January 9, 2025 • 24 mins
The Intramural Open is a key retention tactic at Brian Foley’s gym, Activate in Ireland.
In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Brian shares how the event makes his clients three times more likely to stay another year, driving significant indirect revenue.
The Open also directly boosts his gym’s revenue in late winter through pre-competition skill work and retail sales.
Brian breaks down strategies for creating an unforgettable event that builds community without burning out your staff—such as celebrating members throughout the Intramural Open and delegating responsibilities among coaches and team captains.
His top tips for a successful Intramural Open? Make it fun and inclusive and follow the steps in Chris Cooper’s 2025 Intramural Open guide.
The guide lays out exactly how to run the event, generate revenue and improve retention. New for 2025: Coop's even programmed workouts so you can plan way ahead.
Get your free copy via the link below.
Links
Intramural Open Guide
Gym Owners United
Book a Call
02:03 - The Intramural Open and revenue
07:24 - Goal-setting sessions
09:24 - Leaving an impression
15:02 - Avoiding stress
17:18 - Top tips for a successful Intramural Open
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
The intramural Open is a two brain business
original. Chris Cooper's beendoing this event at his gym
since the early 2010s, and wepublish a guide about it. Every
single year is, without adoubt, the best way to make
competition fun. At your gym,there are three goals. You want
to give your clients a party.
You wanna show them thatthey're winning, and you want
to ensure that they're fired upto keep training with you long
(00:22):
term . The goal is not to findthe fittest person in the
universe. It's to ensure yourclients smile and you wanna
generate some revenue while youdo it because you're running a
business. If you use our 2025guide to run this event in late
February or early March, youcan approve retention and
generate revenue for yourbusiness. Chris Cooper's ebook
on the 2025 intramural Open isout. Now you can get it by
(00:42):
sending him a dm. You gotta goto gym owners united.com .
Look, coop up . He's all overthe place there with placed
with pinned posts. Send him adm, gym owners united.com, the
short version of the intramuralOpen. You divide your gym up
into teams. You run a funmulti-week competition. The
emphasis is on fun and smiles.
Now you can sync this up with aCrossFit open or not. It's your
choice if you're not a CrossFitgym, no problem. Coops made it
(01:05):
even easier this year to runthe event because he's
programmed workouts for you forthe very first time. You don't
have to wait for eventannouncements or worry about
gear. You just have the eventsyou can plant around them right
now. So get that book today. AnA plus gym owner is gonna tell
us how he runs the intramuralopen at his gym, and give us
some tips for success. He'sgonna talk about revenue
retention , so stick around.
(01:26):
This is rather profitable. Jim, I'm Mike Warden . Hit
subscribe. You do not wannamiss more episodes like this.
In the new year of 2025, BrianFoley runs Activate in Ireland.
I had the pleasure of hangingout with him in Columbus, Ohio
a couple months ago and hangingin person. He's a great guy and
he crushes the intramural openevery year. So we're gonna talk
about how you listener can dothe exact same thing. Brian ,
it's Irish afternoon. CanadianMorning. How are you ?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
I'm great, Mike. How are you?
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I'm great too. We were just talking about how,
you know, later on today, andthen we're gonna taste some
fine Irish whiskey to celebratethe season, but first we're
gonna make revenue and re forgym owners, and then we're
going to boost their retention.
So Brian, I'm bringing it inright off the top. How do you
get revenue into your businessthrough the internal open? What
do you do?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Absolutely. So we don't charge for the opens, but
we do gain revenue indirectlyfrom the opens. So from the
very get go in 2017 when wepicked up this intramural
guide, we were like, okay, howare we gonna weigh this up and
figure out how we do it? Whatwe do is between six and eight
weeks prior to the opens. Soaround this time of year we
(02:27):
launch gymnastics , uh,programs and Olympic
weightlifting programs becausetypically they are the two
things that people willstruggle with most running up
to the CrossFit open. Um, soyeah, we've always got a big
boost from signups for thoseprograms prior to the open.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Okay . And I'm just gonna , as Brian chats a little
bit about some of the stuff I'mgonna share some screen grabs
from , uh, the , uh, intramuralopen guide. Again , you can DM
Chris Cooper to get this thingoff . If you go on Facebook,
this is one thing you can do.
So before the open skill work ,we all know if you're doing,
like, if you're in a CrossFitgym, for example, everyone
needs kipping handstand orkipping handstand pushups,
muscle ups , pull-ups, allsorts of gymnastics stuff. The
snatch clean and jerk overheadsquat, all that stuff always
(03:07):
shows up, you know that peoplewanna work on it. These are
also areas of passion for a tonof people. Gymnastics and
Olympic weightlifting stuff isgood anytime of year, but
especially when people have anemotional attachment to it
before a competition. So Brianwill charge in advance for
that. Do you have any details?
Like what is your basicstructure for that? Is it like,
you know, 10 people, 250 bucksfor a six weeks, or what do you
do there?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Exactly. So typically 10 to 12 people , uh,
in and around that 200 bucksfor that period of time. Coach
makes some good revenue fromit, coach makes some good
income from it, and thebusiness makes some some income
from it as well. And wetypically use the goal setting,
so our member check-ins andgoal setting sessions as as the
guiding , uh, light for that.
(03:47):
So if a lot of people arestruggling with one particular
movement, we will emphasizethat as part of the program. So
if it's a handstand pushup, forexample , um, we will look at a
six week block of handstandhandstand work and we, we
typically use what our membersare telling us to, you know,
bring them what they wantessentially. And
Speaker 1 (04:06):
That's wise anytime of the year, right? Like you're
just having these goal reviewsessions with your clients and
if seven of them say, Hey, I Ireally wanna get better at
running, or I'm gonna do this5K run that's coming up in my
area. You're like, I should runa running prep group, right?
And you just tack on someadditional revenue through a
specialty program. That's goodpolicy at any time of the year.
It's even better right now whenyou tying this to an event,
which is a really, really bigdeal. Now, Brian, you said you
(04:28):
don't charge. We have gyms thatdo charge, and so obviously if
people do the CrossFit open,they're gonna pay a
registration fee that goes toCrossFitting, not to your gym,
but we recommend that gymscharge a fee if they run this
thing. And here's why. This isnot membership. This is an
additional thing that you cando to, and it it's a lot of
work. Like we found ways tostreamline this over the years,
but I remember when I firststarted doing the open, I think
(04:49):
I put in like 60 or 80 hours,and I think that year was like
six weeks or something likethat. And we were destroyed.
Like by the end of it, we weredone. Eventually the openness
changed and uh , uh, you know,it's evolved a little bit and
it's a little bit lessstressful and so forth. But
still, if you're gonna put onthis, you know, four week ,
month long party for your ,that , for your members and
you're gonna score at ad value,you can charge like 40, 30,
(05:10):
$50. You don't have to, but itis a way to recoup some of the
costs. We have some gyms thatdo this. We have some gyms that
don't do this. It depends onyou. The thing that I'll tell
you is that it's in the guide.
Don't charge more than 50bucks. People start to get a
little eh , about that becausethey don't want , then it's
like, especially, you know , abad one to say charging 50
bucks and then tacking on at-shirt and saying it's 70
bucks. Charge a maximum 50bucks or less. And if you sell
(05:33):
retail, do that completelyseparately, but stay clear of
those like larger numbers forthis. But you can charge a fee.
We do have some people that dothat. The key is to build the
value. So people aren't saying,what did I pay 50 bucks for?
They need to walk out and say,I can't believe I paid only 50
bucks for this party. It wasincredible. You know, and you
can use that money, thatrevenue to like buy some
prizes, do some extra stuff,bring in a photographer if you
(05:56):
want, give people photos, havea meal, whatever. There's all
sorts of ways to make thiswork. But the thing that I
really like with Brian, whatyou said before, the open prep
work, how about this? Do yousell retail? Do you sell
t-shirts and things like thataround, around , uh, the
interim open?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, so we typically do the device, the
whole gym into four teams, andeach of the teams designs their
own t-shirt. And then we usethat as a retail opportunity.
So typically see sales oft-shirts, sales of things like
chalk tape, all that kind ofstuff boosts just before the
open. Um, so yeah, absolutely.
Yeah,
Speaker 1 (06:30):
And it's not like huge, we're not talking huge
money. You're not gonna make$20,000 on retail items, but
every dollar counts. And ifyou're gonna sell the stuff,
sell the stuff during the OpenForever. Fierce is our
preferred vendor for thatstuff. Uh, they can print stuff
up for you very regularly.
Other things that , uh, Brianmentioned that are critical,
and this is not, maybe youdon't look at it and say, ah ,
this is a ton of money rightnow, but post competition ,
(06:52):
goal setting and prescription.
So we recommend that gyms dogoal review sessions all the
time. Brian just talked aboutthat. He does that regularly.
It's not just a once in a yearor once in lifetime thing, but
after the open meet with yourparticipants and you say, Hey,
in that last workout I saw youwere frustrated with your
pull-ups with some personaltraining over the next eight
weeks, I think we can get youto that goal of five kipping
(07:14):
pull-ups in a row. What do youthink that works like a charm
and all you're doing is helpingclients accomplish goals, which
they now have have because theyhave an emotional attachment to
this thing in the open. Sotechnically Brian , in in , in
your, like when you talk toclients after your intermural
open, how do those goal settingsessions go for you?
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah, so that they're usually the , the best
goal setting sessions of theyear because someone's achieved
something that they previouslywere not able to do, or they've
probably just fallen a littlebit short of something that
they've wanted to do. So it's aperfect opportunity to sit
someone down, chat them aboutwhat they've just accomplished,
and give them a big kudos forthat, obviously, you know, put
(07:53):
them on a platform for that.
And we're, that's one of themain things we do with the
intramural open every year isgive people a platform to
celebrate their wins, but thenobviously as well, anything
that they want to achieve forthe next year, it just sets
their sights and it pushes thehorizon out for 12 months. What
are we doing for the next open?
So people aren't just thinkingabout a quick short term fix.
(08:14):
And it's an , it's really anamazing goal setting session.
That one's straight after theopen. So what we do is we open
up the calendar after the openfor more goal setting sessions
than we normally do.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
I love it because, and this is like, this is what
I wanna lead in . So this isrevenue stuff. Retention is
also revenue. You don't see itright away, but every month
that a client stays at yourgym, it's more revenue. So
Brian just said like, what arewe working on for the next open
that client's thinking 12months in advance and 12 months
of training at your gym toaccomplish goals? What a huge
retention tool. Brian, beforethe show, you told me an
(08:43):
incredible stat from yourbusiness about what the
intramural open does forretention. What is it?
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yeah, exactly. So we mentioned that we don't charge
for it, but we do make moneyfrom the open indirectly. So if
someone does the intramuralopen at my gym, they are three
times more likely to stayanother year in the gym.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Wow. Now that is like, that is an earth
chattering stat because that'sexactly , that's basically
boosting your length ofengagement by 12 months just by
doing this event and talking to'em about it .
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Exactly. Exactly. So yeah, we, we absolutely like
the , the whole team getsbought into recruitment. It's a
big recruitment drive fromChristmas to, to the Open every
year.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I wanna hear about how you do that, but first tell
me a little bit about how youmake retention such an
important part of this. Likeyou said, podiums and
celebrating, like, talk to meabout how you make your clients
feel like superheroes duringthis event. So they wanna stay
all year.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
So, Mike, I , I know people can't really see on the
podcast, but I'm holding up agiant Silver Cup. It's large ,
and so you gotta go to YouTube.
Yeah. .
Speaker 1 (09:43):
So
Speaker 2 (09:43):
You gotta go to YouTube to see that. But yeah,
we , we , we make it like we'renot the most competitive gym in
the world, right? It's , it'snot about competition and
intramural sports is not athing in Ireland. It's just not
done. But like, when we sawthis, the novelty factor of
people competing for fun forpoints, it's absolutely huge.
So we make them feel, you know,like people, a lot of people, a
(10:05):
lot of our members might havestopped playing sports, you
know, in their teens, maybeinto their twenties, and they
haven't experienced the thrillof winning or competing at
something that they couldpotentially win in decades. So
it's huge. It gives them anopportunity to celebrate with
the people that they work outwith every day , to see people
that they work out with everyday in a different environment,
(10:25):
in a different light. And itgives us the opportunity to put
them doing a workout alonewhere their peers are watching
them. Not so much alone, butlike, you know, where people
are actually watching them andcelebrating what they can do
and , and really, you know,putting 'em on that pedestal
and making them feel specialand giving them extra high
fives and, you know, callingtheir name out, you know,
(10:46):
making them feel like they're,they're part of something
bigger.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah. And there are ways to do this. Like you can
set up different divisionswhere you have like a scale
division and a , uh, um, an RXdivision or s prescribed
division. You can set upmasters , you set up kids, you
can set up all these differentdivisions, and then you can
work in points point scoringopportunities, not just for the
top three, but also for likespirit of the open or coolest
things that are happening. Likewhen I was running the
Intermental Open in my gym, wewould give people points for ,
(11:12):
uh, booking a goal reviewsession that was a big one. Or
doing a client testimonial. I'dsit people down with a
microphone and say, why do youlove my gym? And if they did
that, I'd give them an extrafive points or leaving a Google
review, I would do thatFacebook review. There are all
these different ways that youcan in , you can incentivize
people to do the , the stuffthat you want, which is reviews
and stuff. But also I wouldgive away just prizes just for
(11:33):
being awesome. Like, you knowwhat, Tim, you are cheering so
loudly. When Cynthia was tryingto finish her workout, I just
thought it was the coolestthing ever. I'm gonna award you
a bonus point. And then fromthere, you start celebrating
your clients in all thesedifferent ways where I would
always take pictures and wewould make trading cards outta
them , put banners on them, andwe would just celebrate our
clients accomplishing amazingthings. Now, I'll tell you a
mistake I made one year duringthe Open, we used to be very
(11:54):
competitive, Jim , and this wasin the early days. We had , uh,
a ton of competitors. We had ateam that was gonna go to
regionals. We had a bunch ofindividual competitors that
went to regionals. We focusedway too much on the
competitors. And after theopen, I lost about 30 or 35
members, and they were justburned out by the whole thing.
They didn't feel specialbecause all the attention was
on the superstars. And Ithought, what have I done to my
(12:16):
business? When we changed it tothe intramural open concept and
made it fun and celebratedeveryone and didn't emphasize
competition, everything gotbetter, retention was better.
We made some money, the smileswere there. I didn't lose
members, I actually held ontothem. So you can do it wrong.
You can also do it right. Tellme a little bit about how many
people you get to participatein your gym. Is it like, do you
(12:38):
get all of 'em draft all intoteams, or what do you do?
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Pretty much, yeah , . So we typically get
about 150 people signed up toour endur open . Um, and we're
aiming for more than that thisyear. Wow . And something you
said , uh, a second ago, Mike,like, you know, it is a lot of
work for the team, but if youshare that and you split your
gym into four teams mm-hmm . You can give
every team a week of, you know,doing food. And that's actually
(13:01):
the most competitive divisionin our gym is the cooking. So
we do like a potluck and peopleare like, you know , try to
outdo each other's brownies or, you know, every year. So
like, it takes a lot of the,the load off the team and like,
there's a week where everyone'sgotta judge . There's a week
where everyone's gotta set outthe floor and clean up. So, you
know, it's a big communityevent. But yeah, we get, we try
(13:21):
to get like 150 plus peopleparticipating every year. Wow .
Mm-hmm .
Speaker 1 (13:24):
That is amazing. And I'm gonna show you, this is
what your captains should looklike. It should look like
something like this. You're notlooking for the super stud, you
know, elite athlete, superserious . You want fun, fun
people. You want your captainsshould be the people in your
gym that people just gravitatetoward. They're the lead ,
they're kind of the leaders,but they're also just the ,
(13:45):
like, the very social peoplewho are, who have a good time.
And I had one teacher in my gymfor example, and I said, you
know, do you wanna be one ofour intramural open captains?
And she looks at me and says,Mike, I was born for this
. And she justdestroyed it. Like, you know,
the whole, she had the gear fora team, they had hats, we had
another team , uh, they namedthemselves the Breakfast Club
after the movie, and they allhad themed gear around that
(14:05):
movie with like the hand in theair from the famous scene at
the end. They had chants andapparel and, you know, songs
like , it was just anincredible thing. And this
thing will take over your gym.
Like, we had another team that, uh, decided they would bring
in a bag, a bagpiper. And sowhen they, we announced them,
they came in with bagpipesplaying, and they marched
around the gym to a ba to a setof bagpipes. We had another
guy, and he was a , he was afinancial wizard, and so he, he
(14:28):
didn't wanna do the fun stuff.
He was just like, I'm gonna usemoney to make this happen. And
so he had like, people comeinto the gym and start singing
like the , you know, join, joinhis gym , join his team, kind
of stuff. Like he would just dot-shirts and all these other
things. The ca captains willmake or break this event. And
the best part is they will takethe stress off your coaches and
you, because they carry theload and they get to have this
(14:48):
position of honor, which is areally cool thing. We also have
in a Chris Cooper's guide, waysto not stress out about the
open, because we've all done itthere . We have a survival tips
section where it'll help youfigure out exactly how to
reduce the load . Brian , doyou have a number one tip? Like
do you, do, do you delegate toyour staff or what , how do you
avoid getting sucked into thisas the owner and just like
losing every Friday for therest of your life?
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah, so, so me and my wife Roe , we , uh, we
learned that lesson hard thefirst two years. Like , it is ,
it , it can , you can burn outso hard doing this. It's a lot
of fun, but you don't actuallyrealize until it's all over.
Man, that was so tough. Soyeah, we, we produce, so I
produce like an in-house openguide for my team every year I
delegate. So each of my coachesis managing essentially one of
(15:31):
the teams to make sure thatthey've got everything they
need. They've done theirt-shirts, they've got all their
orders in , all that stuff isdone. And then the team
captains, like you mentioned,we always have a running joke
every year. You could pick theteam captain at our Christmas
party because they're usuallythe person that's working the
room. Yeah . Um , so , so it'salways, it's always that social
butterfly. Uh , they're thebest team captains. But yeah,
if you pick the right peopleand your coaches are very clear
(15:54):
on what is going to happen andwhat the timelines are, it
takes so much of that cognitiveload off the owner before the
open and every week just havingreally clear who's doing what,
when does it happen. Just havevery clear timelines and
communicate everything. Ittakes so much of the pressure
off.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yeah . And I'm gonna show you this exactly what
Brian said. So I'll show youthis one more time here. This
is a tentative schedule. Youcan run this however you want.
So in our guide, we have thisthing here . You've got now to
20 February 27th, you canlaunch pre-open programs,
advertise, registration, selectscoring system, captains, draft
day recruiting period. Thenwe've got the workouts, 1, 2,
3, 4. You can coordinate thiswith the CrossFit open, or you
(16:32):
don't have to. And then you'vegot March 31st launch open
program. So you can use, allthis stuff is laid out, how to
do it in this guide. So you cantake this calendar and use this
stuff to stay on track exactlylike Brian said. And like I was
telling you guys, there are, wehave workouts programmed for
you. So we've got, you know,pre-op activities. This is the
stuff that Chris has laid out.
This is exactly what you shoulddo. And then you've got
(16:53):
workouts. Chris has programmedsome very simple workouts that
are gonna be easy for you.
You're gonna have the gear andyou can just run this stuff. We
took space in mind, we tooktime in mind. You don't have to
wait for an announcement andsay, Ooh , I don't have a 72
pound dumbbell. You know, youcan just be like, ah , I have
this, we're good. Or sub it outor program your own stuff. It
all works really, really well.
(17:13):
So get this guide . ChrisCooper DM him on Facebook. Gym
Owners United. You can do that.
Brian , what are your top tips?
Do you have anything? We'vecovered a bunch of 'em . Do you
have any additional stuff thatcan help someone who's out
there thinking about maybe theyhaven't run it for the first
time, what would you tell themto make this a success?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Definitely get the guide. Um, like follow, follow
what's in the guide. I've seen,I've, I've seen and heard of
people doing stuff their ownkind of way, but this is tried
and tested, it works. We don'treally do it any, any
differently to what's in thatguide every year. Like we pick
maybe something new each yearto add, but we don't really
change it that much. Top tipsare like, make it fun, make it
(17:50):
inclusive, that like, if youjust make it elitist and it's
all about, you know, muscle upsand the stuff that most people
can't do, then it's gonna be,it's gonna be very exclusive .
Uh , there's gonna , it's gonnabe very exclusive and, and
like, you just want this thingto be as inclusive as possible.
You want it to be fun. Youwanna make sure that the
intimidation levels are as lowas possible. So pitch it to
(18:13):
everybody. So like you said, ifyou're doing the CrossFit open,
it's three weeks at a four weekand make it something fun. You
know, make it something thateverybody can do. If there's a
Rx a scaled and a foundationsdivision, if people are doing
foundations, they're not gonnabe going to the CrossFit games.
So cut them some slack, giveit, give them a foundations,
you know, another level thateverybody can participate.
(18:36):
Everyone can do something. Makeit about spirit, make it about
fun. Make sure you award pointsfor things like spirit. And
that's a huge one every year.
You know, the team who has thebest colors, the team who
supports the best, you know,the person who spurred of the
open. It's typically a bighonor to be that person, you
know, and, and just make it areal inclusive and fun event.
Try to make sure that it alignswith your gym's values and that
(18:59):
it is, you know, something thatpeople feel that they can be
part of and that they lookforward to next year. Make it
fun and, and make sure thatyour team are bought into it as
well, because the , yourcoaches, if you have coaches
make up such a huge part ofthis and if they enjoy it, make
sure that, you know, thatbleeds into the rest of the
community. If they're burnt outfrom it and you put too much on
(19:20):
them and they don't find itfun, well then it's not gonna
be fun for everyone either.
Mm-hmm
Speaker 1 (19:24):
. And a
tip I'll give you , I'll
piggyback on what you said. Ifyou do this and make it super
fun, take some pictures, dosome interviews when people are
smiling and happy, and use thatto promote your gym the entire
year and then promote yourentrepreneurial open in 2026.
And some of the best marketingmaterials I ever got came from
our intramural open eventsbecause you had these like
pictures of people doing coolstuff in crazy costumes or
(19:47):
smiling one night we had peopleshow up in , uh, formal wear
and then we had them do theirworkouts and we did before and
after pictures. They come anddress to the nines makeup done,
then they leave in the mascarais like bleeding off their
faces and everything. And wedid these like, but they were
still happy, right? We , thesegreat marketing pictures, you
can definitely do this. Thething that I like what you said
, Brian , is make it inclusive.
And so what we did with theworkouts that we programmed
here in this guide, Chris triedto make it just stuff that
(20:10):
people can do. Again, we're nottrying to find the fittest
person in the world, right?
We're doing like a super meet ,which is Chris's thing where he
is got six or seven differentlifts and they're just like,
you're gonna do your bestsquat. Everyone has a best
squat and they can feel goodabout it. You're gonna see some
prs. That's incredible. Uh,high rocks , Brian , that is
big out in Europe I , isn't it?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yes, absolutely. So yeah, you could include a high
rocks workout .
Speaker 1 (20:31):
We theme one like that. Yeah , yeah. We themed
one. We just took some of thepieces that high rocks , like
you can't do all the stuff withthe sled push and stuff
necessarily with whatever, butwe put in a couple of things
where you could like do somefarmer carries and just some of
the stuff that you see in thatevent that people love that you
can do in a small space in yourgym. So the idea is maximum
participation. I love the ideaof a final event. Chris has
talked about doing an escaperoom sometimes, or like he had
(20:52):
biathlon Olympics where you'reshooting like Nerf guns at ,
uh, paper plates or somethinglike that and doing penalty
loops on the row or things likethat. Like there's, I've seen
flip cop Olympics, like allsorts of really, really cool
ideas. The goal is to make it aparty as we seal this up. I'm
gonna go back to say, Brian,you you've got, what was your
revenue, your prime revenuegenerator for the open is
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Retention. Yep .
It's , it's definitelyretention. So like if, if , if
you want to calculate that out,it's for every month that
someone stays extra multipliedby your average revenue per
member. Yeah .
Speaker 1 (21:23):
And you , it's a no brainer. Yeah. You said your
people are what, three timesmore likely to stay for another
year if they, if they do this?
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeah. That's, that's worth far more than any new
marketing fad that's gonnabring 30 new members into my
gym if I can just hold onto 30more members. It's, it makes
complete other sense. Yeah. Imean, something, something else
you said there, Mike, likeabout making it inclusive is we
run a master's division. Mm-hmm. So like we've got a big
master's program and a kidsprogram, so like get the whole
family involved. If peoplebring their kids and people
(21:50):
bring their parents, I mean, itjust, it , it creates an even
an even better event and thenobviously making sure that
people are sharing this thingand that it is, you know,
something that you can use toleverage your own social media.
We're lucky in Ireland becauseit falls on Patty's Day,
normally one of the weekends ofthe CrossFit open. So we
usually leverage off that andhave a lot of fun with that
weekend.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
No beer of all at all.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Absolutely not. We have at 8:00 AM in the morning,
so no one can have any alcoholon board .
Speaker 1 (22:15):
I understand Exactly. . But that's,
you bring up a great point. Ifyou're , you can make this an
event, make your gym spectatorfriendly. Get some kids, do run
a kid's heat. Like that'ssomething Chris has done at his
gym. Run a Masters heat, bringyour friends and family. If
someone comes to watch one ofyour members participate in
this thing, they're very likelyto join your gym. Chris once
said that he ran a kid's heatthat and right after that they
(22:37):
ran their most successfulprogram of all time simply
because parents brought kidswho weren't clients into the
gym for this fun event and theygave them medals and all sorts
of other stuff and then all ofa sudden their kids' program
exploded. Not a coincidence.
Right? You can, there's allsorts of ways. And Brian also
did another thing that hisrevenue, a lot of it comes
from, I won't say a lot of itbecause retention is his main
driver, but he does generaterevenue by doing pretty open
(23:00):
skill sessions and skill work .
It's very easy for you to dothat, especially if you know
the workouts in advance. Youcan say, Hey, we're doing this
thing. We're doing thrusters inthis workout coming up. Let's
work on your thruster techniqueso that you don't feel
intimidated about it. Let'sbook some pt. There's tons of
ways to do this. Brian , thankyou so much for laying this out
for us. I love it. I hope we ,uh, I hope to see some media
(23:21):
come out here . Jim, where canpeople follow your antics if
they wanna see what you do?
Yeah,
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Absolutely. So it's at Activate ie on Instagram.
It's probably the easiest placeto find us, check
Speaker 1 (23:30):
'em out and see what's up. And I would highly
recommend exact what Briansaid. Go get Chris Cooper's
guide , DM him on Facebook orgo to gym owners united.com.
Brian , thank you so much. Iappreciate it.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Thanks Mike.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
That was Brian Foley . This is Run a Profitable Gym.
Thank you for listening on yourway out the door door. Please
hit subscribe so you don't missa single show like this. We
will help you build yourbusiness every week. Can't help
ask you enough. Hit subscribe.
Hit a like, come back and seeus. And now here's Chris Cooper
with a final message.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Hey, it's two Brain founder Chris Cooper. With a
quick note . We created the GymOwners United Facebook group to
help you run a profitable gym.
Thousands of gym owners, justlike you have already joined in
the group. We share soundadvice about the business of
fitness every day I answerquestions, I run free webinars
and I give away all kinds ofgreat resources to help you
(24:16):
grow your gym. I'd love to haveyou in that group. It's Gym
Owners United on Facebook, orgo to gym owners united.com to
join. Do it today.
The intramural Open is a two brain business
original. Chris Cooper's beendoing this event at his gym
since the early 2010s, and wepublish a guide about it. Every
single year is, without adoubt, the best way to make
competition fun. At your gym,there are three goals. You want
to give your clients a party.
You wanna show them thatthey're winning, and you want
to ensure that they're fired upto keep training with you long
(00:22):
term . The goal is not to findthe fittest person in the
universe. It's to ensure yourclients smile and you wanna
generate some revenue while youdo it because you're running a
business. If you use our 2025guide to run this event in late
February or early March, youcan approve retention and
generate revenue for yourbusiness. Chris Cooper's ebook
on the 2025 intramural Open isout. Now you can get it by
(00:42):
sending him a dm. You gotta goto gym owners united.com .
Look, coop up . He's all overthe place there with placed
with pinned posts. Send him adm, gym owners united.com, the
short version of the intramuralOpen. You divide your gym up
into teams. You run a funmulti-week competition. The
emphasis is on fun and smiles.
Now you can sync this up with aCrossFit open or not. It's your
choice if you're not a CrossFitgym, no problem. Coops made it
(01:05):
even easier this year to runthe event because he's
programmed workouts for you forthe very first time. You don't
have to wait for eventannouncements or worry about
gear. You just have the eventsyou can plant around them right
now. So get that book today. AnA plus gym owner is gonna tell
us how he runs the intramuralopen at his gym, and give us
some tips for success. He'sgonna talk about revenue
retention , so stick around.
(01:26):
This is rather profitable. Jim, I'm Mike Warden . Hit
subscribe. You do not wannamiss more episodes like this.
In the new year of 2025, BrianFoley runs Activate in Ireland.
I had the pleasure of hangingout with him in Columbus, Ohio
a couple months ago and hangingin person. He's a great guy and
he crushes the intramural openevery year. So we're gonna talk
about how you listener can dothe exact same thing. Brian ,
it's Irish afternoon. CanadianMorning. How are you ?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
I'm great, Mike. How are you?
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I'm great too. We were just talking about how,
you know, later on today, andthen we're gonna taste some
fine Irish whiskey to celebratethe season, but first we're
gonna make revenue and re forgym owners, and then we're
going to boost their retention.
So Brian, I'm bringing it inright off the top. How do you
get revenue into your businessthrough the internal open? What
do you do?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Absolutely. So we don't charge for the opens, but
we do gain revenue indirectlyfrom the opens. So from the
very get go in 2017 when wepicked up this intramural
guide, we were like, okay, howare we gonna weigh this up and
figure out how we do it? Whatwe do is between six and eight
weeks prior to the opens. Soaround this time of year we
(02:27):
launch gymnastics , uh,programs and Olympic
weightlifting programs becausetypically they are the two
things that people willstruggle with most running up
to the CrossFit open. Um, soyeah, we've always got a big
boost from signups for thoseprograms prior to the open.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Okay . And I'm just gonna , as Brian chats a little
bit about some of the stuff I'mgonna share some screen grabs
from , uh, the , uh, intramuralopen guide. Again , you can DM
Chris Cooper to get this thingoff . If you go on Facebook,
this is one thing you can do.
So before the open skill work ,we all know if you're doing,
like, if you're in a CrossFitgym, for example, everyone
needs kipping handstand orkipping handstand pushups,
muscle ups , pull-ups, allsorts of gymnastics stuff. The
snatch clean and jerk overheadsquat, all that stuff always
(03:07):
shows up, you know that peoplewanna work on it. These are
also areas of passion for a tonof people. Gymnastics and
Olympic weightlifting stuff isgood anytime of year, but
especially when people have anemotional attachment to it
before a competition. So Brianwill charge in advance for
that. Do you have any details?
Like what is your basicstructure for that? Is it like,
you know, 10 people, 250 bucksfor a six weeks, or what do you
do there?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Exactly. So typically 10 to 12 people , uh,
in and around that 200 bucksfor that period of time. Coach
makes some good revenue fromit, coach makes some good
income from it, and thebusiness makes some some income
from it as well. And wetypically use the goal setting,
so our member check-ins andgoal setting sessions as as the
guiding , uh, light for that.
(03:47):
So if a lot of people arestruggling with one particular
movement, we will emphasizethat as part of the program. So
if it's a handstand pushup, forexample , um, we will look at a
six week block of handstandhandstand work and we, we
typically use what our membersare telling us to, you know,
bring them what they wantessentially. And
Speaker 1 (04:06):
That's wise anytime of the year, right? Like you're
just having these goal reviewsessions with your clients and
if seven of them say, Hey, I Ireally wanna get better at
running, or I'm gonna do this5K run that's coming up in my
area. You're like, I should runa running prep group, right?
And you just tack on someadditional revenue through a
specialty program. That's goodpolicy at any time of the year.
It's even better right now whenyou tying this to an event,
which is a really, really bigdeal. Now, Brian, you said you
(04:28):
don't charge. We have gyms thatdo charge, and so obviously if
people do the CrossFit open,they're gonna pay a
registration fee that goes toCrossFitting, not to your gym,
but we recommend that gymscharge a fee if they run this
thing. And here's why. This isnot membership. This is an
additional thing that you cando to, and it it's a lot of
work. Like we found ways tostreamline this over the years,
but I remember when I firststarted doing the open, I think
(04:49):
I put in like 60 or 80 hours,and I think that year was like
six weeks or something likethat. And we were destroyed.
Like by the end of it, we weredone. Eventually the openness
changed and uh , uh, you know,it's evolved a little bit and
it's a little bit lessstressful and so forth. But
still, if you're gonna put onthis, you know, four week ,
month long party for your ,that , for your members and
you're gonna score at ad value,you can charge like 40, 30,
(05:10):
$50. You don't have to, but itis a way to recoup some of the
costs. We have some gyms thatdo this. We have some gyms that
don't do this. It depends onyou. The thing that I'll tell
you is that it's in the guide.
Don't charge more than 50bucks. People start to get a
little eh , about that becausethey don't want , then it's
like, especially, you know , abad one to say charging 50
bucks and then tacking on at-shirt and saying it's 70
bucks. Charge a maximum 50bucks or less. And if you sell
(05:33):
retail, do that completelyseparately, but stay clear of
those like larger numbers forthis. But you can charge a fee.
We do have some people that dothat. The key is to build the
value. So people aren't saying,what did I pay 50 bucks for?
They need to walk out and say,I can't believe I paid only 50
bucks for this party. It wasincredible. You know, and you
can use that money, thatrevenue to like buy some
prizes, do some extra stuff,bring in a photographer if you
(05:56):
want, give people photos, havea meal, whatever. There's all
sorts of ways to make thiswork. But the thing that I
really like with Brian, whatyou said before, the open prep
work, how about this? Do yousell retail? Do you sell
t-shirts and things like thataround, around , uh, the
interim open?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, so we typically do the device, the
whole gym into four teams, andeach of the teams designs their
own t-shirt. And then we usethat as a retail opportunity.
So typically see sales oft-shirts, sales of things like
chalk tape, all that kind ofstuff boosts just before the
open. Um, so yeah, absolutely.
Yeah,
Speaker 1 (06:30):
And it's not like huge, we're not talking huge
money. You're not gonna make$20,000 on retail items, but
every dollar counts. And ifyou're gonna sell the stuff,
sell the stuff during the OpenForever. Fierce is our
preferred vendor for thatstuff. Uh, they can print stuff
up for you very regularly.
Other things that , uh, Brianmentioned that are critical,
and this is not, maybe youdon't look at it and say, ah ,
this is a ton of money rightnow, but post competition ,
(06:52):
goal setting and prescription.
So we recommend that gyms dogoal review sessions all the
time. Brian just talked aboutthat. He does that regularly.
It's not just a once in a yearor once in lifetime thing, but
after the open meet with yourparticipants and you say, Hey,
in that last workout I saw youwere frustrated with your
pull-ups with some personaltraining over the next eight
weeks, I think we can get youto that goal of five kipping
(07:14):
pull-ups in a row. What do youthink that works like a charm
and all you're doing is helpingclients accomplish goals, which
they now have have because theyhave an emotional attachment to
this thing in the open. Sotechnically Brian , in in , in
your, like when you talk toclients after your intermural
open, how do those goal settingsessions go for you?
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah, so that they're usually the , the best
goal setting sessions of theyear because someone's achieved
something that they previouslywere not able to do, or they've
probably just fallen a littlebit short of something that
they've wanted to do. So it's aperfect opportunity to sit
someone down, chat them aboutwhat they've just accomplished,
and give them a big kudos forthat, obviously, you know, put
(07:53):
them on a platform for that.
And we're, that's one of themain things we do with the
intramural open every year isgive people a platform to
celebrate their wins, but thenobviously as well, anything
that they want to achieve forthe next year, it just sets
their sights and it pushes thehorizon out for 12 months. What
are we doing for the next open?
So people aren't just thinkingabout a quick short term fix.
(08:14):
And it's an , it's really anamazing goal setting session.
That one's straight after theopen. So what we do is we open
up the calendar after the openfor more goal setting sessions
than we normally do.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
I love it because, and this is like, this is what
I wanna lead in . So this isrevenue stuff. Retention is
also revenue. You don't see itright away, but every month
that a client stays at yourgym, it's more revenue. So
Brian just said like, what arewe working on for the next open
that client's thinking 12months in advance and 12 months
of training at your gym toaccomplish goals? What a huge
retention tool. Brian, beforethe show, you told me an
(08:43):
incredible stat from yourbusiness about what the
intramural open does forretention. What is it?
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yeah, exactly. So we mentioned that we don't charge
for it, but we do make moneyfrom the open indirectly. So if
someone does the intramuralopen at my gym, they are three
times more likely to stayanother year in the gym.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Wow. Now that is like, that is an earth
chattering stat because that'sexactly , that's basically
boosting your length ofengagement by 12 months just by
doing this event and talking to'em about it .
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Exactly. Exactly. So yeah, we, we absolutely like
the , the whole team getsbought into recruitment. It's a
big recruitment drive fromChristmas to, to the Open every
year.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I wanna hear about how you do that, but first tell
me a little bit about how youmake retention such an
important part of this. Likeyou said, podiums and
celebrating, like, talk to meabout how you make your clients
feel like superheroes duringthis event. So they wanna stay
all year.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
So, Mike, I , I know people can't really see on the
podcast, but I'm holding up agiant Silver Cup. It's large ,
and so you gotta go to YouTube.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
So
Speaker 2 (09:43):
You gotta go to YouTube to see that. But yeah,
we , we , we make it like we'renot the most competitive gym in
the world, right? It's , it'snot about competition and
intramural sports is not athing in Ireland. It's just not
done. But like, when we sawthis, the novelty factor of
people competing for fun forpoints, it's absolutely huge.
So we make them feel, you know,like people, a lot of people, a
(10:05):
lot of our members might havestopped playing sports, you
know, in their teens, maybeinto their twenties, and they
haven't experienced the thrillof winning or competing at
something that they couldpotentially win in decades. So
it's huge. It gives them anopportunity to celebrate with
the people that they work outwith every day , to see people
that they work out with everyday in a different environment,
(10:25):
in a different light. And itgives us the opportunity to put
them doing a workout alonewhere their peers are watching
them. Not so much alone, butlike, you know, where people
are actually watching them andcelebrating what they can do
and , and really, you know,putting 'em on that pedestal
and making them feel specialand giving them extra high
fives and, you know, callingtheir name out, you know,
(10:46):
making them feel like they're,they're part of something
bigger.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah. And there are ways to do this. Like you can
set up different divisionswhere you have like a scale
division and a , uh, um, an RXdivision or s prescribed
division. You can set upmasters , you set up kids, you
can set up all these differentdivisions, and then you can
work in points point scoringopportunities, not just for the
top three, but also for likespirit of the open or coolest
things that are happening. Likewhen I was running the
Intermental Open in my gym, wewould give people points for ,
(11:12):
uh, booking a goal reviewsession that was a big one. Or
doing a client testimonial. I'dsit people down with a
microphone and say, why do youlove my gym? And if they did
that, I'd give them an extrafive points or leaving a Google
review, I would do thatFacebook review. There are all
these different ways that youcan in , you can incentivize
people to do the , the stuffthat you want, which is reviews
and stuff. But also I wouldgive away just prizes just for
(11:33):
being awesome. Like, you knowwhat, Tim, you are cheering so
loudly. When Cynthia was tryingto finish her workout, I just
thought it was the coolestthing ever. I'm gonna award you
a bonus point. And then fromthere, you start celebrating
your clients in all thesedifferent ways where I would
always take pictures and wewould make trading cards outta
them , put banners on them, andwe would just celebrate our
clients accomplishing amazingthings. Now, I'll tell you a
mistake I made one year duringthe Open, we used to be very
(11:54):
competitive, Jim , and this wasin the early days. We had , uh,
a ton of competitors. We had ateam that was gonna go to
regionals. We had a bunch ofindividual competitors that
went to regionals. We focusedway too much on the
competitors. And after theopen, I lost about 30 or 35
members, and they were justburned out by the whole thing.
They didn't feel specialbecause all the attention was
on the superstars. And Ithought, what have I done to my
(12:16):
business? When we changed it tothe intramural open concept and
made it fun and celebratedeveryone and didn't emphasize
competition, everything gotbetter, retention was better.
We made some money, the smileswere there. I didn't lose
members, I actually held ontothem. So you can do it wrong.
You can also do it right. Tellme a little bit about how many
people you get to participatein your gym. Is it like, do you
(12:38):
get all of 'em draft all intoteams, or what do you do?
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Pretty much, yeah ,
about 150 people signed up toour endur open . Um, and we're
aiming for more than that thisyear. Wow . And something you
said , uh, a second ago, Mike,like, you know, it is a lot of
work for the team, but if youshare that and you split your
gym into four teams mm-hmm
every team a week of, you know,doing food. And that's actually
(13:01):
the most competitive divisionin our gym is the cooking. So
we do like a potluck and peopleare like, you know , try to
outdo each other's brownies or, you know, every year. So
like, it takes a lot of the,the load off the team and like,
there's a week where everyone'sgotta judge . There's a week
where everyone's gotta set outthe floor and clean up. So, you
know, it's a big communityevent. But yeah, we get, we try
(13:21):
to get like 150 plus peopleparticipating every year. Wow .
Mm-hmm .
Speaker 1 (13:24):
That is amazing. And I'm gonna show you, this is
what your captains should looklike. It should look like
something like this. You're notlooking for the super stud, you
know, elite athlete, superserious . You want fun, fun
people. You want your captainsshould be the people in your
gym that people just gravitatetoward. They're the lead ,
they're kind of the leaders,but they're also just the ,
(13:45):
like, the very social peoplewho are, who have a good time.
And I had one teacher in my gymfor example, and I said, you
know, do you wanna be one ofour intramural open captains?
And she looks at me and says,Mike, I was born for this
the whole, she had the gear fora team, they had hats, we had
another team , uh, they namedthemselves the Breakfast Club
after the movie, and they allhad themed gear around that
(14:05):
movie with like the hand in theair from the famous scene at
the end. They had chants andapparel and, you know, songs
like , it was just anincredible thing. And this
thing will take over your gym.
Like, we had another team that, uh, decided they would bring
in a bag, a bagpiper. And sowhen they, we announced them,
they came in with bagpipesplaying, and they marched
around the gym to a ba to a setof bagpipes. We had another
guy, and he was a , he was afinancial wizard, and so he, he
(14:28):
didn't wanna do the fun stuff.
He was just like, I'm gonna usemoney to make this happen. And
so he had like, people comeinto the gym and start singing
like the , you know, join, joinhis gym , join his team, kind
of stuff. Like he would just dot-shirts and all these other
things. The ca captains willmake or break this event. And
the best part is they will takethe stress off your coaches and
you, because they carry theload and they get to have this
(14:48):
position of honor, which is areally cool thing. We also have
in a Chris Cooper's guide, waysto not stress out about the
open, because we've all done itthere . We have a survival tips
section where it'll help youfigure out exactly how to
reduce the load . Brian , doyou have a number one tip? Like
do you, do, do you delegate toyour staff or what , how do you
avoid getting sucked into thisas the owner and just like
losing every Friday for therest of your life?
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah, so, so me and my wife Roe , we , uh, we
learned that lesson hard thefirst two years. Like , it is ,
it , it can , you can burn outso hard doing this. It's a lot
of fun, but you don't actuallyrealize until it's all over.
Man, that was so tough. Soyeah, we, we produce, so I
produce like an in-house openguide for my team every year I
delegate. So each of my coachesis managing essentially one of
(15:31):
the teams to make sure thatthey've got everything they
need. They've done theirt-shirts, they've got all their
orders in , all that stuff isdone. And then the team
captains, like you mentioned,we always have a running joke
every year. You could pick theteam captain at our Christmas
party because they're usuallythe person that's working the
room. Yeah . Um , so , so it'salways, it's always that social
butterfly. Uh , they're thebest team captains. But yeah,
if you pick the right peopleand your coaches are very clear
(15:54):
on what is going to happen andwhat the timelines are, it
takes so much of that cognitiveload off the owner before the
open and every week just havingreally clear who's doing what,
when does it happen. Just havevery clear timelines and
communicate everything. Ittakes so much of the pressure
off.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yeah . And I'm gonna show you this exactly what
Brian said. So I'll show youthis one more time here. This
is a tentative schedule. Youcan run this however you want.
So in our guide, we have thisthing here . You've got now to
20 February 27th, you canlaunch pre-open programs,
advertise, registration, selectscoring system, captains, draft
day recruiting period. Thenwe've got the workouts, 1, 2,
3, 4. You can coordinate thiswith the CrossFit open, or you
(16:32):
don't have to. And then you'vegot March 31st launch open
program. So you can use, allthis stuff is laid out, how to
do it in this guide. So you cantake this calendar and use this
stuff to stay on track exactlylike Brian said. And like I was
telling you guys, there are, wehave workouts programmed for
you. So we've got, you know,pre-op activities. This is the
stuff that Chris has laid out.
This is exactly what you shoulddo. And then you've got
(16:53):
workouts. Chris has programmedsome very simple workouts that
are gonna be easy for you.
You're gonna have the gear andyou can just run this stuff. We
took space in mind, we tooktime in mind. You don't have to
wait for an announcement andsay, Ooh , I don't have a 72
pound dumbbell. You know, youcan just be like, ah , I have
this, we're good. Or sub it outor program your own stuff. It
all works really, really well.
(17:13):
So get this guide . ChrisCooper DM him on Facebook. Gym
Owners United. You can do that.
Brian , what are your top tips?
Do you have anything? We'vecovered a bunch of 'em . Do you
have any additional stuff thatcan help someone who's out
there thinking about maybe theyhaven't run it for the first
time, what would you tell themto make this a success?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Definitely get the guide. Um, like follow, follow
what's in the guide. I've seen,I've, I've seen and heard of
people doing stuff their ownkind of way, but this is tried
and tested, it works. We don'treally do it any, any
differently to what's in thatguide every year. Like we pick
maybe something new each yearto add, but we don't really
change it that much. Top tipsare like, make it fun, make it
(17:50):
inclusive, that like, if youjust make it elitist and it's
all about, you know, muscle upsand the stuff that most people
can't do, then it's gonna be,it's gonna be very exclusive .
Uh , there's gonna , it's gonnabe very exclusive and, and
like, you just want this thingto be as inclusive as possible.
You want it to be fun. Youwanna make sure that the
intimidation levels are as lowas possible. So pitch it to
(18:13):
everybody. So like you said, ifyou're doing the CrossFit open,
it's three weeks at a four weekand make it something fun. You
know, make it something thateverybody can do. If there's a
Rx a scaled and a foundationsdivision, if people are doing
foundations, they're not gonnabe going to the CrossFit games.
So cut them some slack, giveit, give them a foundations,
you know, another level thateverybody can participate.
(18:36):
Everyone can do something. Makeit about spirit, make it about
fun. Make sure you award pointsfor things like spirit. And
that's a huge one every year.
You know, the team who has thebest colors, the team who
supports the best, you know,the person who spurred of the
open. It's typically a bighonor to be that person, you
know, and, and just make it areal inclusive and fun event.
Try to make sure that it alignswith your gym's values and that
(18:59):
it is, you know, something thatpeople feel that they can be
part of and that they lookforward to next year. Make it
fun and, and make sure thatyour team are bought into it as
well, because the , yourcoaches, if you have coaches
make up such a huge part ofthis and if they enjoy it, make
sure that, you know, thatbleeds into the rest of the
community. If they're burnt outfrom it and you put too much on
(19:20):
them and they don't find itfun, well then it's not gonna
be fun for everyone either.
Mm-hmm
Speaker 1 (19:24):
piggyback on what you said. Ifyou do this and make it super
fun, take some pictures, dosome interviews when people are
smiling and happy, and use thatto promote your gym the entire
year and then promote yourentrepreneurial open in 2026.
And some of the best marketingmaterials I ever got came from
our intramural open eventsbecause you had these like
pictures of people doing coolstuff in crazy costumes or
(19:47):
smiling one night we had peopleshow up in , uh, formal wear
and then we had them do theirworkouts and we did before and
after pictures. They come anddress to the nines makeup done,
then they leave in the mascarais like bleeding off their
faces and everything. And wedid these like, but they were
still happy, right? We , thesegreat marketing pictures, you
can definitely do this. Thething that I like what you said
, Brian , is make it inclusive.
And so what we did with theworkouts that we programmed
here in this guide, Chris triedto make it just stuff that
(20:10):
people can do. Again, we're nottrying to find the fittest
person in the world, right?
We're doing like a super meet ,which is Chris's thing where he
is got six or seven differentlifts and they're just like,
you're gonna do your bestsquat. Everyone has a best
squat and they can feel goodabout it. You're gonna see some
prs. That's incredible. Uh,high rocks , Brian , that is
big out in Europe I , isn't it?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yes, absolutely. So yeah, you could include a high
rocks workout .
Speaker 1 (20:31):
We theme one like that. Yeah , yeah. We themed
one. We just took some of thepieces that high rocks , like
you can't do all the stuff withthe sled push and stuff
necessarily with whatever, butwe put in a couple of things
where you could like do somefarmer carries and just some of
the stuff that you see in thatevent that people love that you
can do in a small space in yourgym. So the idea is maximum
participation. I love the ideaof a final event. Chris has
talked about doing an escaperoom sometimes, or like he had
(20:52):
biathlon Olympics where you'reshooting like Nerf guns at ,
uh, paper plates or somethinglike that and doing penalty
loops on the row or things likethat. Like there's, I've seen
flip cop Olympics, like allsorts of really, really cool
ideas. The goal is to make it aparty as we seal this up. I'm
gonna go back to say, Brian,you you've got, what was your
revenue, your prime revenuegenerator for the open is
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Retention. Yep .
It's , it's definitelyretention. So like if, if , if
you want to calculate that out,it's for every month that
someone stays extra multipliedby your average revenue per
member. Yeah .
Speaker 1 (21:23):
And you , it's a no brainer. Yeah. You said your
people are what, three timesmore likely to stay for another
year if they, if they do this?
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeah. That's, that's worth far more than any new
marketing fad that's gonnabring 30 new members into my
gym if I can just hold onto 30more members. It's, it makes
complete other sense. Yeah. Imean, something, something else
you said there, Mike, likeabout making it inclusive is we
run a master's division. Mm-hmm. So like we've got a big
master's program and a kidsprogram, so like get the whole
family involved. If peoplebring their kids and people
(21:50):
bring their parents, I mean, itjust, it , it creates an even
an even better event and thenobviously making sure that
people are sharing this thingand that it is, you know,
something that you can use toleverage your own social media.
We're lucky in Ireland becauseit falls on Patty's Day,
normally one of the weekends ofthe CrossFit open. So we
usually leverage off that andhave a lot of fun with that
weekend.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
No beer of all at all.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Absolutely not. We have at 8:00 AM in the morning,
so no one can have any alcoholon board .
Speaker 1 (22:15):
I understand Exactly.
you bring up a great point. Ifyou're , you can make this an
event, make your gym spectatorfriendly. Get some kids, do run
a kid's heat. Like that'ssomething Chris has done at his
gym. Run a Masters heat, bringyour friends and family. If
someone comes to watch one ofyour members participate in
this thing, they're very likelyto join your gym. Chris once
said that he ran a kid's heatthat and right after that they
(22:37):
ran their most successfulprogram of all time simply
because parents brought kidswho weren't clients into the
gym for this fun event and theygave them medals and all sorts
of other stuff and then all ofa sudden their kids' program
exploded. Not a coincidence.
Right? You can, there's allsorts of ways. And Brian also
did another thing that hisrevenue, a lot of it comes
from, I won't say a lot of itbecause retention is his main
driver, but he does generaterevenue by doing pretty open
(23:00):
skill sessions and skill work .
It's very easy for you to dothat, especially if you know
the workouts in advance. Youcan say, Hey, we're doing this
thing. We're doing thrusters inthis workout coming up. Let's
work on your thruster techniqueso that you don't feel
intimidated about it. Let'sbook some pt. There's tons of
ways to do this. Brian , thankyou so much for laying this out
for us. I love it. I hope we ,uh, I hope to see some media
(23:21):
come out here . Jim, where canpeople follow your antics if
they wanna see what you do?
Yeah,
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Absolutely. So it's at Activate ie on Instagram.
It's probably the easiest placeto find us, check
Speaker 1 (23:30):
'em out and see what's up. And I would highly
recommend exact what Briansaid. Go get Chris Cooper's
guide , DM him on Facebook orgo to gym owners united.com.
Brian , thank you so much. Iappreciate it.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Thanks Mike.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
That was Brian Foley . This is Run a Profitable Gym.
Thank you for listening on yourway out the door door. Please
hit subscribe so you don't missa single show like this. We
will help you build yourbusiness every week. Can't help
ask you enough. Hit subscribe.
Hit a like, come back and seeus. And now here's Chris Cooper
with a final message.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Hey, it's two Brain founder Chris Cooper. With a
quick note . We created the GymOwners United Facebook group to
help you run a profitable gym.
Thousands of gym owners, justlike you have already joined in
the group. We share soundadvice about the business of
fitness every day I answerquestions, I run free webinars
and I give away all kinds ofgreat resources to help you
(24:16):
grow your gym. I'd love to haveyou in that group. It's Gym
Owners United on Facebook, orgo to gym owners united.com to
join. Do it today.
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