachingstaff, your space, your
expenses. It's your duty as agym owner to find the answer.
If you don't know it, andfinding the answer probably
means investing in mentorship.
It's your duty as a gym ownerto stop guessing and do the
thing that's gonna actuallywork. Whether you're not
comfortable with it or it's newor acquires change or growth.
(21:58):
Internally, growing your gymalmost always means growing
yourself first. Okay? Here'swhat I want you to do. Pick one
thing from the list toimplement this week. Doing
anything that I've mentioned inthis show will make you more
resilient. And while it's notlike full bulletproof armor, at
(22:19):
least, it'll mean that you cantake the first hit and react
and you're not gonna getknocked out in the first round.
And if you buy yourself alittle bit more time, you can
implement the next thing thatI've suggested. The next thing
and the next thing. Whetheryou're thinking about an
economic downturn or not, ifyou implement these strategies,
you will run a leaner, tighter,faster growing gym because you
wanna have all the baggage.
(22:39):
That's why sometimes aneconomic downturn or you know,
any other financial crisis canbe a blessing in the long run
because it forces you to takeaction in the short term that
you know that you probablyshould do. Anyway, I'm Chris
Cooper. This is Run aProfitable Gym. And if you
wanna talk more about this,just go to gym owners
united.com, join that group.
(23:00):
It's free, and we'll talk morethere.
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