Is Your Gym Business Healthy? Use This 6-Metric Report Card to Find Out

Gym growth is simple when you understand the only six metrics that really matter in fitness businesses.

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Chris Cooper breaks them down so you can improve your gym:

• Average revenue per member (ARM)
• Length of engagement (LEG)
• Return on investment (ROI)
• Effective hourly rate (EHR)
• Net owner benefit (NOB)
• Client headcount

Using data from over 15,000 gym owners who contributed to Two-Brain’s 2024 “State of the Industry” guide, Coop presents the industry averages for each metric so entrepreneurs know exactly where they stand in comparison.

Then, he equips gym owners with specific tactics to improve each metric and explains why many gyms actually don’t need more members to generate additional revenue.

Plus, Coop dives deep into marketing with Two-Brain’s four-funnel system: referrals, content, social media and paid ads.

He even shares an exclusive preview of the clients-only worksheet Two-Brain gym owners use to audit marketing performance, and he provides actionable fixes for each funnel.

Tune in to learn how to track and improve the critical numbers in your gym business.

Want Coop’s $100K checklist? Head to Gym Owners United using the link below and send him a DM.

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2:14 - Average revenue per member (ARM)

8:23 - Length of engagement (LEG)

14:33 - Return on investment (ROI)

21:48 - Effective hourly rate (EHR)

27:14 - Net owner benefit (NOB)

32:47 - Client headcount

37:13 - Four marketing funnels

45:13 - Auditing and fixing your funnels

59:34 - Getting more leads

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
I love meeting gym owners, even online.
And the conversation alwaysstarts with, how's your gym
doing?
And quite often I get back,well, pretty good, as if the
person has to think about it andthey're not actually sure.
They're just telling me how theyfeel in their gut.
Today, I'm going to give you away to actually answer that

(00:21):
question.
And even better, I'm going totell you how to improve it.
I'm Chris Cooper.
This is Run a Profitable Gym.
And today I'm going to help youaudit your gym.
I'm going to give you a reportcard, and I'm going to walk
through the six key metrics thatwe measure in Two Brain, the
only six metrics that you needto grow your gym.
Then I'm going to help youestablish where you are, what's

(00:43):
a C grade with each metric, andI'm going to tell you how to get
an A.
We're going to be walkingthrough the different metrics,
average revenue per member permonth, length of engagement, how
long you keep people ROI, whatyou're getting back from all of
the expenses that you're paying,like what's your return on the
rent, etc., your effectivehourly rate, how are you using
your time effectively to growyour gym, net owner benefit, how

(01:05):
much you're getting paidcompared to the average gym
owner.
And then of course, clients, howto get more clients.
And in part two of this podcast,I'm actually going to dive super
duper deep into getting moreclients because I really want to
help you with that.
And I really want you tounderstand how exactly to get
more clients.
Now we're going to be borrowingsome numbers from the Two Brain
State of the Industry Guide.
This is the largest data set inthe fitness industry so that you

(01:28):
know we're starting from truthand we know what a C grade is.
I'm also going to be pullingsome tactics from the Two Brain
Business Mentorship Program.
Now, I'm happy to share thisstuff with you for free.
And of course, our mentorshipprogram exists to help coach you
through it.
So to help you actuallyimplement it, do the work and
get the results from it too.
All right.

(01:49):
So the first thing we want to dois we want to establish how
you're actually doing comparedto the average, because we're
all a bunch of islands outthere.
We're all alone.
And so when we ask ourselves,how's my Jim actually doing?
We really have no idea.
We're kind of guessing, right?
Am I above average, belowaverage?
I'm doing better than I used to.
I'm doing worse than I used to.

(02:09):
But how is that really incomparison to everybody else?
So we're going to start withARM.
This is average revenue permember per month.
And this is a measure of yourperceived value to your client.
You're in the value exchangebusiness and people pay you what
they think you're worth.
And so we want to make sure thatyou're making a good income and

(02:32):
charging the right amount andmaking the right amount per
client.
How much should you be making?
Well, the average across 15,000gyms, by the way, for large
group gyms, so these would bebootcamp type gyms and it'd be
CrossFit type gyms, gyms thatare just selling mostly group
classes or the majority of therevenues coming from group
classes, their average ARM is$167.76 per member per month.

(03:00):
Gyms that are running a smallgroup type program, so four to
six people working out together,their ARM is going to be higher.
So that's$230.18 per month.
And groups running one-on-onetraining, the average is$353.37
per month.

(03:20):
Now, if you really want to seeall these metrics laid out, you
can look at our 2024 State ofthe Industry Guide.
This is on page 19 of thatguide.
And the new metrics are comingout in our 2025 State of the
Industry guide.
But I'm using these metricsbecause we want to start from
truth.
We don't want to start from whatthe person down the street is
telling you, what somebody in aFacebook group is telling you,
what you think is true.
We want to start from truth.
So these are what it takes toget a C.

(03:41):
$167.76 if you're running agroup training program like a
CrossFit gym.
$230.18 if you're running asmall group gym, which could
also be a CrossFit gym, but ismore than likely like a
semi-private type gym.
$353.37 if you're running aone-on-one personal training
studio.
This is per member per month.

(04:02):
Are you higher or lower thanthat?
Now, we're going to talk abouthow to actually improve this
because I want you to go from aC to an A.
That's what it takes to make agreat living in this industry.
To improve your ARM, there arethree things that you can do.
And I'm going to share thesethings from easiest to hardest.
So the first way to improve yourARM is just simply to offer an

(04:23):
on-ramp program.
Look, especially if you'rerunning a group training gym,
you need to onboard peopleproperly.
An on-ramp program doesn't justsolve your ARM problem or
improve your ARM at least.
It also solves your retentionproblem because people aren't
just getting thrown into a freetrial class where they don't
fit.
They don't know what they'redoing.
They feel dumb and they'reworried they might throw up in

(04:45):
front of people.
Okay.
Jumping into a large group classthe first time, that was cool
for you and me, the gym owner.
It's not cool for most of ourclients.
And so an on-ramp program isamazing value for them because
it onboards them to fitnesswithout throwing them into too
much too soon.
It teaches them the movements sothat they never feel lost or
dumb in your class.

(05:05):
And it improves retentionbecause a slow onboarding means
that they're graduallyintroduced to your program and
the people in your gym.
If you're running a small grouptraining program, you should
still have an on-ramp program.
If you're doing one-on-one, thebest way to increase your ARM is
not going to be through anon-ramp.
It's just adding other things toyour basic program like
recommendations and automations.

(05:26):
But for most people, you canimprove your ARM right away by
adding an The second thing thatyou want to do to improve your
ARM is adding specialty programsjust for people who want them.
Now, years ago, when I wouldtalk to people who are running
bootcamp programs, kettlebellprograms, CrossFit programs,
whatever, they would sell thiskind of like unlimited
membership.
And so on Tuesday, they wouldhave their strength class.

(05:49):
And on Thursday, they would havetheir cardio class.
And on Saturdays, they wouldhave weightlifting or something.
And they'd have kids in theretoo.
And the problem was that theywere coaching the different
facets of fitness separately.
And so people who didn't wantthat strength class really had
no class to go to at seveno'clock on a Thursday night.
And they would say like, why amI paying for this?

(06:09):
I don't want it.
Instead, what you should do islook at your clients, talk to
them in the goal review session,look at their results because
you're tracking their resultsanyway, and say, where are they
weakest?
And then run a specialty grouponce a quarter for that.
The other thing that you can dois test out additional revenue
streams by running a one-timespecialty group first.

(06:29):
So if example, maybe you want towork more with people over 60
and you start a legends program.
Well, you're not just going tocommit permanently to a specific
time until you figure out what'sbest and whether this is even
going to fly.
And so you run a six weeklegends program for the parents
and friends of your parents, ofthe people in your gym.
And you see like, can I fillthis?
Do people love it?

(06:50):
Will it fill again?
You do a bullet before acannonball.
The one that I like to do is ahealthy habits or a golden
habits challenge, which is anutrition challenge lasting 30
30 days.
And we do this once a quarter.
We also have a legends programthat runs monthly and we do that
once a quarter.
And then, you know, the otherprogram that we'll run is
usually something that's sportsspecific.

(07:11):
So, you know, what sport is inits off season right now.
And then we just have thosethree specialty programs and we
repeat them over and over fourtimes a year.
Okay.
So the first way to increaseyour ARM is to add on it.
The second way is to look atyour clients and offer specialty
groups.
The third way is a hard one.
And that is increase yourpricing.
Look, if you're running a groupclass program, I can almost
guarantee that you're on Youprobably set your rate based on

(07:32):
the wrong metrics, which is likewhat the dude down the street is
charging or what you think youcould afford or like five bucks
cheaper than something else orwhat somebody on a message board
said.
Okay, Facebook, whatever.
You can probably stand toincrease your rates.
You can go up to 15% withoutmuch churn.
Our data shows like 15% is kindof where you have to be a little

(07:55):
bit more careful.
And those revenue dollars fallstraight to your bottom line.
There's no other costsassociated with it.
If you add an on-ramp, that'sreally, really easy.
You're going to have to pay acoach to deliver it eventually.
If you add a specialty program,that's really, really easy, but
you're going to have to payanother coach a percentage of
that revenue.
If you just increase your rates,which is hard, all that will

(08:17):
drop straight to the bottomline.
You can use it however you want.
So those are three ways toincrease your average revenue
per member.
The next metric I want to talkabout is length of engagement.
Look, if you're not keepingpeople for two years, you're not
changing their lives.
They are not developing thehabits that will actually help
them long-term.
Now, in a personal training gym,the length of engagement, how

(08:39):
long the average person stays ispretty long, generally over
three years.
People who sign up know whatthey're getting into, they know
what the price is, and theystick around for a long time.
If you have somebody in your gymwho's been there 12 years, I can
almost guarantee that you have aone-on-one relationship with
them.
Either they started in personaltraining, they started when you
were tiny, or they They've beendoing personal training this

(09:01):
whole time.
I have clients who've been withme over a decade.
They're all personal trainingclients.
But for group training, it'sdifferent.
Now, the industry average isabout 18 months in the US.
That's enormous.
And that's because we've beentelling people, hey, you got to
be working with smaller groups.
You got to be coaching like fourto six people or maybe up to

(09:24):
like seven, and then it dropsoff.
What's interesting is thatwhen...
people start reducing the numberof classes because they get rid
of the classes with two or threepeople in them.
They get these groups of likeseven or eight people, which is
kind of peak retention level.
So if you want to increase yourlength of engagement, keep
people longer, actually changetheir lives, then here's what

(09:46):
you're going to do.
The first thing that you'regoing to do is look at like,
what is the barrier toretention?
What's flushing people out?
So you want to break down whenpeople are leaving.
And if you don't know, if yourgym membership software or
whatever doesn't tell you, thenbuild these things in order.
First is add an on-ramp.
And again, on-ramp is not abarrier to entry.

(10:07):
It's a barrier to exit.
By properly preparing people forthe next step for them, be that
group classes or one-on-one orsmall group, semi-private,
whatever, you are setting themup for long-term success.
You're not just like throwingthem in with the wolves.
And this might sound weird toyou.
If you've been pursuing fitnessfor a long time and then you
opened up a gym, you can jump inand just try things.

(10:29):
But that is not most people.
You and I are not the same asour average client.
Sorry.
So the first thing to improveyour leg is to add an on-ramp.
If you've already got anon-ramp, the next step is to
clearly map out the first 90days of a client's journey in
your gym.
So you want to go day by day.

(10:49):
You want to build these inphases.
So at first, your job is justlike get them in the gym, affirm
their purchase by giving themwarm welcomes by a Introducing
them to people by sending themtexts, telling them what to do,
what to wear, what to eat, howto stretch in between sessions,
setting up automated texts,having an onboarding session

(11:09):
where they meet you one-on-one,introducing them to other
people, right?
Like affirm their purchase.
Then the next thing that youwant to do is like map the next
step.
So you want to acclimate them.
So you want to teach them thebasic movements.
You want to praise them.
Hey, you're doing it right.
You'd lifted 95 pounds yourfirst try.
Amazing.
Whatever, right?
And then from there, you justkeep building out the 90-day

(11:30):
sequence.
You take it day by day and yousay like, if I had the most
nervous person in the world withno fitness experience, what
would I say to them if they weremy only client?
What would I tell them that day?
And you can, of course, buildthis out with your gym
management software so thatyou're sending them automated
texts, or you're actuallypicking up the phone, or you're
sending them an email, whateverthat is.

(11:51):
You should be talking to themevery day.
At the end of the 90 days, youwant to meet up with them.
And I'll give you a top tiphere.
This is not intuitive, but Butif you ask them for a referral
at the 90-day mark and theyactually say, you know, my
husband should join, that is ahuge game changer for retention.
And I won't get into thepsychology of this, but think

(12:12):
about it.
If you took a friend to arestaurant that you loved, you
would spend the entire mealconvincing them how great the
restaurant is, right?
Isn't that so cool?
Did you notice what the waiterjust did there?
You're invested in the successof the gym.
And let's face it, if you reallywant to change a client's life
you got to change the lives ofthe people around them, or they
are going to be fighting anuphill battle.

(12:33):
So bringing in their peers isreally like the best way to keep
them long-term.
Okay.
So the second thing that you cando is map out the client's first
90 days.
The third thing that you can dois set up a goal review with
them every 90 days for at leasttheir first year.
And every six months after that,at this goal review, you have
them come in, you measure theirprogress.

(12:55):
Okay.
You If they are interested inthe level method, if you're
using the level method, measuretheir progress there.
If they're interested in gettingstronger, measure their
strength.
If they're interested in losingweight, measure their body fat.
Measure the thing that they careabout.
Then ask them, are youcompletely satisfied with your

(13:15):
results?
And if they say, yes, I am, thenyou say, we're so proud of you.
Would you share your story withsomebody who might need to hear
it?
Then you ask them for areferral.
If they say, I'm happy with myresults, but I'm not like super
jacked about it.
They're telling you they want tospeed it up.
And so you make a newprescription.

(13:36):
Okay.
If I were in your shoes, here'swhat I would do.
And if they say, actually, I'mnot really that happy with my
results, they're giving you anopportunity to sell them again,
instead of just quitting andtrying something else out on
their own.
And so at that point, you needto make a new prescription.
Okay.
If I was looking to do somethingdifferently than what you're
currently doing, here's what Iwould recommend.

(13:56):
Usually this only happens if youare about making the right
prescription in the first place.
Maybe you thought, ah, thatperson can't afford personal
training or nutrition coachingor whatever.
And you recommended grouptraining or like your budget
option for them when that's notreally what they needed.
And now they're not getting theresults that they should have.
Now's your big opportunity andlike the last chance to get over

(14:18):
your internal BS, tell them whatthey actually need and get them
on the right program.
That's how you improve length ofengagement.
Add an on-ramp, map out thefirst 90 days, set up goal
reviews every three months forthe first year and every six
months after that.
The next metric is ROI.
So every purchase that you make,like this is my gym, by the way,
behind me, every purchase thatyou make, you make for a reason.

(14:42):
You are making an investment inthat purchase.
When I bought this rig that yousee here over my shoulder, I was
making an investment by buyingthe rig so that I could train
people and I would get a returnon that investment forever.
When I rented this space first,6,500 or square feet.
I did that with the knowledgethat I needed about 6,000 square

(15:03):
feet to run a big group class,to run one program in one wing
and a personal training programin the other wing of the
building and have a good salesoffice and a nice lobby.
I knew exactly what I wantedbefore I found this space.
But every dollar that you spendthat doesn't go to you or to
taxes is an investment.
And that includes your staff.

(15:23):
Your staff are the biggestinvestment that you will make.
So how do we improve our returnon investment?
Well, First, your staff expensesaverage across the industry is
about 33% of your gross revenue.
So every dollar that comes in,33 cents goes out to your staff.
Your fixed expenses is about 47%of your gross revenue, okay?

(15:43):
Now, if you're looking at thestate of the industry guide from
2024, this is on page 30.
I break it all down.
Yes, 47 and 33 add up to 80%.
That means that for most gyms,eight tenths of every dollar, 80
cents of every dollar that comesinto your gym It goes right back
out again.
That goes out to your staff.
It goes out to your landlord.
It goes out to the internetcompany.

(16:04):
It goes out to the bank that'sholding your lease on your
equipment or your loan on yourequipment, right?
That means that gyms are notthat profitable yet.
But one of the fastest ways toget more profitable is to get a
better return on your expenses.
So are you higher or lower thanthat?
Are you paying your staff morethan 33% of your gross revenue?
Are you paying the landlord andyour bills more than 47% of your

(16:28):
gross revenue?
If you are, then you're gettingless than a C.
If you're at 33% for your staffand 47% for your landlord,
you're getting a C.
Let's improve that.
So the first thing you want todo is don't make any cuts.
The first thing you want to dois pull out your P&L or your
bank statement, wherever youhave a list of all the money
that's going out every month.

(16:49):
You're going to just take ahighlighter like this, and you
say, where is that going out?
This is called an expense audit.
And again, we're not making anycuts.
All we're trying to do is to geta better return on our
investments.
So the first thing you do is yousay like, okay, well, this
expense went to the bookkeeper.

(17:09):
This expense went to the taxperson or whatever.
This expense went to thelandlord.
All you got to do is break themdown first.
Then you're going to look ateach one and say, how can I get
a better return?
Before you cut anything, you tryto improve the return you get on
that investment.
There's a reason you signed upwith that bookkeeper.
but there's a reason you'reusing that gym management

(17:30):
software, let's try to get backto that reason first.
So let's say it's yourbookkeeper.
You call them up and you say,hey, I'm just going through my
expenses here.
How can I get a better return onthe time that we spend together?
Now, this isn't offensive,right?
You're actually giving them theopportunity to sell you on their
service, just like we did withthat goal review earlier.

(17:53):
You're helping them.
So the bookkeeper might say,well, Chris, if you gave me just
all your receipts every month, Icould get your books done a
little bit faster.
Don't worry, I can include thatin the fee.
And then you can do the exactsame thing with your software.
Hey, how can I get a betterreturn on my investment?
Now, this doesn't mean thatyou're going to necessarily save

(18:14):
money.
They might actually tell you,hey, Chris, you're paying for
Zen Planner, you're paying forBeyond the Whiteboard, you're
paying for GLM all separately.
If you put all this togetherinto Kilo, then you would save
about$300 a month.
Boom.
Guess where that$300 goesstraight to me, straight to the
bottom line, right?
This is the beautiful part aboutcombining expenses or getting a

(18:36):
better ROI is it's immediatelyprofitable.
It makes you more profitableright away.
So the first thing we're goingto do is this expense audit.
We're going to try and get abetter ROI.
The second thing that we'regoing to do is we're actually
going to cut some stuff.
We're going to say like, do Ineed that?
Now, look, we've all beenbrought up probably in a
household where you got toscrimp and save and you You want

(18:58):
to bootstrap everything.
You want to pay off debtquickly.
But here's the thing.
This can actually put achokehold on you, right?
It can choke you out.
It can starve you by cutting offyour cashflow.
There was a time back early,like 2007, when I was being as
aggressive as I could paying offmy shareholder loan.
And I was paying my staff likethe top level that I possibly

(19:19):
could.
And also I was letting myclients pay at the end of the
month instead of paying inadvance.
That was crazy.
And I was just running out ofcash, even though my my clients
owed me like$12,000, I wasn'tpaying my bills.
And so I called the bank and Isaid, what can I do here?
And they said, oh, let's justconsolidate a couple of your
loans, stretch the payments outover five years instead of

(19:40):
three, bring down your monthlypayments, protect your cashflow
while you're fixing this otherstuff.
So yes, I refinanced things, butI kept the loans open so that
after I got some breathing roomand got my feet back under me, I
could actually speed up and Ipaid off my loans way faster
than I would have.
But it also saved me mentallybecause I was no longer worried

(20:02):
about like, am I going to beable to pay my staff this week?
I bought that mental bandwidth.
So the second step that you wantto do is actually cut things and
fix your cashflow problem byextending your loan out if you
need to, while you're fixing thebig things.
The third thing that you can dois you can cut some of your
expenses by renting them tosomebody else.
So subleasing your space is theperfect example here.

(20:24):
A lot of people, they get intothis and they rent more space
than they need thinking thatthey're going to grow into it,
right?
Or they buy more equipment thanthey need thinking that like,
this is going to give me acompetitive edge.
It's not.
And you quickly realize thatwhen all of your money comes in
and goes right back out to thelandlord again.
What do you do with that?
Well, you sublease some of yourspace, right?
You audit.

(20:45):
You say like, hey, when I openedup, I thought it would be cool
to have like a coach's hangoutroom, but 400 square feet, you
know, that comes out to like 300bucks a month in rent.
And all I've got is this dirty,smelly room that I can't use?
What if I rented that out to amassage therapist and just
charge them rent?
Like I'm not going to hire themassage therapist and worry

(21:06):
about running their business.
I'm just going to lease thatout.
Or what if I converted thisunused space into personal
training so that I could startselling that personal training
space?
Or what if I took that coach'slocker room that's just trashed
all the time and I turned thatinto a nice sales office?
That's how I can get a betterROI on my expenses.
So the first thing that you dois you do an expense audit You

(21:29):
ask your providers, how can Iget a better ROI on your
product?
Easy.
Most of them will just tell you.
If they get offended, they'reprobably being defensive for a
reason.
You should switch.
Second, what can you cut?
Third, what can you offer tosomebody else or change to get a
better return on yourinvestment?
Okay.
Next, effective hourly rate.

(21:50):
Look, I want you to earn morethan your coaches.
I mean, you took this financialrisk, right?
Everything's on the line foryou.
You're the one that the bank isgoing to come to if you're not
paying your loan.
But here's the thing.
The average owner in a grouptraining gym worldwide is only
making$25 an hour.
That's less than the averagecoach is.

(22:11):
The owner is making less thantheir coach, right?
Top gyms are making about$46 anhour.
That's great.
But let's just break this numberdown here.
If you're making about 25 bucksan hour from your gym as the
owner, you would make more moneygetting a job coaching somewhere
else.
What that means is that you'refocusing too much on low value

(22:33):
roles.
You're focused way too much oncoaching or cleaning or doing
admin, and you're not focusedenough on the CEO roles.
Okay.
So here's how to change that.
First, if you're making lessthan 25 bucks an hour from your
gym, and you just got to do aquick calculation here, count up
the hours you spent in your gymand divide that by how much you

(22:54):
made from your gym last month.
If that works out to less than25 bucks an hour, you got to
make a quick change.
All right.
The first thing that you do isyou make an appointment with the
CEO.
That's you.
So every day you're going toblock one hour off where you
work on something that's goingto grow the gym.
Look, most gym owners are superbusy.

(23:14):
They tell me they don't have anymore time in the day, but when
they make this appointment withthemselves, suddenly they've got
time to do this work.
The real reason that you're notspending an hour a day growing
your gym is probably because youdon't know what to do.
And so you backfill all of yourtime with busy work.
instead of doing what actuallycounts.
We'll actually make you moremoney.
We'll grow your gym.
We'll get you more clients andboost up your effective hourly

(23:35):
rate.
So the first thing you do is youbook this thing that we call the
golden hour, an appointment withthe CEO every day, one hour to
do whatever it takes to growyour business.
You're focused on marketing orsales in that hour.
And that is about it.
I wrote a whole book about thiscalled the golden hour
describing this strategy.
But the number one thing thatour gyms do to grow is they

(23:56):
focus.
They spend one one hour a daygrowing their gym, usually
before they do anything else.
For me, that is, I come downinto my office, I sit down, I
start the timer, and for onehour, I work on marketing.
I don't open my email.
I don't open my social media.
I don't let myself getdistracted.
I do one thing to grow my gymbefore I do anything else.
That is the easiest thing thatyou can do.

(24:17):
It's the simplest anyway.
The second thing that you can doto grow your EHR is to buy back
your time.
So what this probably means isthat if you really are that busy
and you're getting to your gymat 5 a.m.
like I was and staying till 9,9.30 at night like I was, and
you're trying to just cram stuffin the gym, you got to buy back

(24:39):
your time.
So you make it an investmentwhere you can get the most
leverage.
So for me, this was at first,and we're going back to 2009
now, hiring a cleaner.
So the cleaner, his name wasSean.
He would come in at nine atnight.
He would get paid about 14 bucksan hour back then.
And while he was mopping, Iwould do marketing.

(24:59):
I would write an email to mylist about personal training.
I would send an offer out topeople.
Back then it was too early forFacebook.
So most of my marketing wasemail, but I would put something
on the site, click here to buynow.
I would make up my sales binder,that kind of thing, like high
value CEO stuff.
Then I realized, well, this isworking.
I'm paying Sean like 14 bucks anhour.

(25:21):
The marketing is bringing mefour or 500 bucks a week.
Awesome.
I should do this more.
So the next thing I do is I hirethe next biggest point of
leverage, right?
I hired somebody to run the 6amgroup.
And when she came in, I would bein the gym and I would be doing
more marketing or sales orbooking no sweat intros or
making my sales binder, refiningmy pitch.
Even role-playing was making memore money than coaching that

(25:43):
group was.
And so you just climb thisladder from low value roles to
slightly more expensive roles.
Every time you do that, you buyback your time and you give
yourself a promotion and work onhigher value roles that make you
more money.
So the first thing that you cando obviously to improve your EHR

(26:03):
is just spend more time in afocused state.
The second thing that you can dois buy back your time.
The third thing that you can dois actually cut down the amount
of time that you're spending inthe gym.
Look, I know you have to do atwo-hour workout every day.
You have to be there at five.
You have to look over theshoulder of your staff.
You need to spend less timethere.

(26:23):
And that means you need to booksome time off.
You need to systemize everythingthing that you're doing so that
when you're not there, peopleare doing it exactly the way
that you want it done.
You need to evaluate your staffand give them feedback.
There's a lot there, but thereality here is that if your
coaches are making more thanyou, your gym is not going to
survive.
You need to be doing CEO work.

(26:43):
EHR is a big red flag thatsomebody is not doing the work
to grow their gym if they'redoing everything else.
If you're cleaning, you're notgrowing your gym.
If you're coaching, you're notgrowing your gym.
If you are doing the admin workand the bookkeeping, you are not
growing your gym at that moment.
Let a mentor tell you how togrow your gym.
But the reality here is you needto be focused on that metric

(27:06):
because it tells you how you'redoing as a CEO.
If you're making less than 25bucks an hour, you're not
getting a passing grade as a gymowner.
The fifth section here is netowner benefit.
And this is how much you'reactually making from the gym.
Look, none of us got into thegym business to make money.
We got into the gym business tomake a difference.
But what will end your career isstarvation.
If you're not making money, youcan't sustain your gym.

(27:30):
There are thousands, tens ofthousands of failed gym owners
just in CrossFit alone, but alsoin boot camps, in various
franchises.
And they'll tell you that theyquit the industry because they
got burned out or they gotstressed or there's too much
competition or some other BS.
The bottom line is that therewasn't enough money.
If there was more money, theywouldn't have been as stressed.

(27:51):
If there was more money, theywould have hired the help to
take a vacation.
If there was more money, theywouldn't have worried about the
competition, right?
Money is the thing that drivesyou out of business.
And that money is not how muchrevenue your gym is making.
It's how much you take home.
Eventually, you can't just be amartyr for your gym.
Eventually, your wife and kidsare going to look at you and be

(28:12):
like, how are we paying themortgage this month?
Why can't we afford the goodgroceries?
How come I'm going back toschool in the dirty old shoes
that I wore all summer?
The reason that I know this isthose things all happened to me.
And I finally had to get my headright about money and realized
that I wasn't a volunteer.
I wasn't running a nonprofit andI needed to pay my family for

(28:35):
this massive risk that they weretaking with me.
So here's the median.
If you're running a grouptraining gym, a bootcamp, a
CrossFit, a kickboxing groupclass, whatever, right?
The median monthly profit is$4,000.
If you're making less than$4,000a month take home from your gym,
you're not even getting a Cgrade.
Our top gyms are taking homeover$20,000 a month.

(28:58):
Don't worry about them rightnow.
Like that's an A++.
Worry about making more than4,000 a month.
Okay.
So ask yourself though, are youhigher or lower?
Here's how to improve your netowner benefit.
Number one, pay yourself first.
This is the profit firststrategy.
John Briggs wrote an entire bookabout this just for microgyms.
And basically what you want todo is prioritize your own

(29:19):
income.
This is so easy.
All you've got to do in this ageof automation is set yourself a
monthly or a weekly paycheckthat comes out of the business
account and goes into yourpersonal account.
Now, depending on where you livein the world, you might be
paying a different amount oftaxes for commercially or
personally.
But if you're in the States,you're paying less personally in

(29:43):
almost every state in yourpersonal income taxes.
You want to get the money out ofyour business and into your
personal account as much as youcan so that you're not just
giving the difference to thegovernment because that's how
taxation works.
You want to have a tax strategy,but you want to start by paying
yourself first.
Even if you're like in Canada oranother country where the
personal income taxes are higherthan the corporate income taxes,

(30:05):
you want to start making thatdecision to take more out of
your business.
You can reinvest it, but thebusiness has to pay you.
So start with the discipline.
I used to write myself paperchecks for three months in
advance and take them to thebank and deposit them all at
once so that I knew that thatmoney was coming out and I
didn't have to think about it.
If you pay yourself with what'sleft over, there will never be

(30:27):
money to pay yourself.
If you pay yourself first, youwill always find a way to pay
all of your other bills.
Mike Michalowicz has a greatbook on this called Profit
First.
So the first thing you want todo is just automate your pay.
The second thing you want to dois automate your raises.
So if you say, I can pay myself,I can just pay myself 50 bucks a
week right now to start.

(30:47):
Good.
Automate that for the next threemonths.
But then I want you to automatethe following three months, 10
bucks higher, 60 bucks a week.
If you're able to pay yourself athousand a week right now.
Great.
Fantastic.
That puts you just slightlyabove the median.
That's good.
The average gym owner should bemaking about a thousand bucks a
week take home.

(31:08):
If you're making that right now,wonderful.
Schedule that out for the nextmonth.
But the following month, I wantyou to automate the raise.
So you're not just going toautomate the base pay forever.
You're going to automate theraises.
5%, 10% is good.
Keep doing that every quarter.
Automate the raises.
And finally, if you really Ireally want to increase your net

(31:29):
owner benefit, increase yourprofitability, go through the
other steps here, increase yourARM, increase your LEG, increase
your revenue, decrease yourexpenses, work more on growing
the business and less in likedelivery and mopping.
That's how you grow yourprofitability.
And we have a whole stage ofmentorship devoted to just this,
because let's face it, you'rethe crash test dummy in your

(31:51):
business.
Until your business can pay you,it hasn't proven that it can pay
anybody.
You should not be to hiringanybody else full-time until
your business can pay you.
How much should it pay you?
Well, it depends where you live,of course, but you want to set a
perfect day goal.
So in a perfect world, how muchshould the gym be paying you to

(32:12):
cover all of your expenses witha bit left over?
That is your net owner benefittarget.
It's based on your perfect dayexercise.
You'll go through this with yourmentor.
And of course, once you've gotthat target, now your business
has proven that it can paysomebody a full-time meaningful
wage.
And you can start working onhiring somebody else.
A lot of gym owners puteverybody else first.

(32:32):
They underprice because they'reputting the client's budget
first.
They overpay their staff becausethey're putting the staff first.
They're the last one to eat.
And of course, they are thelinchpin.
And then the business fails andeverybody's screwed, okay?
That's how you improve your netowner benefit.
The sixth metric is clients.
And I saved this for lastbecause this one deserves a
deeper dive.
Everybody I talk to thinks thatgetting more clients will solve

(32:55):
all of these other problems.
It won't.
In fact, sometimes getting moreclients makes things worse.
It's like pouring gas into abroken engine.
If you go faster, the enginewill just break faster.
And so I want to devote anentire podcast just to going
through clients, okay?
I'm going to start with thisthough, before I cut over to

(33:15):
that other podcast.
The average number of clients ina coaching gym is 122.5.
The reason that a lot of gyms gobankrupt, and I shared a bunch
of reasons earlier, but thenumber one reason is that they
think they're going to get 200clients, 300 clients.
And based on that assumption,they underprice, they get too

(33:37):
much space, they take a loanthat's too big, they hire too
many staff.
Most gyms, and I mean more than95% of gyms, get less than 150
members.
But if you've got 150 of theright members, you'll charge
them the right rate and they'llpay it.
You'll keep them aroundlong-term.
You'll be able to make a goodincome for yourself and your

(33:58):
family.
You won't be cleaning up.
You won't be like buying extraequipment, renting too much
space.
Your expenses will be in lineand you'll be able to pay
coaches full time.
I want you to understand thatthe average gym is not getting
300 members, no matter how manydiscounts they give, no matter
how low they price, because whenthey bring in the wrong people
to try and get that head countup, those people turn out too

(34:21):
quick.
They underpay.
And then you start losing staffbecause of the crazy turnover.
Okay.
So A C-grade is 122 clients.
In the next podcast, I'm goingto tell you how you can make an
amazing living with 150 clientsin your gym that you really like
by getting the right clients.
And I'm going to also tell youhow to get those clients by

(34:41):
building out four funnels andfiguring out your marketing,
getting a plan for yourmarketing together.
I'm going to solve yourmarketing problem for you on
this podcast.
We're going to be using somemetrics from the Two Brain
Business State of the IndustryGuide so that you can tell
exactly how you're doingcompared to everybody else.
And I'm going to do something Idon't normally do.
I'm going to open up a tool thatwe actually use in Two Brain to

(35:03):
help people audit theirmarketing funnels.
I'm going to show that on myscreen.
Is it not something that we giveaway?
I know you're used to me givingaway just tons and tons of
helpful worksheets and tools ingymownersunited.com.
And while those things arehelpful, they're not the same as
what we use in Two Brain.
In Two Brain, we go deeper, wego more specific.

(35:24):
We work one-on-one with a mentorand you to help you determine
and what's going to actuallywork in your gym.
Two Brain is not just a programthat you check boxes and follow,
and it's the same for everybody.
Two Brain is a mentorshipprogram.
And so we help you apply theseto your gym, keeping your gym
unique and not feeling like afranchise.
Today, we're talking aboutmarketing.
In the last episode of thepodcast, I talked about the

(35:47):
other metrics in your businessand the easiest ways to fix
those.
But today, we're going to talkabout getting more leads.
We're We're going to talk aboutgetting those leads to actually
buy.
Okay.
Now we're going to start thiswith a frame.
We want to start with data.
We want to start from truth.
The average number of membersthat a coaching gym has is 122.5

(36:10):
clients.
If you have our state of theindustry guide from last year,
you can look on page 15 andyou'll see how that actually
breaks down.
This is really, really importantbecause while there are gurus
out there and marketing agenciestelling you that you need to get
30 more clients or 50 more leadsor 300 members in your gym,
those don't actually bear out.

(36:31):
It's not the truth.
And that's not the strategy.
In fact, if you start chasingthat bone, you'll be chasing
your tail in circles forever.
And you'll be chasing the wrongmetric because you'll do
anything to get those 300members in, including
underpricing, includingdiscounts, including
over-promising andunder-delivering.
Worse, you might actually cutyour own throat by renting too

(36:54):
much space, buying too muchequipment, over-hiring staff,
running too many classes.
Start from the assumption thatyou're going to have 120 to 150
really good members paying youthe right rate, staying at least
two years, and you will build asolid foundation on that.
Okay?
So let's audit your funnels fromtop to bottom.
First, we want to talk aboutwhat marketing funnels are.

(37:16):
Marketing funnels are the pathfrom where somebody notices your
business, your brand, or theyfind you, to inquiring, becoming
interested, having aconversation with you, to
showing up, to talking to youabout it to actually signing up.
That's what a funnel looks like.
And there are more people uphere than at the bottom because
at different stages of yourfunnel, you lose people.

(37:36):
And that's what we're going totry to help you prevent as much
as we possibly can.
So as promised, this is a sheetthat we use inside 2Brain called
the Fix Your Funnel Worksheet.
And this is something that amentor will go through with you
one-on-one when you're in ourmentorship program.
So if you get lost here at anypoint, or you're not really sure
what I'm talking about, or whatis content, Coop, don't worry
about it.
Your mentor is going to workwith you one-on-one through this

(37:59):
when you're inside the Two BrainProgram.
We build four funnels.
And by the way, the reason thatwe break these down into four
separate things is because theway that you solve any problem
in your business is by breakingit down into smaller and smaller
and smaller problems.
As problems get smaller, theyget solvable.
Small problems are solvable.
Big problems, like I just needmore clients, are not solvable.

(38:20):
They're complicated, they'recomplex, and they're not
actionable.
You can't do them.
When I break these down, That'sthe first step to solving them
or making them better.
You'll see what I mean as we gothrough this.
So first, do you have a referralfunnel?
Meaning, are you just passivelywaiting?
Like, I hope somebody brings intheir partner.
Or are you passively sayinglike, well, if I just make a

(38:43):
great program, people will bringtheir friends.
No, they won't.
I'm going to tell you right now,a referral funnel is just as
important, maybe more importantthan any of the other funnels
I'm going to talk about, but youcan't be passive.
You have to be asking forreferrals.
You have to be helping yourclients bring their friends in.
Your clients are not marketers.
No matter how much they loveyou, they are not going to wear

(39:05):
a sign up and down the streetand wave it around and come into
this gym.
It's great.
If they're asked about your gym,they might say, oh, I love it.
It's so great.
But they're not going to make anappointment with their best
friend and bring them in the gymwith them.
You have to do that.
You have to do the marketingwith them instead of waiting for
them to do the marketing foryou.
So do you have a referral funnellike that?

(39:27):
If you don't, don't tick thisbox.
We're going to build one in aminute.
Content funnel.
Do you have a content funnel?
Meaning, are you producinghelpful things?
Look, in the age where GPT isnow taking over search, this is
more important than ever becausethe robot is not going to be
searching every possible articleon the internet or following the
same SEO play that you used whenGoogle search was like the key.

(39:51):
Especially now you have to havemedia.
You have to have content.
You have to have YouTube videosor at least a blog or maybe a
podcast.
Are you doing that?
And does that podcast leadsomewhere?
Are you just publishing apodcast every week and hoping it
starts discussions?
Or does your podcast actuallypoint you somewhere?
I'm going to share right now.

(40:11):
Here's my content funnel.
I'm giving you this video.
It's valuable.
If you do what I tell you, youwill make money.
And then I want you to go togymownersunited.com.
That is our free group.
There are 11,000 gym owners inthat group.
You will get more value by goingto that group and you can chat
with us about it.
In that group, I'm going to giveyou more tools like this one

(40:31):
that you see here, Fix YourFunnel, for free.
I'm going to start a chat withyou.
I'm going to ask you how the gymis going.
If I think that I can help you,I'm going to invite you to a
call with my team to talk aboutmentorship and coaching.
You should be doing that exactsame thing in your community.
Why?
Because sales is the first actof coaching.

(40:51):
You cannot wait for people tojust come into your gym.
You have to give them someuseful information.
You have to give them freeknowledge and sell a coaching
program at the end of that.
Because honestly, everybodyneeds coaching.
You need coaching in yourbusiness.
I need coaching in my fitness.
I also have business coaches.
I have fitness coaches.
I have nutrition coaches.
You and I know this.

(41:12):
Coaching is the shortcut to abetter, healthier life.
It speeds up the process.
It gets us through the pain withless pain.
It cuts through the clutter andgets us the result that we want,
right?
You sell coaching.
I sell coaching.
We need to start with content.
And I've been telling peoplethis since the dawn of time.
CrossFit was a content company.
If you're a CrossFit gym, youneed to be making content.

(41:34):
If you're not a CrossFit gym,you have an enormous opportunity
because nobody else is makingcontent in your town.
The bots are out there lookingfor content.
Your clients are out there usingChatGPT and different bots to
find you.
If you are publishing contentright now, you will have a
massive headstart over everybodyelse.
Are you doing that?
Yes or no?
Check it off the list.

(41:55):
Third, social media funnel.
A lot of people post to socialmedia sporadically and the
funnel doesn't lead anywhere.
Your social media funnel shouldpull people off of social media
and into your waiting arms.
So what you need to be doing,and I'll go through this point
by point, don't worry.
Your social media funnel has topull people somewhere.
It has to get them fromInstagram, from TikTok, from

(42:16):
Facebook, from LinkedIn,wherever you're posting and get
them onto your website.
And then your website has to getthem from your website into your
chair, butts in seats.
And then your chair has to getthem into your gym.
Is your funnel doing that?
Or are you just posting randomstuff?
Are you posting at all?
Are you posting 10 times a week?
If you're not, you don't havemuch of a social media funnel.

(42:37):
Do you have a call to action atleast on every third post?
If you don't, you don't have asocial media funnel.
You have a social mediapresence.
You have a platform, but it'snot pulling you anywhere.
Think about the number oneinfluencer you follow, right?
What is Taylor Swift doingposting about, hey, your gym
teacher and your English teacherare getting married.
She's pulling you somewhere.
She's pulling you to buy thenext album.

(42:58):
She's pulling you to buy thenext concert, the next thing
that she's selling eventually,right?
But she's not just being passiveabout that.
You can't afford to be passiveand you can't afford to wait
until you have millions of fanslike Taylor Swift does.
And finally, the paid adsfunnel.
Are you actually paying theseplatforms to get in front of
their clients?
When a platform is new, theywant content, but eventually

(43:19):
they want advertising dollarsand your clients are the product
of that platform.
The platform, Facebook, TikTok,Instagram, whoever, is putting
all your potential clients inone spot and then saying, okay,
if you give me money, I'll letyou talk to them.
Sounds like a good deal to me.

(43:39):
The reason that most peoplearen't using paid ads
effectively is that they'rescared of it.
They're like, oh no,$5 a day, Imight waste this if I'm bad at
it.
And it's true.
But the reality is that all ofthe other gyms on your block are
saying the exact same thing.
The reason that some gyms getenormous value from Facebook ads
is not because of the algorithm.
It's not because of where theylive.

(44:00):
It's not something random.
It's because they're good at it,right?
The reason that some people getmore results from their workouts
than other people is becausethey're better at it.
It's not the magic of theworkout, really.
It's not the programming.
It's their execution.
And so we want you to be good atthe paid ads funnel.
I run my ads at a budget of likethree bucks a day.
And that's more than enough forme because my ads are good.

(44:23):
I've learned how to do thatthrough mentorship.
Then I just gave it to somebodyelse to run after I was good at
it.
And now that's all I have to do.
Paid ads don't require millionsand millions of dollars.
They require you to be good atthem.
Are you running paid ads?
Yes or no?
If you're not, hey, that's okay.
We're going to build that outnext.
Now, what I hope here is that Ihaven't made you feel bad or

(44:45):
overwhelmed or stressed out orlike, oh, I'm not doing any of
this.
All I want to do is make youunderstand that marketing is not
a passive pursuit.
If you own a business, whetherthat's a gym or something else,
you need to be good atmarketing.
If you own a gym business, youare in one of the hardest
businesses there is.
The port-a-potty business iseasier than the gym business.

(45:05):
It's not as fun, not as good,but it's easier.
And if you want to be successfulin the gym business, you have to
be good at marketing.
So let's talk about how are yourfunnels working?
So let's say that you just heardwhat I said.
Okay.
Yeah.
I've got four funnels, Coop.
We're good.
We're good.
Check, check, check.
Let's go and move on.
Now let's audit those funnels.
How well are they working?

(45:26):
So first off, are you measuringyour set rate?
Like how many people are bookingappointments with you?
Then you want to measure theshow rate.
How many of those people willactually show up?
You and I, when we make anappointment, we show up, right?
Or we feel horrible if we don't,we call in advance.
That's not everybody, notanymore.
And the fastest growing segmentin micro gyms is the under 21s.

(45:48):
I hate to say it, they're themost likely to ghost you.
Are you measuring your showrate?
Because if you measure it, thereare ways to improve it, but we
need to know where you'restarting from.
And third, hey, are youmeasuring your close rate?
How many people actually showup, right?
So what we want to see here isjust like in the last podcast,
are you getting an A, a B, a C,or an F at your marketing?

(46:10):
So look, if you're measuringyour set rate and 62% of people
who go to your website arebooking an appointment, amazing.
That's an A.
If 30% of the people who hityour website are booking an
appointment, okay, that's a C.
And if less than 30% are bookingan appointment, that's a fail.

(46:31):
If you don't know how to tellthis, it's an automatic fail.
If your website won't give youthese numbers clearly, it's a
fail.
You need to fix your website.
Your website has one job.
It's not to project your art.
It's not to show you off or tellyour coaches bios.
It's to get butts in seats.
It's to get people from yourother funnels into a no sweat

(46:52):
intro, period.
It's to get people who land onyour website to book a no sweat
intro.
That's its sole job.
It's got one job and that is it.
From there, how many peopleactually show up?
If 80% of the people who book anappointment in this day and age,
that's good.
That's an A.
If two-thirds to 80% show up,okay, that's a C.

(47:13):
You're average.
If less than 66% of the peoplewho book a no sweat intro
actually show up, that's a fail.
You need to work on leadnurture.
That's what lead nurture is.
It's getting butts to actuallysit in the seats.
And finally, your close rate.
If you're closing at 80% orhigher, that's an A.
Congratulations, right?
If you're like, I'm at 100%close rate, I guarantee you,

(47:35):
you're not doing enoughmarketing.
But 80% is great.
Some of the leads are going tobe cold, right?
Don't let that scare you.
If you're like, well, I want tomaintain my 100% close rate, so
I'm only going to work withreferrals.
You need to be doing more stuff.
There's a balance here.
If 66% to 80% of the people whoshow up actually buy, that's a

(47:55):
C.
You need to be working on yoursales.
Sales is the first act ofcoaching.
You don't need to feel slimy.
You're not tricking people.
It's not bait and switch, butyou need to get better at it.
And if less than two thirds ofthe people who come in and sit
down are not signing up, or ifless than two thirds are signing
up, you need to fix yourclosing, right?
Probably what's happening isthis.
You're scared of selling.

(48:16):
You don't want to feel slimy.
You don't want to feel bad.
You don't want to ask people formoney.
And so you're hiding by offeringa free trial and people come in
and they wash out, or you justlet people People come in and
you give them a free personaltraining and you think that's
going to convince them andthey're going to throw their
credit card at you and that'sit.
No, that's not good enough.
Sales is the first act ofcoaching.
You are coaching them to committo themselves.

(48:38):
That's what sales is and youneed to get better at it.
Okay.
Next, here's how you fix yourlease.
All right.
Here's the good part, right?
Here's the important stuff.
Here's the reason that you camehere.
Now you're going to see a linkin here where people can open up
their two brand dashboard.
We track all of this and I'vegot some samples from two brand
clients in here.
So just as a reminder, likeyou're going to get a lot of
leads.

(48:59):
Some of those leads are going tobook an appointment.
Some of those appointments aregoing to show up and some of
those are going to close.
What you can do here is you cansay, you can identify your weak
link.
So in this case, if this gym haslike 10 people booking their set
rate here, okay.
And only three showing up,that's their weakest link.
You can also look at this on agraph.

(49:19):
So I'm looking at this as green,yellow, red.
I look at this as a mentor intwo brain.
I look at this gym February,their set rate was a yellow.
Okay.
Their show rate was 100%.
Their lead nurture is superduper good.
And their close rate was ayellow also.
Two opportunities.
Number one, close the leads thatyou get.
Number two, get more leads tobook appointments.

(49:41):
Because this gym is good at showrate.
Once somebody books anappointment, they're going to
show up.
They might not sign up, butthey're going to get that gym to
show up.
That's awesome.
If you look back in Decemberhere, you'll see it's red.
They weren't booking enoughappointments.
And honestly, they're notclosing very well.
So the biggest opportunity hereis obvious, like get better at
sales.

(50:02):
When you break a problem downlike this and you track your
metrics, this is how specificyou can be.
We can fix your marketingproblem like that.
I know exactly what you need todo instead of guessing or
pulling like 50 differentoptions out of the air or just
thinking like, I need to do moreon social media.
This is how mentorship works.
You take a big, complicatedproblem, like I need more
clients.
You break it down and break itdown and break it down until,

(50:24):
aha, there's the problem.
Let's fix it.
Just like you do with fitnessfor your clients.
Okay.
Next up.
Here we go.
Here's what you can do.
All right.
I promised you answers.
Look, if you need moreappointments, people are going
to your website, but they'rejust not booking appointments.

(50:45):
You can improve your speed tocontact.
So they fill out a form on yourwebsite, call them right away.
Most gyms take almost 24 hoursto call somebody back.
If they call somebody back,that's crazy.
That's somebody asking you forhelp.
They're in the water, they'redrowning, they're waving their
hands, help me, help me.
And you're like, I'll help youlater.
That's not going to work.
Like you need to be fast.

(51:07):
Early on when I was sellingtreadmills and we're talking
like 1998, 1999, my boss said,Chris, imagine every phone call
is worth$10,000.
And guess what?
If you're selling somebody a$200a month membership and they stay
for two years, every phone call,every time that phone rings,
it's worth$2,400 to you.
Why aren't you answering?
answering that$2,400 phone call.

(51:29):
The next thing you can do isimprove the call to action on
your website.
If people are going on yourwebsite, but they're not booking
a sales appointment with you,your website sucks.
Fix it.
Call Kilo.
They'll get things sorted foryou using data-proven websites.
Website is not about art.
It has one job, and that's toget appointments booked, period.
Next, increase your outreachvalue.
That means do more top of funnelstuff, publish more content, put

(51:53):
more on social media more often,ask for more referrals.
run more ads, okay?
And call your leads faster.
You find out anybody has filledout a form, you call them
faster.
That's speed to contact in onesense, but it could also be just
like instant replay.
If you're using a CRM like Kilo,like GLM, for example, you can

(52:15):
set up an automation.
So even if you're not availableto call them right now, even if
you're super shy, like you're anintrovert like me, you can at
least send them an automatedtext and get that conversation
started and then jump in whenyou feel comfortable.
If you need to improve your showrate, so people are booking a
trial, they're booking a salesappointment with you, they're
booking an also an intro, butthey're not showing up, you need
to improve lead nurture.

(52:36):
So here's what you can do.
Send personal messages throughvideo or text.
So I said you can do thisautomatically, but you shouldn't
rely on that.
If your automated texts are notgetting people's butts in seats,
send them a personal video.
Hey, it's Coop, thought I waschecking it.
Audio is also fine.
If you don't have a good hairday, if you're in a place where
you can't send a video, sendthem a audio file.

(52:57):
Then they know it's really youand it's not a bot.
This is just going to get moreand more important in the age of
AI.
Build rapport, text back andforth with them, chat with them.
Once the appointment is set, itdoesn't mean it's locked.
It doesn't mean they're going tobe shown up.
You got to think of like you'resending out the tractor beam
like in Star Wars.
You need to have thatconversation and walk them into

(53:17):
your gym.
Remember, the first act ofcoaching is convincing them to
commit to themselves and signup.
The second they make contactwith you, the coaching's starts
and you got to coach them tocome in, then you'll coach them
to sign up and make thatcommitment.
You can create some scarcity orurgency.
So you can send them a text.
Hey, look, I got a full dayhere.
I'm really excited to talk withyou, but if you're not going to

(53:38):
be able to show up, please letme know in advance because other
people want that spot.
You can say that, okay?
You can set up an automatedreminder sequence.
This is kind of your safety net.
If you don't have time to textthem yourself, send them a video
text.
This automated sequence isbetter than nothing.
And finally, the last big thing,don't let people book an
appointment two weeks from now.

(53:58):
Something else will come up.
They'll find a reason not toshow up.
Get them in tomorrow.
Get them in tonight.
Even if you have to do a videono sweat intro or something,
that's better than having themwait two weeks.
An in-person NSI is the best,but if they have to wait longer
than 72 hours to do that and youcan get them on a video call, do
your sales approach that way.

(54:20):
Fast is the best.
NSI in-person is the best, butif the only way that you can get
them in in the next couple ofdays is to do it on video, you
can do that.
If they have to wait till nextweek, I'll be in town next
month.
No, get it done right now.
And if you need to improve yourclose rate, again, most of this
is mindset.
The reason that people aren'tjoining your gym, if they're

(54:41):
coming in and they're sitting inyour chair, they expect to sign
up.
You are the barrier, right?
Another Taylor Swift joke islike, hi, it's me.
I'm the problem.
It's me.
You're the reason they're notsigning up.
If they come into your chair,it's not because of price.
It's not not because they haveto talk to their spouse.
They've already talked to theirspouse.
Their spouse knows where theyare.
They're not there in secret.

(55:03):
If they give you thoseobjections, you are the
obstacle.
Something you've said or donehas stopped them from signing
up.
So here's some tips.
Number one, pre-frame theirproblem before the appointment.
Hey, super pumped to chat withyou.
What's the number one reasonyou're thinking about joining my
gym?
Ask them that.
Send them that text.
I just want to be prepared sothat I know whether we can help

(55:24):
you before this appointment.
I also want to bring some thingsto the appointment that I think
might help so that we can getoff on the right foot, that kind
of thing.
Second, pre-qualify your leads.
Look, in the beginning, if youdon't have as many clients as
you need, don't put your priceson your website.
Not that you're hidingsomething, but you want to get
the person in front of you sothat you got the best chance of

(55:44):
committing them.
But you also need reps, you needpractice, you need confidence,
right?
And so you want to get them intoyour gym.
If you've got as many clients asyou need and your gym's doing
well, by all means, put yourprices on your web I do because
it's like, hey, if price isgoing to be an obstacle here,
let's just get that out of theway first.
Now, I've got a lot of gymowners who come to me and say,

(56:06):
people aren't signing up.
I've got the prices on mywebsite.
I don't want to talk to themunless they're ready to commit.
Nobody's ready to commit untilyou talk to them.
So until you have as manyclients as you want, don't put
your prices on your website.
Build rapport, right?
Have a conversation.
I mean, one of my stories that Itell all the time This guy came

(56:26):
in, his name was Jim.
He signed up himself.
He signed up his spouse on thespot and he eventually signed up
both of his kids.
They stayed for over four yearsas a family.
They paid just between seven and800 bucks a month between all
four of them.
No discounts for family.
Kids were in the kids program.
The adults were in our grouptraining program and Jim was
doing personal training on topof that.

(56:48):
How did you sell that guy?
How did you find this guy?
The guy was not a high earningperson.
He was a conservation officer.
And how did I sell?
I had a conversation with him.
I was like, Jim, when you're ona stakeout for illegal moose
hunting, what do you do?
And he's like, I read fiction.
And I'm like, amazing.
Who's your top three fictionauthors?

(57:08):
And he named some.
I wrote them down.
I'm like, hey, man, I read a lotof fiction too.
Have you ever read Ken Follett?
Have you ever read James LeeBurr?
No and no.
Dude, I'm going to ship you someof these books right now.
I opened up Amazon right infront of him and shipped him
books.
And then I said, okay, well,hey, man, back to fitness.
I know we've only got a half anhour here.
Here's what I think you shoulddo.

(57:29):
He said, sign me up.
This was great.
I was worried it was going to bea sales pitch.
That's the kind of rapport thatyou can establish with
confidence only after you'vedone this a lot of times and
you've built up the confidence.
And honestly, you don't need themoney, right?
If you do need the money, youneed reps.
You need practice to get to theconfidence.

(57:50):
Clarify their problem.
Hey, here's the thing you'retrying to solve.
Don't try to sell them onCrossFit.
Don't try to sell them onkettlebells or bootcamp or
technique or your class scheduleor who else is there or your
culture or your community, sellthem on solving their problem.
That's all they care about.
All those other things arethings that they will appreciate
later, but not upfront.
Nobody is Googling, you know,Jim with greatest culture and

(58:12):
best community near me.
No, they're Googling, how do Ilose weight?
They're Googling, how do I solvethis stiffness?
They're Googling, like, how do Iget fit when I'm on the road on
stakeouts five days a week?
That's what they're looking for.
And once they're in your chair,clarify their problem and tell
them how you're going to solveit.
Clearly tell them how you'llhelp.
Hey, look, here's how this isgoing to work.

(58:32):
If you really want to lose 30pounds, you're going to need a
couple of things.
You're going to need a nutritionplan.
You're going to need consistentworkouts.
And let's face it, you're goingto need me to check in with you
probably six days a week.
You're also going to need to beable to text me.
That is our top tier program.
And explain that to them.
Create conviction and then askthem to sign up.
Be clear.

(58:53):
Look, you're not there to wastetheir time.
You're not there to waste yourtime.
Nobody likes it when you'rebouncing around, dancing around,
beating around the bush.
Stop wasting their time.
Get to the point.
Hey, would you like to start onFriday?
I've got an opening.
That's it, right?
Now, if you're the kind thatcould never ask the girl to the
dance, okay, you need some reps.

(59:14):
You can practice on your dog, onyour spouse.
We've got GPTs that you canpractice on in Two Brain.
You can practice with yourmentor.
You can come to our office hoursand you can role play this with
a sales coach.
You can practice this with othergym owners, with your peers.
Do that.
Get good before you practice ona live client because if they
leave, there's$2,400 walking outthe door.
All right.
Now, get more leads into yourfunnel.

(59:36):
Once you're good at sales, onceyou're good at lead nurture,
once you're good at convertingpeople from your website into
booking appointments, let's go.
Let's add rocket fuel to thefire.
Let's get more leads in.
Here's what you can do.
If you want to jack up yourreferral funnel, you want to get
more leads, you can book moregoal reviews because that's
where you ask people for areferral.
You don't just say, Do you knowanybody who might like my gym?

(59:57):
You get to know the client andyou say, what will it take to
get your husband gym in here?
How can we bring your spouse,Linda, into the gym?
Do you think that your coworkerwould like this?
Okay.
You be specific.
Then you do the marketing withthem.
Hey, let's call Linda right nowand invite her in.
Let's book an appointment.
Let's bring Jeff in.
Okay.
Hey, let's book a time when Ican come in and talk to your

(01:00:19):
staff about posture whilethey're sitting at their desk.
Okay.
You can run a quarterly bring afriend event.
Okay.
This is really, really simple.
But if you just want to bring afriend event, bring your friend
for free every Saturday, theywon't do it.
It will lose its impact.
You can do a bring a friendevent.
We teach you how to set this upproperly in Two Brain so that
you're actually getting an SIsfrom it instead of just running

(01:00:40):
groups for free for nothing.
You can take coffee to yourneighbors.
You can start building up thatsticky referral web in your
neighborhood and you can bookworkplace seminars.
We teach you how to do thisstuff in Two Brain.
If you want to get more leadsfrom your content funnel, you
can create a task list to keepyou on track.
Okay.
You can give people valuablethings.
You can publish better content,right?

(01:01:00):
If you're just like ranting intoan iPhone once a week, that's
better than nothing, but it'sprobably not enough to get a lot
of leads.
You can diversify yourplatforms, publish on YouTube,
take the audio, put that on yourpodcast, take the transcript,
publish it on your blog.
Do not try to do this on dayone.
But if you've already got one ofthose things working, you can
duplicate it into other realmsand then build a container.

(01:01:21):
Look, people are not listeningto your podcast and then booking
a call or buying from from yourwebsite.
They need to get on your emaillist.
They need to have aconversation.
They need to get in your freepublic Facebook group.
Whatever that container is, youneed to go from a monologue to a
dialogue to a sales pitch.
Your social funnel.
Hey, look, when you get onsocial media, make your post and

(01:01:42):
get off social media in and outquickly.
Post more often.
Reels are the best, but if youcan't do reels, I suck at reels,
do pictures.
If you use text a lot.
Make sure that every fourth posthas a call to action.
So a jab is like, look at thisinteresting thing.
Look at this post.

(01:02:04):
Look at this milestone.
Join my gym.
Jab, jab, jab, right hook.
Call to action on every fourthpost at minimum.
And finally, do a monthly 5130post.
Ask, hey, I'm looking for fivepeople who have this one goal in
common and want to work on thatfor the next 30 days with me.
That's a 5130 post.
Make that every month.
If you need to do a paid adsfunnel, you can get more leads

(01:02:24):
by refreshing your creative.
Look at what all yourcompetitors are doing and copy
them.
There's no harm in this.
You're not an artist, right?
Steal.
Use your mentor and two brain tohelp you refresh your creative.
Test an alternate offer.
You should be running threethings at once.
Here's how this works.
You run three ads at once, okay?

(01:02:44):
This is a science experiment.
It's not art.
You run them for 30 days.
Let the algorithm do its thing.
After 30 days, you pick the onethat's doing the best and you
throw the other two in thegarbage.
You just Just keep running thatone ad.
Now look, you know, metaplatforms, especially has an AI
that just does this for you now.
All you got to do is get set up.
We actually set up your initialads in Facebook and Instagram

(01:03:07):
for you in Tubrate.
You don't even have to likelearn it and apply it anymore.
Like we used to do five yearsago.
Now we actually set them up foryou.
We set up the AI in meta andmeta just keeps making it better
and better based on whoresponds.
Like ads have never been easierthan they are right now.
They've never been moreeffective and we can get this
all set up for you.
for you.
All right.
Look, I'm going to give you alittle challenge before I sign

(01:03:29):
off.
I want you to pick one funnel,one level in one funnel, book an
appointment with yourself, blockoff one hour tomorrow to improve
that one thing, ask for morereferrals, book more goal
reviews, whatever that is.
Okay.
Then on the next day, you'regoing to do the next thing.
The next day, you're going to dothe next thing.
Okay.
So here's level one.

(01:03:50):
If you're completely lost withmarketing, you're not getting
enough clients and this podcastjust confused you, I want you to
do this.
Every month, ask for fivereferrals.
Every month, post five bigpieces of content.
Every week, post five pieces onsocial media, and every day,
spend$5 on paid ads.
That's level one.
That's enough to get you to a Cgrade in marketing.

(01:04:11):
Level two, every month, ask for10 referrals.
Every month, post 10 big piecesof content, blog, podcast,
YouTube.
Every week, post 10 pieces ofsocial media content, and every
day, spend$10 on paid ads.
Level three, every month, askfor 15 or And so next time I
talk to you on Facebook orthrough an email, and I say,

(01:04:44):
how's your gym going?
You should be able to say, well,I'm doing great.
well, it's not as good as Ilike, here's what I'm working
on.
Or Coop, it's not as good as Ilike, what should I do?
And I should be able to give yousomething like this and say, do
exactly this because that's whata mentor does.

(01:05:05):
When you're in our mentorshipprogram, you're on a call
one-on-one with a mentor who'sworking on your gym, not just
following the recipe for everygym, working on your gym and
telling you here is exactly whatyou need to do.
You'll spend a lot of your callgoing from a big complicated
problem down to here is afixable thing that you can do
Here's the step you need to takeright now.

(01:05:28):
Here's the tool you need to do.
You can do it.
Call me tomorrow.
You can do it.
Call me next week.
Tell me when it's done and we'lldo the next thing.
Brick by brick, you can build amarketing machine for yourself,
but you've got to start fromtruth and you've got to break
the problem down into actionablesteps.
I'm Chris Cooper.
This is what I do for a living.
I take big, complicated problemsand I break them down into

(01:05:49):
steps.
Good mentors do that.
If you're in a group coachingprogram, you're probably not
doing that or you're probablyleft to try and figure it out
for yourself.
The first few times you do this,you need the help of a mentor.
You can book a call with my teambelow and we'll see if we can
get you set up in our program.