December 4, 2025 • 47 mins
How do you turn 13 leads per month into sustainable gym growth?
In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper and chief marketing officer John Franklin analyze new data from Two-Brain's 2025 “State of the Industry” guide and show you how to use it to grow your gym in 2026.
John, who is also co-founder of Kilo, explains why most gyms still struggle to get enough leads, what high performers do differently and how to make the most of every lead.
The pair dig into the numbers behind pricing, sales and average revenue per member, and they list simple changes gym owners can make to dramatically increase revenue.
To help you close more sales at your gym, Chris and John role-play common scenarios, demonstrating how to handle objections—such as timing, price and spousal concerns—and help clients take action.
They also provide tips to help you survive the slowest months of the year so you stop getting crushed by seasonality.
Watch this episode, then take action to generate more leads and add more clients to your gym every month.
If you want to dig deeper into the numbers, download the full “State of the Industry” report for free via the link below.
Links
State of the Industry
Gym Owners United
Book a Call
1:08 - Lead generation and nurture
12:38 - Seasonality and planning
18:07 - Live sales role-play
30:03 - Pricing strategies and psychology
41:42 - Sustainable gym ownership
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris (00:02):
Gyms in general are growing.
We've got the proof in thestate of the industry guide
2025.
But today we're going to talkabout why and how you can use
these numbers to actually growyour gym.
With me is my friend, my chiefmarketing officer for Two Brain
and one of the co-founders ofKilo, John Franklin.
John, welcome back to Run aProfitable Gym.
It's been a while.
Happy to be here.
(00:23):
Yeah, I know.
It's one of those things Ithink where we get myopic and
we're always inviting in guestsfrom outside and we forget like
how much talent and genius thereactually is inside TwoBrain
sometimes.
So I'm I'm really grateful thatyou're here.
You know, when you and I arebuilding this state of the
industry guide, we have thisconstant chatter going with us
and the head editor MikeWorkington.
(00:44):
And a lot of that dialogue isenormously valuable.
And so I wanted to bring you ontoday to share, especially
around the marketing metrics,like what should we be learning
from this?
So, first off, let's just kindof go over the the high points,
right?
Like what stands out to youthis year from the state of the
industry guide with regards togym growth, marketing, that kind
(01:06):
of thing?
John (01:07):
Well, people are getting more leads, which is nice, but
like we've always said, there isa huge delta between the mean
and the median.
So if you look at the guide inthe where new clients come from
section, you'll see that themedian gym is only getting
somewhere in the neighborhood of10 to 20 leads per month.
(01:30):
And the mean gym is gettingsomewhere in the neighborhood of
30 to 50 a month.
And so what that tells me is wehave the far end of the curve
of the people who are runningpaid ads, maybe in urban
markets.
Like I was interviewing a gymowner this week where they said
their their absolute minimum tomaintain their current size was
(01:52):
500 leads a month.
So they're in San Francisco,but and now is with a 5% monthly
churn rate.
And so, which is which is onthe better side for a big
transient urban area like that.
So I can tell you from myexperience as a gym owner in New
York City, we were gunning forwe averaged 10% monthly churn a
(02:16):
month.
And I know that probably makesuh the hair on your arm go up
with anger, Chris.
Uh, but where we were locatedwas this area where people would
go live for two years and go tothe bars and stuff, and then
they'd go start real life.
And we were hoping for youknow, 93% uh monthly retention
was was our target at the time.
(02:36):
But if you think about it, ifyou're uh we were a group
training gym around 250 members,90 90% retention, that means
I'm losing 25 people a month,right?
And so I gotta get 25 people inthe door just to say the same
size.
And so that's why you see thatthat huge disconnect.
And and what that tells me issome people are still grinding
(02:59):
it out with ads, they're they'remaking it work, they're getting
the leads in the door, they'reunderstanding the math and
making that money up on the backend.
But based off of the amount ofpeople who took the survey and
the discrepancy in the median,it sounds like the average, it's
like middle of the pack.
You know, when we say average,sometimes we we do mean, median,
but like I'm saying the middleof the pack, the the median,
(03:21):
they're not, and and they got tomake do with an incredibly
small amount of leads, right?
Like if you're the big groupgym where you got 13 coming in
the door and you're hoveringaround a hundred members and you
have five percent churn, right?
So you got a hundred members,five percent churn.
So five of them leave everysingle month, and you only have
13 leads that you have toreplace those five just to stay
(03:43):
the same size.
Like, you got a lot of work todo.
You got to be aggressive withyour lead nurture.
Uh, you really got to squeezethe juice out of every one of
these leads because that is umthat is not a lot of wiggle
room.
There is not a lot of room forfailure there.
Chris (03:59):
I I can remember a couple of years ago talking to, I
think it was Ben Bergeron sayingthat you know they had a they
had a small churn rate, but theyhad 300 members.
And so every month they had touh get 30 new members in the
door.
That's like a new member everyday.
And what we're gonna look atnext is like how many of those
leads actually become members?
Because it's not just a matterof getting 30 leads, you know,
(04:20):
in a lot of cases, you need fivetimes as many leads as clients
um that you're getting becauseour lead nurture is not that
great.
So, in in that case, he wouldhave had to get like 150 to 180
leads a month just to stay thesame.
I that's wild, but but I thinklet's go to that section, John.
If you're cool with that, maybewe'll go to that lead nurture
section.
I mean, let's rip the ripleads.
John (04:42):
We can rip down the funnel.
We can rip down the funnel.
So let's talk, let's talk bigbig group, right?
Because that's gonna be the thebiggest chunk just based off of
it's just gonna be the biggestdata set based off of you know
the providers.
Okay, and so we got 13 is themedian for leads, right?
And so of the 13, uh, sevenbook an appointment.
(05:04):
And then of the seven, this isall self-reported, five are
closing, right?
Okay, so if we have sevendivided by 13, that means about
50% of leads that are coming infor the average gym are booking
a call, which is which is wouldbe phenomenal if that was paid
(05:29):
traffic.
Yeah, but when you have th if Ihear a gym owner has 13 leads,
I'm assuming that's pretty warm.
You know, someone went in,yeah, somebody saw, maybe, maybe
somebody knows your members,like that.
That's lay, you know, at thatnumber, it's likely those are
layup leads.
So we got half there.
And then if we have five buyingout of seven appointments,
(05:51):
that's about a 70-ish percentclose rate.
So which is also very good.
It's not bad.
But again, it we we we need itto know other variables, right?
We need to know if they'reselling something for $90 or
they're selling something for$2,000, right?
That's gonna, you know, if I'mselling a $5,000 front-end
(06:14):
package and I have a 70% closerate, that's amazing.
If I'm selling a no on rampmonthly membership, $99
unlimited class, like that's notas amazing.
So, you know, you got to takeall this with a grain of salt,
but but yeah, like I thosenumbers are trending in the
right direction.
But the reality is you have toget more like that's because gym
(06:37):
owners have had to get better,right?
Like I was uh, you know, youyou predated me a little bit,
but my first gym opened end of2012, early 2013, and I got to
ride that CrossFit trend up,which was amazing, just going on
that that rocket ship.
And when I uh opened my firstgym, I had a marketing budget of
(06:59):
a couple thousand dollars, andI got 5,000 leads on my email
list for a couple thousanddollars to do my presale with.
And I thought I was a genius,right?
But then when I did the exactsame pre-sale, the exact same
ads on a triple the budget in adifferent gym in a different
area four years later, I gotlike 20.
And and and that was in anenvironment that is better than
(07:22):
it is now, right?
Yeah, like like it's harder todo that.
If I ran that same campaigntoday, who knows?
Maybe I may get a handful.
You know what I mean?
And and so by default, some ofthese things that were insane at
the time, like call.
I I heard this uh talking tosomeone yesterday.
They said, uh, John, what's theheaviest weight in the gym?
(07:42):
Do you know the answer, Chris?
Chris (07:45):
Is this gonna be a metaphor?
Is it is it like the it is ametaphor?
Okay, no, I can't wait to hearit.
John (07:52):
The heaviest weight in the gym is the phone.
Nah, it's true.
Good one.
Uh I love it.
I I don't know who to givecredit to, but whoever told me
that, that's hilarious.
And I agree.
But like, you know, if we wouldhave done a survey in 20, we
weren't doing this in 2015, butit, you know, if we would have
done a survey, like whatpercentage of gyms are calling
(08:14):
their leads in 2015, like whatit what is that number?
I you know, I I yeah, I don'tknow.
It was it was an insane ideathat someone would come in and
you would like call them on thephone, where now it it's down to
you know under a quarter of thegym owners are never calling
their leads, which is which isbad.
It's a it is horrific, but youknow, it's still you know, we're
(08:36):
trending in the right directionout of necessity because you
just have to do so much morewith so fewer leads.
Chris (08:43):
I can give you an N equals one on experience in 2015
because I was traveling everysingle month for CrossFit,
working for the journal backthen, and I had a Chris at
CrossFit.com.
That was my email address.
Like there's no warmer drop-inlead than that.
And every time I'd go to adifferent town, I would call six
or seven gyms.
I would call every single onethat I could find in the first
(09:03):
page search listing, knowingthat maybe one would get back in
time for me to actually drop inwithin the next 48 hours.
Which is crazy to think about.
Yeah, it's crazy.
John (09:13):
All right.
15% leads.
Chris (09:18):
Yeah.
Especially because I'm showingup with cameras.
Like you're gonna be CrossFitfamous, but yeah, sorry, go on.
John (09:24):
CrossFit famous.
So yeah, it it so it's about15% that never call, and then
about another 10 or 11, say sameweek.
And I have a sneaking suspicionthat that is uh bucketed at
never call.
So that's why I say that 25%number because I'm kind of
bummed.
You know, if you're callingsomeone a week later, we might
as well not call them at all,you know.
(09:45):
Right.
Chris (09:49):
So if you're following along in the State of the
Industry Guide, we are now onpage 23 and we're talking about,
you know, lead response time.
The thing is, what upsets meabout this and is so
frustrating, is because thesepeople have raised their hand.
They say, I need help, youknow, I'm in the water, I'm
flailing around here, andthey're counting on you to take
(10:09):
the next step and to you knowgrasp their hand and say, I'm
here, I got you.
And most gyms are just notdoing that because they think
that they're doing somethingslimy.
When the reality is, you know,this is the first act of
coaching, is is grabbing theirhand and saying, Come and meet
me at the gym.
John (10:27):
Yeah.
And uh I I love that that thingthat you say that you know,
coaching starts during the thesales process.
But you know, you you speak touh you probably have your PhD
from the School of Hard Knocksin gym owner psychology.
Uh what is it about, you know,someone puts their information
in saying they're interested intheir business.
(10:48):
Why, why are so many gym ownersreticent to see that as like a
you know a an immediate fire,someone they need, you know,
someone that they can helpimmediately.
Like, why is there so muchdelay, so much reticence to to
call and get that person intothe gym?
Chris (11:04):
Well, I mean, that's a that's a complicated question,
but the reality is that most ofus, when we start a gym, we're
first-time entrepreneurs.
And so all of our purchasingand sales experience is from the
the consumer side, where youknow, we're used to getting
those phone calls that we don'twant.
We, you know, we've had the thepeople calling us at dinner
time and us hanging up, andwe've seen the Seinfeld episode
about it, and we feel like nowwe're on the other side of that.
(11:26):
But the reality is that peopleare asking for help if they're
on your website if it's 10 p.m.
and they're filling out yourform, it's because they've
reached a low point of likingthemselves and they need you to
step in and get over your owninternal BS.
This is very hard foreverybody.
Like my sales pitch used tostart with, I'm not good at
sales or I'm not a salesman, butand um finally this woman named
(11:51):
Melanie was like, Well, whydon't you just tell me the
price?
And I started to realize, like,oh, wait, I'm doing people a
disservice by not telling themthe price, by not coaching them,
by not being inviting andsaying, Are you ready to start
now?
John (12:06):
That was uh yeah, the the original two-brain business
sales call would be you hop on aZoom call with Chris Cooper and
then he'd pull up your websiteand tell you to what was wrong
with the website, and then hewouldn't ask you to buy.
Chris (12:18):
I would tell you 10 things to do, and then not tell
you the right thing to do, whichwas like get a mentor.
Dumb.
John (12:25):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, uh we fixed that.
If you want to see that, youcan go to two brainbusiness.com
and book yourself a call and youcan see what the new process
looks like and see if you likeit better.
But uh uh yeah, we we we'vedone some work there.
You want to talk aboutseasonality a little bit?
Chris (12:40):
Yeah, I do think that's really important, especially
right now.
John (12:43):
Cool.
So the data reflects whateverybody there what everybody
knows that January is a verybusy month.
One thing that I think is worthmentioning is for coaching gyms
specifically, kilo and twobrain works less with access
gyms, so I just have lessinsight into data there.
(13:05):
So you know, I'm trying tospeak from what I can see behind
the scenes out.
But one tip for you gym ownersat home is I think one of the
most underprepared forseasonality swings is that back
to school rush.
Like our data shows that insome markets it's even larger
than the January rush.
And so we know like there is asummer slowdown, and it's kind
(13:28):
of this like slow bleed overthree months.
And then when everybody getsinto back to school mode, that's
when it starts picking up.
So that's why you see in thereported data that most leads
come in that August time frame,and that's because the kids are
back in school, people arethinking about routines, parents
are feeling a little feelingthe the lake house, uh the the
(13:49):
bud lights, uh, you know,packing on a little weight
there.
And that's a great opportunityfor running promotional
marketing.
And when I say promotion, thatdoesn't necessarily have to be a
discount.
There are plenty of things thatyou can do to draw up demand,
but that is something where whenyou are sitting down next month
to do your annual plan, youwant to make sure that you have
(14:12):
solid marketing in place forthat August rush.
And then again, obviously theone everybody knows that New
Year's rush.
But what's funny is you see thefewest leads and fewest
appointments are now.
That November, December timeframe is is rough, right?
Everybody's in holiday mode,nobody wants to start a gym when
(14:33):
you know you're gonna take aweek off for Thanksgiving,
you're gonna take two weeks offfor Christmas.
So the secondary piece of thatis like uh, you know, I talked
about setting up your marketingplan, I talked about annual
planning.
If you're not doing that, nowis an excellent time to do so
because if I had to guess,you're not uh your phone's not
ringing off the hook based offof what the data say.
Chris (14:55):
What I find really interesting about this, and
we're on page 27 of the state ofthe industry guide, you can get
it at two brainbusiness.comforward slash data.
What I find interesting here isthat while August is
historically like one of theworst months in the industry,
it's also the month when you'vegot most leads.
So what you know, people arenot coming to the gym to work
out, but they're settingthemselves up to work out in
(15:16):
September.
And you kind of see the samething happening in November,
too.
So what I had to learn fromthis, and this, you know, it was
August when I nearly wentbankrupt back in 2008, was you
got to plan in advance for thesemonths.
You know August is gonna beslow, you know September is
gonna be better, you knowDecember is gonna be slow, but
you know January is gonna bebetter.
The best thing that I ever didwas think a year in advance and
(15:39):
say, okay, how do I stop nextAugust from being just like
this?
Because I'll never make itthrough August again.
And so what I would do is Iwould have a competition in
September and I would reallytarget like um sports teams in
August because they're gettingready to go back on the ice or
bask on the back on the court inSeptember.
Same thing in December.
I would pre-sell my on-rampsfor January, save a space, or I
(16:02):
would have a really great likemarketing email that's like top
gifts for CrossFitters, buyhere, you know.
So you hammer your retailpre-sales, you hammer your
pre-sales of like on-ramp andyour packages of personal
training or whatever, and youtry and boost your revenue in
December because in Januaryyou're gonna be busy and you're
not gonna have time to doretail, you're not gonna have
time to, right?
(16:22):
You've got so many peoplecoming in naturally.
So the key is just like knowingthat this stuff's gonna happen
in advance and preparing for it.
And you don't have to gothrough it like I did and you
did.
You can look at the data inthis guide and say, Oh shit,
August might be bad unless Ihave a plan and plan for it
right now with a mentor.
John (16:40):
It's also a great opportunity to practice your
objection handling.
So if you are somebody who'ssitting in consultations, you're
having these uh sales meetings,people are referring people in,
uh, you should be able to givethem a great reason as to why
they shouldn't put off theirfitness through the holidays.
Or if they are gonna put offtheir fitness through the
(17:01):
holidays, you should have sometype of mechanism by which you
can uh you know get them startedor sign them up in November or
December and have them get goingin January.
And again, that is somethingthat uh is best served with a
marketing mentor or a salesmentor who can walk you through
uh the tricks of the trade, soto speak.
Chris (17:22):
I think you know, if you're putting yourself in the
shoes of your client, okay, sothey you run a coaching
business, it's more expensivethan a normal gym.
They're thinking about theirbudget with the holidays coming
up and what they're gonna buyfor everybody they care about.
But everybody that they careabout is thinking about what to
buy them and they have no idea.
So if you write an email, makea blog post, and it's like, what
(17:43):
to buy your fitness fanaticfamily member for Christmas, and
you link like, here's how youpay for a month of their service
at my gym, here's how you buythem the shoes, whatever.
Like, that's that's where youcapture revenue from at this
type of year.
It's not your clients becausethey're spending revenue other
places income other places, it'stheir friends who are trying to
(18:05):
spend money on them.
So, John, I I would becauseyou're so good at this, man.
I'd love to put you on the spothere.
And I want to um maybe runthrough an NSI and I'm gonna
give you the timing objection sothat we can show people how you
would handle that.
Is that cool?
John (18:20):
Let's do it.
Chris (18:21):
Okay, man.
So I'm the client.
John is the gym owner.
I'm sitting in front of him.
It is today, November the 21st.
And I I want to join a gym, butman, like I'm starting to think
maybe now's not the right time.
Go ahead, John.
John (18:35):
Well, hold on.
Let's uh let's uh let's startfrom the beginning here.
So yeah, you know, I I've justuh I've just presented you with
uh the pricing of my package,Chris.
Yeah, and what are you gonnawhat are you gonna say?
Are you are you telling me, youknow, it it costs six hundred
dollars for our 12-weekwhatever?
How does that sound, Chris?
Chris (18:57):
It sounds good.
Uh what I might do is put itoff till January.
You know, I got Thanksgivingand then Christmas coming up,
and I'm just thinking, like, amI really gonna be able to stick
to this?
You know, I we've got someholiday parties and stuff.
I I don't know, I might waittill January.
John (19:14):
I totally get that.
Uh your timing's important,Chris.
But just so I understand, we'regood on the pricing.
It's just a timing issue foryou.
Chris (19:22):
Yeah, I mean, obviously budgets get tighter this time of
year, too, but I I could swingthat.
It's just I'm worried about thetiming, really.
John (19:30):
And you told me your goals were you wanted to lose an
extra 10 pounds by springtime,uh, you know, because hockey's
over then, and that's when youyou take your shirt off in
Canada.
In addition to that, you saidyou want to feel better, have
more energy with the kids.
Chris (19:46):
Is that right?
Yeah, yeah.
Like I by 5 p.m.
when the kids get home, I amabsolutely drained.
I don't want to do stuff in theevenings, you know, it's
driving my wife crazy.
And I just kind of like, youknow, I wake up feeling tired in
the mornings.
Like, I gotta get over this.
John (20:03):
And if like we wait until January, we go from November,
December, you're not workingout.
You said you're gonna be goingto a lot of holiday parties.
Do you think we're gonna becloser to that goal or farther
away?
Chris (20:15):
Well, actually, when you spell it out like that, it it's
actually it feels like we'recutting my time in half that I
can get this done if I missNovember, December, and start,
you know, second week ofJanuary.
So yeah, I I don't know, man.
Maybe uh maybe I should justget started right now.
I mean, can you kind of workwith my schedule a little bit if
I already know in advance thedays that I'm not gonna be able
(20:36):
to come to the gym?
John (20:37):
Yeah, so we talked about coming in three times a week,
and I understand that that ispretty aggressive because you
know, you got the holidayparties that you mentioned, you
got family in town, but we cando something where maybe for the
next six weeks, we'll do twotimes a week instead of three
times a week, and that'llactually save you a little bit
of money because I know you yougotta buy holiday presents for
(20:58):
the kids.
Uh, and then we can start withthat 12-week challenge program
comes January, but we alreadyhave that routine in place, the
ball is running, and we're notstarting from scratch or even
behind where we are today.
What do you think about that,Chris?
Chris (21:10):
Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense.
I I feel I feel calmer about itnow.
Like, in fact, I think coachingis gonna help me even more.
Because if I was trying to dothis on my own over the next six
weeks, I would fail.
John (21:23):
Cool.
Let's get the credit card.
Chris (21:25):
Okay.
John (21:25):
Uh, so yeah, I I would I would just, hey, what's the pain
point?
Where they are, just frame itlike, are you gonna be closer to
the goal or farther away?
Obviously, it'll be fartheraway.
I would down sell to somethinglike you know, if it's like a I
can't come in three or fourtimes a week, I'd try and do two
or even one, depending on whatit is you're selling on the
front end.
(21:46):
I'm assuming most gym ownerslistening are gonna be selling
something in the you know six totwelve week range.
And then if you gave me sometype of objection on the hey, I
absolutely can't start, I can'tdo two times a week.
It's a week off, a week on,something like that.
I would either downsell to likea pack, you know, if that's
(22:07):
something a gym owner offers.
So, hey, let's let's buy 10sessions.
And if you got to take a weekoff here, a week off here, at
least we can burn through thoseand get going.
And then if you told me nothere, it would be something
along the lines of, well, whydon't we, you know, make the
commitment today?
Because if it's somethingyou're guaranteeing you're gonna
start, let's make thecommitment today and we'll start
the ship in January.
So I would just keep goingdown, keep going down and trying
(22:29):
to chip away at thoseobjections until we got
something that was right foreach of us.
Chris (22:34):
Okay.
Can I just point something outfor the listener that John did
there too naturally?
So I I kind of voiced, well,maybe, and then he sat there and
waited, and he waited for me tosay the next thing.
Sometimes, uh, if you're notused to sales, you kind of feel
like it's this talking race, andyou have to fill the silence
(22:55):
and you have to say the nextthing, and you wind up
over-explaining and complicatingthings and adding variables and
options that paralyze people.
John just waited for me to stepacross the line on my own.
John, can we could we do thatagain with a price objection?
Like I think a lot of listenersare gonna hear the timing
objection and the priceobjection too.
Can we do one more?
John (23:14):
A double?
So I can't, I I can't do thepri okay.
So let's assume, you know, whatis it?
What do you think the averageJim or listening to the show?
What are they what are theytrying to sell?
They're trying to give me whatit what did I just pitch you?
Because that'll that'll that'lldepend how I handle the price
objection.
Chris (23:32):
Yeah, hopefully they're selling an on-ramp program
that's gonna last, you know, twoto three weeks and cost four to
five hundred dollars.
And it's one-on-one training,and um that's the starting
point.
John (23:44):
Okay, okay, and I don't really have a downsell in that
situation, so I just gotta Ijust got we just gotta hammer
through.
Chris (23:53):
Yeah, I mean okay, yeah, let's see what happens here.
So, guys, if you're listening,I'm really putting John on the
spot here.
But he had no forewarning thatwe were gonna do this.
He's just good at it.
And it's you know, reps, butalso mentorship that makes him
good at it.
So I'm sitting in front of him.
John is at my gym catalyst, andhe's trying to get me to sign
up for on-ramp.
John (24:15):
Okay.
So the program, Chris, that'sgonna be six hundred dollars for
the on-ramp and the first monthof membership.
How does that sound to you?
Chris (24:27):
Well, it's I mean, it sounds good.
Like the way that you've laidit out, I see how it's gonna
work.
I'm a little bit worried aboutho holiday bills right now, to
be honest.
You know, we're just coming upon um Thanksgiving, and then
I've got Christmas.
There's only like two more payperiods until Christmas, and you
know, I I tend to overspendevery year.
So I might I might want to waittill January, get my you know,
(24:51):
my bills paid, and then start.
John (24:54):
I totally understand.
I got uh three kids of my own.
Uh my youngest wants an e-bikeand uh money's tight this time
of year.
But when you say it's you knowexpensive, or if you're saying,
you know, money's tight, is itsomething where you just don't
have the cash to pay for thisnow?
Or is it something else?
(25:15):
Is it you don't think theprogram's gonna get you to the
goal of you know uh losing 10pounds and having a little more
energy to play with your kids inthe spring?
Chris (25:23):
No, I feel like the program will work.
I'm a little bit worried thatif I spend the money now, I'm
not gonna have it for gifts nextweek.
John (25:31):
So to be clear, you feel like we're gonna be able to get
you to your stated goal.
Chris (25:37):
Yeah.
John (25:38):
And so the issue is we can just work out this payment,
you're committed to starting.
Chris (25:45):
Yeah, I mean, if we can make the payment work, I would
start sooner.
John (25:49):
Okay.
So, you know, I mentioned itwas 600 for the program.
Is it something where if we did300 today and 300 four weeks
from now, you would be able toget started?
Chris (26:01):
Um, maybe.
You know, it's still highenough that I would want to talk
to my wife about it.
John (26:08):
Well, you told me earlier that you were really focused on
losing those 10 pounds and thatyou went into your checkup and
the doctor said, Hey, you know,that blood pressure is looking a
little high, you gotta fix it.
Is that the most importantthing in your life right now?
Is that you know, you came hereand you sounded really
committed to changing it becauseyou said you wanted to be
around for your children, youwanted to, you know, get that
(26:29):
green light from your doctor,you want to coach hockey for the
next 40 years.
Are you still serious aboutmaking that change?
Chris (26:37):
Yeah, in fact, you know, talking to my wife last night,
like we she knows how importantthis is to me.
So maybe what I could do istell other family members like,
you know, don't buy me a gift.
This is what I want to doinstead.
John (26:56):
Yeah, and and that's definitely something we could
do.
I mean, the the question yougotta ask yourself is is solving
this problem, is getting thatblood pressure down, losing the
10 pounds, is that worth $100 aweek to you?
Chris (27:09):
Definitely.
John (27:09):
Yeah.
Then even though it's adifficult time, is this
something you know we can getgoing today?
Chris (27:17):
Yeah, yeah, I think so.
I think we should start nextweek and and she and I'll work
it out as soon as I get home.
John (27:24):
Probably wouldn't have gone that well, but you know, I
I appreciate the layup.
You thought you were gonna giveme a harder run around there?
Chris (27:30):
No, no, that's great, John.
That was great, yeah.
And you know, it's it's funny,like as I'm going through that
as the client, the answer justappears to me.
But if if I were sitting inyour seat, I would have thought,
oh, the client's not gonnathink of this, tell their family
to pay for it for Christmas.
And if I had said that, theclient would have been like,
nah, I don't know, but becauseit was the client's idea,
(27:51):
they're immediately bought intoit.
So cool.
John (27:55):
Yeah, I mean, I'll I'll just try and ask questions,
right?
Like that that's that's thegame.
And so, you know, there arereally only like four or five
different objections, and youcan train for every single one.
Chris (28:09):
Yep.
John (28:09):
And the idea is making sure that the thing that they're
telling you is actually theissue, right?
Yeah, so you can see in bothcases it was like uh for the
money one, it's like do youthink you're gonna get the
result?
And so I wanted to make sureit's not like uh you're not
feeling a hundred percentcertain that the program is
(28:31):
gonna get you what you'relooking to do.
And so once we have that out ofthe way, it's just tackling the
pricing.
So can we do split pay?
Can we downsell into adifferent thing?
Can we, you know, reprior, likecan we help break any mental
barriers that make you thinkthat, you know, this is too
expensive?
And you know, it's like theprice is gonna be the same when
(28:51):
you start next time, and thoseholiday presents are already,
they gotta get paid for eitherway.
Um, you know, it's just makingsure that you get them over the
line there.
Or, you know, same thing on thetiming thing.
The the first thing I asked youis, hey, is this gonna get you
to your goal of losing 10pounds?
It's just a timing thing, andyou said yes.
And so then it just becomes amatter of time, and then it just
(29:13):
becomes an issue of okay, canyou come in less?
Do we do a class pack if you'redoing a week on, week off?
You know, it's just you you youbreak it down to one thing
where you get stuck in a cornerthere is if you're trying to
tackle like three or fourdifferent objections at the same
time, and you notice youbrought your like spouse thing
in in the middle there, and Ijust kind of ignored it.
(29:35):
Yeah, you know, you you triedto get it going on another
objection, and so you know, ifyou would have kept saying that,
you know, we would have had topivot and address that, but you
know, I I just kind of didn'thear that and was like, Well,
what if we did this?
And so, you know, I I just wantto stay focused on the one
thing we're dealing with at thetime, handle that objection,
then we can move on to a nextone if uh it presents itself.
Chris (29:57):
Okay, that's great, man.
Thank you, and and thanks for.
Playing along, like uh I knowthat was a surprise.
What I'd like to talk aboutnow, I think really ties into
the sales process, and that'sARM.
So if you're following, I'mlooking at page 30 of the state
of the industry guide.
Again, you can get it for free,twobrainbusiness.com forward
slash data.
And the number one challengewith gyms right now is that the
(30:18):
average revenue per member thatthey're getting is too low.
They think they're going to get300 members.
So, you know, if some of themonly pay me 100 bucks, who
cares?
I'll make it up in volume.
We know the reality isdifferent.
The average gym has 129members, and they need to make
it up with the members that theyhave.
So I'm looking at the ARMnumbers, and it's, you know, the
average revenue per member lastyear was $158.54.
(30:41):
That's coming up, but it'sstill too low.
Is part of that our lack ofsales skills, John, or is it
coming from somewhere else?
John (30:51):
No, or maybe, but uh I think a lot of it is projecting
the gym like gym ownersprojecting their budget on their
clients.
Chris (31:02):
What do you mean by that?
John (31:04):
So if something like okay, there's an example of uh with
someone within the two-brainprogram now, yeah, where they're
in a major urban market andtheir mentor is trying to get
them to charge $85 an hour forpersonal training, which is
(31:24):
under market rate.
And the clients think that isinsane.
The quote was something alongthe lines of a CEO of a major
company wouldn't pay that.
Chris (31:36):
Yeah, the gym owner thinks that's insane, right?
John (31:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and you know, the mentorand everyone within TwoBrain
who's been doing this for awhile, like clearly understands
that you know, if you aresomeone who's worth tens of
millions of dollars or a highincome earner, you know, you're
willing to pay extra to ensureyou get the results that you're
after, right?
(31:58):
Like if you are the CEO of apublic company, saving $15 for
an hour of personal training isway less important than getting
the best personal training,right?
Yeah, you're willing to pay forthat premium service.
But I think there's somethingin the gym owner's mind where if
$85 sounds very expensive tothem, it probably sounds very
(32:19):
expensive to their clients.
And so I think there is a lotof that in our world, right?
Where you know, we can talkabout what gym owners make
later, but you know, since we'vebeen doing this guide, it's
hovered somewhere in theneighborhood of $35,000 to
$50,000.
And so uh, you know, paying$100 an hour for anything when
(32:39):
you're when you're bringing homethat amount of money is tricky.
But, you know, if you thinkabout it and you're you know
selling to a doctor, selling toa lawyer who makes 10 times that
amount, you know, paying $85 anhour for someone like that is
the equivalent of the gym ownerpaying $8.50 for something.
(33:02):
Because if their income's 10times more, like the the service
when anchored based off theincome is you know 10 times
cheaper for them than it wouldbe for the gym owner.
And so, you know, if you askeda gym owner, would you pay $8.50
for I don't know, any type ofservice, like they're they're
likely going to be like, yeah,you know, it's easy to I can
(33:24):
afford it.
And same thing for you know, adoctor is making $500,000 a
year, paying $85 an hour,especially when you're time
strapped and starved, to makesure that you're getting
excellent training, someonelooking over you and a really
personalized service that worksaround your schedule.
Like that's a no-brainer.
And so I think there's a lot ofthat.
And then the secondary piecethere is there's a lot of like a
(33:48):
lot of gym owners set pricingby looking at what the cheapest
gym in charge, like the cheapestgym charges, and then like the
most expensive gym and trying toput it somewhere in the middle.
Or if they're a new gym owner,they're just gonna put it, you
know, five dollars under thecheapest gym, thinking that like
because they're the cheapest,naturally everyone's gonna go to
them.
But the reality is people pay apremium for quality.
(34:11):
And so if you are someone whowants to sell small group
personal training, if you'resomeone who wants to sell
one-on-one training, you need tounderstand that price is not
the most important thing,especially when you look at the
numbers you need to make thatbusiness work.
You know, you can make $100,000a year as a gym owner with 50
101 clients, you can make$100,000 a year small group
(34:33):
personal training with a hundredsmall group training clients.
So you don't need a ton ofpeople.
Something that you wrote aboutin one of your books, I can't
keep track of which one, uh, wasyou know, you were you were
personal training during the08-09 financial crisis.
Yeah, and it was somethingalong the lines of like, even
(34:55):
though most of the town wasstruggling, you know, the
doctors and lawyers were stillshowing up and still paying for
their personal training, despitewhat the economy was doing.
And, you know, as we'rerecording this, it's Friday,
November 21st.
The stock market's in themiddle of a pullback.
How how far back it goes, whoknows?
But that's that's something youneed to be thinking about.
(35:16):
You need to remember the factthat if you want to, if you want
to do well in this business, wealready talked about how the
average gym doesn't get a lot ofleads.
And if you go look at the data,it doesn't change much between
a personal training, a smallgroup, or a big group gym.
Like at the top of the funnel,every one of those gyms is
(35:38):
getting a relatively similaramount of leads.
As you go down the funnel aswell, the same amount, like a
very similar amount of leadsshow up and a very similar
amount of leads buy.
But if the small group personaltraining gym is selling
something for $600 a month andyou're selling something as a
big group training gym for $150a month, like there's a huge gap
(36:00):
there, especially if you'regetting the same amount of leads
and the same amount of sales,right?
You need to be more efficientwith the at bats that you are
getting, unless you're somebodywho, you know, is following the
four funnels that TwoBrainPreaches.
You still have a way to makeads work.
If you're one of these gymswho, you know, you're struggling
to keep the lights on, you yougot you got $10,000 to $15,000
(36:23):
of revenue, and after all thebills are paid, you know, you're
you're you're taking homeminimum wage.
You got to ask yourself like,is it the model?
Is it the pricing?
Can I be more efficient withthese at bats that I'm getting?
Because the way a lot of gymowners think, it's like, oh, if
I can just get more bodies inthe door, I can close them, or
if I can just get the gym from100 members to 200 members, like
(36:43):
I'll be, I'll be raking it in.
But the reality is, like, a lotof gyms can hit their goals
with the amount of members theyhave if they just adjusted the
service and the pricing toreflect the value that they're
delivering.
Chris (36:57):
I think there's a really great lesson there, man.
Thank you.
You know, in in times ofeconomic crisis, what happens is
people actually spend less ongroceries, but supplement
purchases go up.
And the the woman that saidthis to me back in 2008,
Jennifer, I love her dearly,still see her in the cafe
sometimes.
She said, Chris, you know, assoon as this financial crisis
hits, you're done, buddy.
(37:18):
You're done.
Nobody goes to the gym anymore.
I'll see you on Monday.
And what she was missing thereis like, yeah, people do cancel
gym memberships during financialchallenges, but nobody cancels
personal training.
And it's partially becausethose people are less affected
by the financial challenges andpartially because, you know,
(37:38):
it's like they're paying for apremium service, they see more
value in it.
When I was trying to sellpersonal training back then, um,
I couldn't afford a personaltrainer.
But as soon as I could affordit, that was the first thing
that I invested in was morepersonalized coaching.
And I think you'll find thesame thing with a lot of like
smart professionals, they wantpersonalization, customization,
(37:59):
human touch, even more now inthe age of AI.
So what the point John made isso important here.
Like, if you if you comparewhat people are charging and
what their close rates are, evenif you look like what what's
the ads for personal trainingversus CrossFit or Metabolic?
They're the same ads, it's thesame people coming in.
(38:21):
It's just, you know, one personis better at closing at a $600
than you are at $120.
That's all it is.
John (38:29):
Can I share my screen?
Are we allowed to do that onthe Run a Profitable Gym
podcast?
So yeah, so let's pull up theguide here, right?
To kind of put numbers to whatI'm speaking about.
So if you are a big group gymbased off the survey, you're
getting five new clients amonth.
If you're a small grouppersonal training gym, you're
getting four.
And if you're a one-on-one gym,three.
(38:50):
So you know it is less as youmove up the model, but then we
go down three or four pageshere.
Oh, this is a nice kilo ad.
We go down three or four pageshere to talk about what gyms are
charging, and let's go findwhat the most expensive
membership is.
Did I scroll past it, Chris?
Chris (39:11):
Um, I'm looking at page 30, ARM.
John (39:17):
All right, this is the median membership that I want.
This page.
Okay.
Chris (39:22):
Oh, we got you.
John (39:23):
I'm on page 32.
What gyms are charging?
So this is median monthly pricefor most expensive membership
or service package.
So let's run some numbers here,right?
We said the average big groupgym gets five new clients.
And if the most expensivepackage is $175 a month, that is
(39:43):
$875 in added monthly revenue.
So five new members at $175.
Perfect.
Now that's assuming everybody'sbuying the most expensive
thing, which they aren't, butyou know, bear with me, guys.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Yeah.
John (39:57):
Now we said four small group changing gets four new
members, and let's and then theaverage, let's see, $399 per
membership.
That is almost sixteen hundreddollars in revenue per month
added.
So that's double what a largegroup training gym is taking
home.
(40:17):
So five times 175 versus fourat 399, like on the same amount
of leads, same amount of effort.
Actually, it's less becauseyou're doing less appointments.
A small group training gym isbringing in $1,600 in monthly
recurring.
And then we go down to thepersonal training where they had
what did the what do we saythere?
Three and then three times$900, that's $2,700 a month.
(40:40):
So that's almost double whatthe small group training gym is
bringing home.
And so you can see how pricingis an incredibly important
variable when it comes to howmuch money you take home as a
gym owner.
If you are able to set, and andthe crazy thing is, if you can
sell stuff for $200 a month, youcan sell stuff for $900 a
(41:03):
month.
It's honestly not thatdifferent of a process, it is
not that different of a salesconversation.
And so I'm not tellingeverybody to go out and become a
one-on-one training gym.
That's not the message here.
But to go back to where westarted, how uh the the point
is, you know, if leads arerelatively constant, going down
(41:24):
the funnel is relativelyconstant, regardless of model,
pricing is an incrediblevariable and probably one of the
most important ones when itcomes to you know setting up
your business model and makingsure that you have a viable gym
that can pay you a fair wage fora long period of time.
Because I, you know, one of thebiggest problems that we see is
(41:44):
is just people getting out ofthe game.
Like, I don't know how many10-year affiliates are left,
Chris.
I I have no clue.
Chris (41:51):
Well, a couple of my friends, they actually went out
looking for them at the CrossFitGames and the Rogue
Invitational.
And what they found is thatthere are extremely few, and the
ones who remain who are morethan 10 years along, have
usually been through two orthree different owners.
So I I visited, you know, Billand Stacy Russell in Cleveland
last weekend.
They are an actual 17 or 18year affiliate, single owner
(42:13):
that whole time.
That's extremely rare.
John (42:16):
We um, I mean, we have we went down and we uh we have this
in the uh state of theindustry.
Yeah, but I will go dig for it.
Okay, here we go.
Chris (42:27):
You know, what's interesting about the numbers
John just showed is it's quiteoften the same people signing up
for personal training orsigning up for group training,
depending on what's offeredthem, they don't know when they
come in.
Like all they know is you're acoaching gym.
They don't know if you're gonnasay one-on-one is the best or
whatever.
So that means they really don'thave any idea what the pricing
is going to be.
And yes, there are some peoplewho know about group training
(42:49):
and they're only gonna wantgroup training, but there are
also people who don't want to dogroup training.
And if you don't have aone-on-one option, like they're
gone.
John (42:57):
Yeah, I'm someone who likes training in a one-on-one
environment.
I'm a weirdo, but like I wouldI would prefer to go to a gym
and have a personal trainer.
I just have like a history ofinjury and and I like that, but
like I want to go to a traininggym with a cool environment,
like I don't want to work out ina big globo gym.
And so if a gym near me doesn'toffer that, like I'm
(43:18):
disqualified like as a client.
And it is not unusual forpeople to be like me and prefer
that.
Like my partner Mateo at Kilo,same thing down the street.
He goes to uh he goes and getspersonal training at uh the
local gym down the street.
And and we're gym owners, likewe are both ex-gym owners.
Like we we can write a program,we can, we can, we can do it
(43:39):
ourselves if we wanted to, butwe just prefer like you know,
when I'm busy and stressed andthinking about a million things,
like to have somebody else beresponsible for thinking about
my fitness and not injuringmyself and telling me to back
down or push harder, like that'sworth a lot.
And I think that that like youknow, as people, some of the
(43:59):
data you know, I I know you dida couple podcasts with like uh
the younger, the the youthsbeing the trending demo, yeah.
But now my generation, themillennials, we're we're getting
a little older, our backs arefeeling our backs, our knees,
our shoulders are getting alittle tight, we're getting a
little jingle in our pocket.
And so, you know, we're we'redefinitely that next prime
candidate for small group or orpersonal training.
(44:22):
I do think even if you are agym that is primarily group,
which a lot of the surveyrespondents are, you should
offer that.
Like it just makes sense.
It just allows you to, it justallows you to serve a broader
clientele and allows you tocharge a higher price point for
a percentage of the membershipsand allows you to get to a point
where you can take a good wagefrom your gym.
(44:43):
Like I keep going back to thatpoint.
So much of TwoBrain's missionis making entrepreneurship,
making gym ownership asustainable career.
And to Chris's point, and youknow, it hasn't been, you know,
it's very clear if I think ofthe people who were operating
gyms when I was when I started,you know, 12, 13 years ago,
(45:06):
they're very I can count on onehand from my initial friend
group how many of them still owna gym.
And that's sad.
And I think a lot of that isand I think a lot of that can be
change.
Chris (45:17):
Yeah, that that's my belief too, John.
I'm I'm optimistic that we canchange things.
And you know, the the firststep of change is you got to
start from truth, and that's whywe do this every single year.
So, you know, John, you're ayou're a massive part of this.
Putting the thing together,you're you know, one of the
people behind the scenes thatnobody really understands is
putting in months and months andmonths of work to deliver this
(45:38):
thing that we just give away forfree.
So thank you for that.
But also thank you for yourexpert analysis as we go through
the process and sharing yourexpertise and thoughts on this
podcast, too.
There's there's a lot morehere.
You know, the the best thingyou can do is uh come to a
meetup where John is there andand peg him and corner them and
and drill him with your ownquestions because he really is
(45:59):
good at this stuff.
John (46:02):
Two brain summit, two brainsummit.com, go there.
I would be there.
Uh hanging out in the two brainbooth.
Come talk to me.
That's awesome.
Get your ticket now.
Chris (46:11):
Yeah, I mean, one of the best things that you can do is
you can get this guide, right?
Start from truth, like startfrom actual data, two brain
business.com forward slash data,download this guide for free.
And then if you want to havethese kind of conversations, we
have this public group calledGym Owners United.
It's public, but also private.
We put up some guardrails, weget the sarcasm and the funny
memes out really quickly, and wecan have a thoughtful,
(46:34):
meaningful conversation withoutbias in that group.
You can join that at any timefor free.
John and I are both in there,and people quite often ask
questions from state of theindustry.
What does this mean?
How should I interpret this?
Should I actually change mybusiness?
That's the best place to do itfor free.
And if you are decided thatyou're going to make a change,
the best way to do that is witha business coach.
(46:56):
Just like you know, yourclients come to you for coaching
and you help them change.
We help business owners changefrom whatever you're doing now
to more profitable.
So thanks for coming on, John.
John (47:07):
Hey, love being here.
Chris (47:09):
All right, man.
This has been a profitable gym.
Um, you can subscribe to us onYouTube as well as your favorite
podcast platform, and uh, we'llkeep bringing you this stuff to
help your gym become moreprofitable.
Gyms in general are growing.
We've got the proof in thestate of the industry guide
2025.
But today we're going to talkabout why and how you can use
these numbers to actually growyour gym.
With me is my friend, my chiefmarketing officer for Two Brain
and one of the co-founders ofKilo, John Franklin.
John, welcome back to Run aProfitable Gym.
It's been a while.
Happy to be here.
(00:23):
Yeah, I know.
It's one of those things Ithink where we get myopic and
we're always inviting in guestsfrom outside and we forget like
how much talent and genius thereactually is inside TwoBrain
sometimes.
So I'm I'm really grateful thatyou're here.
You know, when you and I arebuilding this state of the
industry guide, we have thisconstant chatter going with us
and the head editor MikeWorkington.
(00:44):
And a lot of that dialogue isenormously valuable.
And so I wanted to bring you ontoday to share, especially
around the marketing metrics,like what should we be learning
from this?
So, first off, let's just kindof go over the the high points,
right?
Like what stands out to youthis year from the state of the
industry guide with regards togym growth, marketing, that kind
(01:06):
of thing?
John (01:07):
Well, people are getting more leads, which is nice, but
like we've always said, there isa huge delta between the mean
and the median.
So if you look at the guide inthe where new clients come from
section, you'll see that themedian gym is only getting
somewhere in the neighborhood of10 to 20 leads per month.
(01:30):
And the mean gym is gettingsomewhere in the neighborhood of
30 to 50 a month.
And so what that tells me is wehave the far end of the curve
of the people who are runningpaid ads, maybe in urban
markets.
Like I was interviewing a gymowner this week where they said
their their absolute minimum tomaintain their current size was
(01:52):
500 leads a month.
So they're in San Francisco,but and now is with a 5% monthly
churn rate.
And so, which is which is onthe better side for a big
transient urban area like that.
So I can tell you from myexperience as a gym owner in New
York City, we were gunning forwe averaged 10% monthly churn a
(02:16):
month.
And I know that probably makesuh the hair on your arm go up
with anger, Chris.
Uh, but where we were locatedwas this area where people would
go live for two years and go tothe bars and stuff, and then
they'd go start real life.
And we were hoping for youknow, 93% uh monthly retention
was was our target at the time.
(02:36):
But if you think about it, ifyou're uh we were a group
training gym around 250 members,90 90% retention, that means
I'm losing 25 people a month,right?
And so I gotta get 25 people inthe door just to say the same
size.
And so that's why you see thatthat huge disconnect.
And and what that tells me issome people are still grinding
(02:59):
it out with ads, they're they'remaking it work, they're getting
the leads in the door, they'reunderstanding the math and
making that money up on the backend.
But based off of the amount ofpeople who took the survey and
the discrepancy in the median,it sounds like the average, it's
like middle of the pack.
You know, when we say average,sometimes we we do mean, median,
but like I'm saying the middleof the pack, the the median,
(03:21):
they're not, and and they got tomake do with an incredibly
small amount of leads, right?
Like if you're the big groupgym where you got 13 coming in
the door and you're hoveringaround a hundred members and you
have five percent churn, right?
So you got a hundred members,five percent churn.
So five of them leave everysingle month, and you only have
13 leads that you have toreplace those five just to stay
(03:43):
the same size.
Like, you got a lot of work todo.
You got to be aggressive withyour lead nurture.
Uh, you really got to squeezethe juice out of every one of
these leads because that is umthat is not a lot of wiggle
room.
There is not a lot of room forfailure there.
Chris (03:59):
I I can remember a couple of years ago talking to, I
think it was Ben Bergeron sayingthat you know they had a they
had a small churn rate, but theyhad 300 members.
And so every month they had touh get 30 new members in the
door.
That's like a new member everyday.
And what we're gonna look atnext is like how many of those
leads actually become members?
Because it's not just a matterof getting 30 leads, you know,
(04:20):
in a lot of cases, you need fivetimes as many leads as clients
um that you're getting becauseour lead nurture is not that
great.
So, in in that case, he wouldhave had to get like 150 to 180
leads a month just to stay thesame.
I that's wild, but but I thinklet's go to that section, John.
If you're cool with that, maybewe'll go to that lead nurture
section.
I mean, let's rip the ripleads.
John (04:42):
We can rip down the funnel.
We can rip down the funnel.
So let's talk, let's talk bigbig group, right?
Because that's gonna be the thebiggest chunk just based off of
it's just gonna be the biggestdata set based off of you know
the providers.
Okay, and so we got 13 is themedian for leads, right?
And so of the 13, uh, sevenbook an appointment.
(05:04):
And then of the seven, this isall self-reported, five are
closing, right?
Okay, so if we have sevendivided by 13, that means about
50% of leads that are coming infor the average gym are booking
a call, which is which is wouldbe phenomenal if that was paid
(05:29):
traffic.
Yeah, but when you have th if Ihear a gym owner has 13 leads,
I'm assuming that's pretty warm.
You know, someone went in,yeah, somebody saw, maybe, maybe
somebody knows your members,like that.
That's lay, you know, at thatnumber, it's likely those are
layup leads.
So we got half there.
And then if we have five buyingout of seven appointments,
(05:51):
that's about a 70-ish percentclose rate.
So which is also very good.
It's not bad.
But again, it we we we need itto know other variables, right?
We need to know if they'reselling something for $90 or
they're selling something for$2,000, right?
That's gonna, you know, if I'mselling a $5,000 front-end
(06:14):
package and I have a 70% closerate, that's amazing.
If I'm selling a no on rampmonthly membership, $99
unlimited class, like that's notas amazing.
So, you know, you got to takeall this with a grain of salt,
but but yeah, like I thosenumbers are trending in the
right direction.
But the reality is you have toget more like that's because gym
(06:37):
owners have had to get better,right?
Like I was uh, you know, youyou predated me a little bit,
but my first gym opened end of2012, early 2013, and I got to
ride that CrossFit trend up,which was amazing, just going on
that that rocket ship.
And when I uh opened my firstgym, I had a marketing budget of
(06:59):
a couple thousand dollars, andI got 5,000 leads on my email
list for a couple thousanddollars to do my presale with.
And I thought I was a genius,right?
But then when I did the exactsame pre-sale, the exact same
ads on a triple the budget in adifferent gym in a different
area four years later, I gotlike 20.
And and and that was in anenvironment that is better than
(07:22):
it is now, right?
Yeah, like like it's harder todo that.
If I ran that same campaigntoday, who knows?
Maybe I may get a handful.
You know what I mean?
And and so by default, some ofthese things that were insane at
the time, like call.
I I heard this uh talking tosomeone yesterday.
They said, uh, John, what's theheaviest weight in the gym?
(07:42):
Do you know the answer, Chris?
Chris (07:45):
Is this gonna be a metaphor?
Is it is it like the it is ametaphor?
Okay, no, I can't wait to hearit.
John (07:52):
The heaviest weight in the gym is the phone.
Nah, it's true.
Good one.
Uh I love it.
I I don't know who to givecredit to, but whoever told me
that, that's hilarious.
And I agree.
But like, you know, if we wouldhave done a survey in 20, we
weren't doing this in 2015, butit, you know, if we would have
done a survey, like whatpercentage of gyms are calling
(08:14):
their leads in 2015, like whatit what is that number?
I you know, I I yeah, I don'tknow.
It was it was an insane ideathat someone would come in and
you would like call them on thephone, where now it it's down to
you know under a quarter of thegym owners are never calling
their leads, which is which isbad.
It's a it is horrific, but youknow, it's still you know, we're
(08:36):
trending in the right directionout of necessity because you
just have to do so much morewith so fewer leads.
Chris (08:43):
I can give you an N equals one on experience in 2015
because I was traveling everysingle month for CrossFit,
working for the journal backthen, and I had a Chris at
CrossFit.com.
That was my email address.
Like there's no warmer drop-inlead than that.
And every time I'd go to adifferent town, I would call six
or seven gyms.
I would call every single onethat I could find in the first
(09:03):
page search listing, knowingthat maybe one would get back in
time for me to actually drop inwithin the next 48 hours.
Which is crazy to think about.
Yeah, it's crazy.
John (09:13):
All right.
15% leads.
Chris (09:18):
Yeah.
Especially because I'm showingup with cameras.
Like you're gonna be CrossFitfamous, but yeah, sorry, go on.
John (09:24):
CrossFit famous.
So yeah, it it so it's about15% that never call, and then
about another 10 or 11, say sameweek.
And I have a sneaking suspicionthat that is uh bucketed at
never call.
So that's why I say that 25%number because I'm kind of
bummed.
You know, if you're callingsomeone a week later, we might
as well not call them at all,you know.
(09:45):
Right.
Chris (09:49):
So if you're following along in the State of the
Industry Guide, we are now onpage 23 and we're talking about,
you know, lead response time.
The thing is, what upsets meabout this and is so
frustrating, is because thesepeople have raised their hand.
They say, I need help, youknow, I'm in the water, I'm
flailing around here, andthey're counting on you to take
(10:09):
the next step and to you knowgrasp their hand and say, I'm
here, I got you.
And most gyms are just notdoing that because they think
that they're doing somethingslimy.
When the reality is, you know,this is the first act of
coaching, is is grabbing theirhand and saying, Come and meet
me at the gym.
John (10:27):
Yeah.
And uh I I love that that thingthat you say that you know,
coaching starts during the thesales process.
But you know, you you speak touh you probably have your PhD
from the School of Hard Knocksin gym owner psychology.
Uh what is it about, you know,someone puts their information
in saying they're interested intheir business.
(10:48):
Why, why are so many gym ownersreticent to see that as like a
you know a an immediate fire,someone they need, you know,
someone that they can helpimmediately.
Like, why is there so muchdelay, so much reticence to to
call and get that person intothe gym?
Chris (11:04):
Well, I mean, that's a that's a complicated question,
but the reality is that most ofus, when we start a gym, we're
first-time entrepreneurs.
And so all of our purchasingand sales experience is from the
the consumer side, where youknow, we're used to getting
those phone calls that we don'twant.
We, you know, we've had the thepeople calling us at dinner
time and us hanging up, andwe've seen the Seinfeld episode
about it, and we feel like nowwe're on the other side of that.
(11:26):
But the reality is that peopleare asking for help if they're
on your website if it's 10 p.m.
and they're filling out yourform, it's because they've
reached a low point of likingthemselves and they need you to
step in and get over your owninternal BS.
This is very hard foreverybody.
Like my sales pitch used tostart with, I'm not good at
sales or I'm not a salesman, butand um finally this woman named
(11:51):
Melanie was like, Well, whydon't you just tell me the
price?
And I started to realize, like,oh, wait, I'm doing people a
disservice by not telling themthe price, by not coaching them,
by not being inviting andsaying, Are you ready to start
now?
John (12:06):
That was uh yeah, the the original two-brain business
sales call would be you hop on aZoom call with Chris Cooper and
then he'd pull up your websiteand tell you to what was wrong
with the website, and then hewouldn't ask you to buy.
Chris (12:18):
I would tell you 10 things to do, and then not tell
you the right thing to do, whichwas like get a mentor.
Dumb.
John (12:25):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, uh we fixed that.
If you want to see that, youcan go to two brainbusiness.com
and book yourself a call and youcan see what the new process
looks like and see if you likeit better.
But uh uh yeah, we we we'vedone some work there.
You want to talk aboutseasonality a little bit?
Chris (12:40):
Yeah, I do think that's really important, especially
right now.
John (12:43):
Cool.
So the data reflects whateverybody there what everybody
knows that January is a verybusy month.
One thing that I think is worthmentioning is for coaching gyms
specifically, kilo and twobrain works less with access
gyms, so I just have lessinsight into data there.
(13:05):
So you know, I'm trying tospeak from what I can see behind
the scenes out.
But one tip for you gym ownersat home is I think one of the
most underprepared forseasonality swings is that back
to school rush.
Like our data shows that insome markets it's even larger
than the January rush.
And so we know like there is asummer slowdown, and it's kind
(13:28):
of this like slow bleed overthree months.
And then when everybody getsinto back to school mode, that's
when it starts picking up.
So that's why you see in thereported data that most leads
come in that August time frame,and that's because the kids are
back in school, people arethinking about routines, parents
are feeling a little feelingthe the lake house, uh the the
(13:49):
bud lights, uh, you know,packing on a little weight
there.
And that's a great opportunityfor running promotional
marketing.
And when I say promotion, thatdoesn't necessarily have to be a
discount.
There are plenty of things thatyou can do to draw up demand,
but that is something where whenyou are sitting down next month
to do your annual plan, youwant to make sure that you have
(14:12):
solid marketing in place forthat August rush.
And then again, obviously theone everybody knows that New
Year's rush.
But what's funny is you see thefewest leads and fewest
appointments are now.
That November, December timeframe is is rough, right?
Everybody's in holiday mode,nobody wants to start a gym when
(14:33):
you know you're gonna take aweek off for Thanksgiving,
you're gonna take two weeks offfor Christmas.
So the secondary piece of thatis like uh, you know, I talked
about setting up your marketingplan, I talked about annual
planning.
If you're not doing that, nowis an excellent time to do so
because if I had to guess,you're not uh your phone's not
ringing off the hook based offof what the data say.
Chris (14:55):
What I find really interesting about this, and
we're on page 27 of the state ofthe industry guide, you can get
it at two brainbusiness.comforward slash data.
What I find interesting here isthat while August is
historically like one of theworst months in the industry,
it's also the month when you'vegot most leads.
So what you know, people arenot coming to the gym to work
out, but they're settingthemselves up to work out in
(15:16):
September.
And you kind of see the samething happening in November,
too.
So what I had to learn fromthis, and this, you know, it was
August when I nearly wentbankrupt back in 2008, was you
got to plan in advance for thesemonths.
You know August is gonna beslow, you know September is
gonna be better, you knowDecember is gonna be slow, but
you know January is gonna bebetter.
The best thing that I ever didwas think a year in advance and
(15:39):
say, okay, how do I stop nextAugust from being just like
this?
Because I'll never make itthrough August again.
And so what I would do is Iwould have a competition in
September and I would reallytarget like um sports teams in
August because they're gettingready to go back on the ice or
bask on the back on the court inSeptember.
Same thing in December.
I would pre-sell my on-rampsfor January, save a space, or I
(16:02):
would have a really great likemarketing email that's like top
gifts for CrossFitters, buyhere, you know.
So you hammer your retailpre-sales, you hammer your
pre-sales of like on-ramp andyour packages of personal
training or whatever, and youtry and boost your revenue in
December because in Januaryyou're gonna be busy and you're
not gonna have time to doretail, you're not gonna have
time to, right?
(16:22):
You've got so many peoplecoming in naturally.
So the key is just like knowingthat this stuff's gonna happen
in advance and preparing for it.
And you don't have to gothrough it like I did and you
did.
You can look at the data inthis guide and say, Oh shit,
August might be bad unless Ihave a plan and plan for it
right now with a mentor.
John (16:40):
It's also a great opportunity to practice your
objection handling.
So if you are somebody who'ssitting in consultations, you're
having these uh sales meetings,people are referring people in,
uh, you should be able to givethem a great reason as to why
they shouldn't put off theirfitness through the holidays.
Or if they are gonna put offtheir fitness through the
(17:01):
holidays, you should have sometype of mechanism by which you
can uh you know get them startedor sign them up in November or
December and have them get goingin January.
And again, that is somethingthat uh is best served with a
marketing mentor or a salesmentor who can walk you through
uh the tricks of the trade, soto speak.
Chris (17:22):
I think you know, if you're putting yourself in the
shoes of your client, okay, sothey you run a coaching
business, it's more expensivethan a normal gym.
They're thinking about theirbudget with the holidays coming
up and what they're gonna buyfor everybody they care about.
But everybody that they careabout is thinking about what to
buy them and they have no idea.
So if you write an email, makea blog post, and it's like, what
(17:43):
to buy your fitness fanaticfamily member for Christmas, and
you link like, here's how youpay for a month of their service
at my gym, here's how you buythem the shoes, whatever.
Like, that's that's where youcapture revenue from at this
type of year.
It's not your clients becausethey're spending revenue other
places income other places, it'stheir friends who are trying to
(18:05):
spend money on them.
So, John, I I would becauseyou're so good at this, man.
I'd love to put you on the spothere.
And I want to um maybe runthrough an NSI and I'm gonna
give you the timing objection sothat we can show people how you
would handle that.
Is that cool?
John (18:20):
Let's do it.
Chris (18:21):
Okay, man.
So I'm the client.
John is the gym owner.
I'm sitting in front of him.
It is today, November the 21st.
And I I want to join a gym, butman, like I'm starting to think
maybe now's not the right time.
Go ahead, John.
John (18:35):
Well, hold on.
Let's uh let's uh let's startfrom the beginning here.
So yeah, you know, I I've justuh I've just presented you with
uh the pricing of my package,Chris.
Yeah, and what are you gonnawhat are you gonna say?
Are you are you telling me, youknow, it it costs six hundred
dollars for our 12-weekwhatever?
How does that sound, Chris?
Chris (18:57):
It sounds good.
Uh what I might do is put itoff till January.
You know, I got Thanksgivingand then Christmas coming up,
and I'm just thinking, like, amI really gonna be able to stick
to this?
You know, I we've got someholiday parties and stuff.
I I don't know, I might waittill January.
John (19:14):
I totally get that.
Uh your timing's important,Chris.
But just so I understand, we'regood on the pricing.
It's just a timing issue foryou.
Chris (19:22):
Yeah, I mean, obviously budgets get tighter this time of
year, too, but I I could swingthat.
It's just I'm worried about thetiming, really.
John (19:30):
And you told me your goals were you wanted to lose an
extra 10 pounds by springtime,uh, you know, because hockey's
over then, and that's when youyou take your shirt off in
Canada.
In addition to that, you saidyou want to feel better, have
more energy with the kids.
Chris (19:46):
Is that right?
Yeah, yeah.
Like I by 5 p.m.
when the kids get home, I amabsolutely drained.
I don't want to do stuff in theevenings, you know, it's
driving my wife crazy.
And I just kind of like, youknow, I wake up feeling tired in
the mornings.
Like, I gotta get over this.
John (20:03):
And if like we wait until January, we go from November,
December, you're not workingout.
You said you're gonna be goingto a lot of holiday parties.
Do you think we're gonna becloser to that goal or farther
away?
Chris (20:15):
Well, actually, when you spell it out like that, it it's
actually it feels like we'recutting my time in half that I
can get this done if I missNovember, December, and start,
you know, second week ofJanuary.
So yeah, I I don't know, man.
Maybe uh maybe I should justget started right now.
I mean, can you kind of workwith my schedule a little bit if
I already know in advance thedays that I'm not gonna be able
(20:36):
to come to the gym?
John (20:37):
Yeah, so we talked about coming in three times a week,
and I understand that that ispretty aggressive because you
know, you got the holidayparties that you mentioned, you
got family in town, but we cando something where maybe for the
next six weeks, we'll do twotimes a week instead of three
times a week, and that'llactually save you a little bit
of money because I know you yougotta buy holiday presents for
(20:58):
the kids.
Uh, and then we can start withthat 12-week challenge program
comes January, but we alreadyhave that routine in place, the
ball is running, and we're notstarting from scratch or even
behind where we are today.
What do you think about that,Chris?
Chris (21:10):
Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense.
I I feel I feel calmer about itnow.
Like, in fact, I think coachingis gonna help me even more.
Because if I was trying to dothis on my own over the next six
weeks, I would fail.
John (21:23):
Cool.
Let's get the credit card.
Chris (21:25):
Okay.
John (21:25):
Uh, so yeah, I I would I would just, hey, what's the pain
point?
Where they are, just frame itlike, are you gonna be closer to
the goal or farther away?
Obviously, it'll be fartheraway.
I would down sell to somethinglike you know, if it's like a I
can't come in three or fourtimes a week, I'd try and do two
or even one, depending on whatit is you're selling on the
front end.
(21:46):
I'm assuming most gym ownerslistening are gonna be selling
something in the you know six totwelve week range.
And then if you gave me sometype of objection on the hey, I
absolutely can't start, I can'tdo two times a week.
It's a week off, a week on,something like that.
I would either downsell to likea pack, you know, if that's
(22:07):
something a gym owner offers.
So, hey, let's let's buy 10sessions.
And if you got to take a weekoff here, a week off here, at
least we can burn through thoseand get going.
And then if you told me nothere, it would be something
along the lines of, well, whydon't we, you know, make the
commitment today?
Because if it's somethingyou're guaranteeing you're gonna
start, let's make thecommitment today and we'll start
the ship in January.
So I would just keep goingdown, keep going down and trying
(22:29):
to chip away at thoseobjections until we got
something that was right foreach of us.
Chris (22:34):
Okay.
Can I just point something outfor the listener that John did
there too naturally?
So I I kind of voiced, well,maybe, and then he sat there and
waited, and he waited for me tosay the next thing.
Sometimes, uh, if you're notused to sales, you kind of feel
like it's this talking race, andyou have to fill the silence
(22:55):
and you have to say the nextthing, and you wind up
over-explaining and complicatingthings and adding variables and
options that paralyze people.
John just waited for me to stepacross the line on my own.
John, can we could we do thatagain with a price objection?
Like I think a lot of listenersare gonna hear the timing
objection and the priceobjection too.
Can we do one more?
John (23:14):
A double?
So I can't, I I can't do thepri okay.
So let's assume, you know, whatis it?
What do you think the averageJim or listening to the show?
What are they what are theytrying to sell?
They're trying to give me whatit what did I just pitch you?
Because that'll that'll that'lldepend how I handle the price
objection.
Chris (23:32):
Yeah, hopefully they're selling an on-ramp program
that's gonna last, you know, twoto three weeks and cost four to
five hundred dollars.
And it's one-on-one training,and um that's the starting
point.
John (23:44):
Okay, okay, and I don't really have a downsell in that
situation, so I just gotta Ijust got we just gotta hammer
through.
Chris (23:53):
Yeah, I mean okay, yeah, let's see what happens here.
So, guys, if you're listening,I'm really putting John on the
spot here.
But he had no forewarning thatwe were gonna do this.
He's just good at it.
And it's you know, reps, butalso mentorship that makes him
good at it.
So I'm sitting in front of him.
John is at my gym catalyst, andhe's trying to get me to sign
up for on-ramp.
John (24:15):
Okay.
So the program, Chris, that'sgonna be six hundred dollars for
the on-ramp and the first monthof membership.
How does that sound to you?
Chris (24:27):
Well, it's I mean, it sounds good.
Like the way that you've laidit out, I see how it's gonna
work.
I'm a little bit worried aboutho holiday bills right now, to
be honest.
You know, we're just coming upon um Thanksgiving, and then
I've got Christmas.
There's only like two more payperiods until Christmas, and you
know, I I tend to overspendevery year.
So I might I might want to waittill January, get my you know,
(24:51):
my bills paid, and then start.
John (24:54):
I totally understand.
I got uh three kids of my own.
Uh my youngest wants an e-bikeand uh money's tight this time
of year.
But when you say it's you knowexpensive, or if you're saying,
you know, money's tight, is itsomething where you just don't
have the cash to pay for thisnow?
Or is it something else?
(25:15):
Is it you don't think theprogram's gonna get you to the
goal of you know uh losing 10pounds and having a little more
energy to play with your kids inthe spring?
Chris (25:23):
No, I feel like the program will work.
I'm a little bit worried thatif I spend the money now, I'm
not gonna have it for gifts nextweek.
John (25:31):
So to be clear, you feel like we're gonna be able to get
you to your stated goal.
Chris (25:37):
Yeah.
John (25:38):
And so the issue is we can just work out this payment,
you're committed to starting.
Chris (25:45):
Yeah, I mean, if we can make the payment work, I would
start sooner.
John (25:49):
Okay.
So, you know, I mentioned itwas 600 for the program.
Is it something where if we did300 today and 300 four weeks
from now, you would be able toget started?
Chris (26:01):
Um, maybe.
You know, it's still highenough that I would want to talk
to my wife about it.
John (26:08):
Well, you told me earlier that you were really focused on
losing those 10 pounds and thatyou went into your checkup and
the doctor said, Hey, you know,that blood pressure is looking a
little high, you gotta fix it.
Is that the most importantthing in your life right now?
Is that you know, you came hereand you sounded really
committed to changing it becauseyou said you wanted to be
around for your children, youwanted to, you know, get that
(26:29):
green light from your doctor,you want to coach hockey for the
next 40 years.
Are you still serious aboutmaking that change?
Chris (26:37):
Yeah, in fact, you know, talking to my wife last night,
like we she knows how importantthis is to me.
So maybe what I could do istell other family members like,
you know, don't buy me a gift.
This is what I want to doinstead.
John (26:56):
Yeah, and and that's definitely something we could
do.
I mean, the the question yougotta ask yourself is is solving
this problem, is getting thatblood pressure down, losing the
10 pounds, is that worth $100 aweek to you?
Chris (27:09):
Definitely.
John (27:09):
Yeah.
Then even though it's adifficult time, is this
something you know we can getgoing today?
Chris (27:17):
Yeah, yeah, I think so.
I think we should start nextweek and and she and I'll work
it out as soon as I get home.
John (27:24):
Probably wouldn't have gone that well, but you know, I
I appreciate the layup.
You thought you were gonna giveme a harder run around there?
Chris (27:30):
No, no, that's great, John.
That was great, yeah.
And you know, it's it's funny,like as I'm going through that
as the client, the answer justappears to me.
But if if I were sitting inyour seat, I would have thought,
oh, the client's not gonnathink of this, tell their family
to pay for it for Christmas.
And if I had said that, theclient would have been like,
nah, I don't know, but becauseit was the client's idea,
(27:51):
they're immediately bought intoit.
So cool.
John (27:55):
Yeah, I mean, I'll I'll just try and ask questions,
right?
Like that that's that's thegame.
And so, you know, there arereally only like four or five
different objections, and youcan train for every single one.
Chris (28:09):
Yep.
John (28:09):
And the idea is making sure that the thing that they're
telling you is actually theissue, right?
Yeah, so you can see in bothcases it was like uh for the
money one, it's like do youthink you're gonna get the
result?
And so I wanted to make sureit's not like uh you're not
feeling a hundred percentcertain that the program is
(28:31):
gonna get you what you'relooking to do.
And so once we have that out ofthe way, it's just tackling the
pricing.
So can we do split pay?
Can we downsell into adifferent thing?
Can we, you know, reprior, likecan we help break any mental
barriers that make you thinkthat, you know, this is too
expensive?
And you know, it's like theprice is gonna be the same when
(28:51):
you start next time, and thoseholiday presents are already,
they gotta get paid for eitherway.
Um, you know, it's just makingsure that you get them over the
line there.
Or, you know, same thing on thetiming thing.
The the first thing I asked youis, hey, is this gonna get you
to your goal of losing 10pounds?
It's just a timing thing, andyou said yes.
And so then it just becomes amatter of time, and then it just
(29:13):
becomes an issue of okay, canyou come in less?
Do we do a class pack if you'redoing a week on, week off?
You know, it's just you you youbreak it down to one thing
where you get stuck in a cornerthere is if you're trying to
tackle like three or fourdifferent objections at the same
time, and you notice youbrought your like spouse thing
in in the middle there, and Ijust kind of ignored it.
(29:35):
Yeah, you know, you you triedto get it going on another
objection, and so you know, ifyou would have kept saying that,
you know, we would have had topivot and address that, but you
know, I I just kind of didn'thear that and was like, Well,
what if we did this?
And so, you know, I I just wantto stay focused on the one
thing we're dealing with at thetime, handle that objection,
then we can move on to a nextone if uh it presents itself.
Chris (29:57):
Okay, that's great, man.
Thank you, and and thanks for.
Playing along, like uh I knowthat was a surprise.
What I'd like to talk aboutnow, I think really ties into
the sales process, and that'sARM.
So if you're following, I'mlooking at page 30 of the state
of the industry guide.
Again, you can get it for free,twobrainbusiness.com forward
slash data.
And the number one challengewith gyms right now is that the
(30:18):
average revenue per member thatthey're getting is too low.
They think they're going to get300 members.
So, you know, if some of themonly pay me 100 bucks, who
cares?
I'll make it up in volume.
We know the reality isdifferent.
The average gym has 129members, and they need to make
it up with the members that theyhave.
So I'm looking at the ARMnumbers, and it's, you know, the
average revenue per member lastyear was $158.54.
(30:41):
That's coming up, but it'sstill too low.
Is part of that our lack ofsales skills, John, or is it
coming from somewhere else?
John (30:51):
No, or maybe, but uh I think a lot of it is projecting
the gym like gym ownersprojecting their budget on their
clients.
Chris (31:02):
What do you mean by that?
John (31:04):
So if something like okay, there's an example of uh with
someone within the two-brainprogram now, yeah, where they're
in a major urban market andtheir mentor is trying to get
them to charge $85 an hour forpersonal training, which is
(31:24):
under market rate.
And the clients think that isinsane.
The quote was something alongthe lines of a CEO of a major
company wouldn't pay that.
Chris (31:36):
Yeah, the gym owner thinks that's insane, right?
John (31:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and you know, the mentorand everyone within TwoBrain
who's been doing this for awhile, like clearly understands
that you know, if you aresomeone who's worth tens of
millions of dollars or a highincome earner, you know, you're
willing to pay extra to ensureyou get the results that you're
after, right?
(31:58):
Like if you are the CEO of apublic company, saving $15 for
an hour of personal training isway less important than getting
the best personal training,right?
Yeah, you're willing to pay forthat premium service.
But I think there's somethingin the gym owner's mind where if
$85 sounds very expensive tothem, it probably sounds very
(32:19):
expensive to their clients.
And so I think there is a lotof that in our world, right?
Where you know, we can talkabout what gym owners make
later, but you know, since we'vebeen doing this guide, it's
hovered somewhere in theneighborhood of $35,000 to
$50,000.
And so uh, you know, paying$100 an hour for anything when
(32:39):
you're when you're bringing homethat amount of money is tricky.
But, you know, if you thinkabout it and you're you know
selling to a doctor, selling toa lawyer who makes 10 times that
amount, you know, paying $85 anhour for someone like that is
the equivalent of the gym ownerpaying $8.50 for something.
(33:02):
Because if their income's 10times more, like the the service
when anchored based off theincome is you know 10 times
cheaper for them than it wouldbe for the gym owner.
And so, you know, if you askeda gym owner, would you pay $8.50
for I don't know, any type ofservice, like they're they're
likely going to be like, yeah,you know, it's easy to I can
(33:24):
afford it.
And same thing for you know, adoctor is making $500,000 a
year, paying $85 an hour,especially when you're time
strapped and starved, to makesure that you're getting
excellent training, someonelooking over you and a really
personalized service that worksaround your schedule.
Like that's a no-brainer.
And so I think there's a lot ofthat.
And then the secondary piecethere is there's a lot of like a
(33:48):
lot of gym owners set pricingby looking at what the cheapest
gym in charge, like the cheapestgym charges, and then like the
most expensive gym and trying toput it somewhere in the middle.
Or if they're a new gym owner,they're just gonna put it, you
know, five dollars under thecheapest gym, thinking that like
because they're the cheapest,naturally everyone's gonna go to
them.
But the reality is people pay apremium for quality.
(34:11):
And so if you are someone whowants to sell small group
personal training, if you'resomeone who wants to sell
one-on-one training, you need tounderstand that price is not
the most important thing,especially when you look at the
numbers you need to make thatbusiness work.
You know, you can make $100,000a year as a gym owner with 50
101 clients, you can make$100,000 a year small group
(34:33):
personal training with a hundredsmall group training clients.
So you don't need a ton ofpeople.
Something that you wrote aboutin one of your books, I can't
keep track of which one, uh, wasyou know, you were you were
personal training during the08-09 financial crisis.
Yeah, and it was somethingalong the lines of like, even
(34:55):
though most of the town wasstruggling, you know, the
doctors and lawyers were stillshowing up and still paying for
their personal training, despitewhat the economy was doing.
And, you know, as we'rerecording this, it's Friday,
November 21st.
The stock market's in themiddle of a pullback.
How how far back it goes, whoknows?
But that's that's something youneed to be thinking about.
(35:16):
You need to remember the factthat if you want to, if you want
to do well in this business, wealready talked about how the
average gym doesn't get a lot ofleads.
And if you go look at the data,it doesn't change much between
a personal training, a smallgroup, or a big group gym.
Like at the top of the funnel,every one of those gyms is
(35:38):
getting a relatively similaramount of leads.
As you go down the funnel aswell, the same amount, like a
very similar amount of leadsshow up and a very similar
amount of leads buy.
But if the small group personaltraining gym is selling
something for $600 a month andyou're selling something as a
big group training gym for $150a month, like there's a huge gap
(36:00):
there, especially if you'regetting the same amount of leads
and the same amount of sales,right?
You need to be more efficientwith the at bats that you are
getting, unless you're somebodywho, you know, is following the
four funnels that TwoBrainPreaches.
You still have a way to makeads work.
If you're one of these gymswho, you know, you're struggling
to keep the lights on, you yougot you got $10,000 to $15,000
(36:23):
of revenue, and after all thebills are paid, you know, you're
you're you're taking homeminimum wage.
You got to ask yourself like,is it the model?
Is it the pricing?
Can I be more efficient withthese at bats that I'm getting?
Because the way a lot of gymowners think, it's like, oh, if
I can just get more bodies inthe door, I can close them, or
if I can just get the gym from100 members to 200 members, like
(36:43):
I'll be, I'll be raking it in.
But the reality is, like, a lotof gyms can hit their goals
with the amount of members theyhave if they just adjusted the
service and the pricing toreflect the value that they're
delivering.
Chris (36:57):
I think there's a really great lesson there, man.
Thank you.
You know, in in times ofeconomic crisis, what happens is
people actually spend less ongroceries, but supplement
purchases go up.
And the the woman that saidthis to me back in 2008,
Jennifer, I love her dearly,still see her in the cafe
sometimes.
She said, Chris, you know, assoon as this financial crisis
hits, you're done, buddy.
(37:18):
You're done.
Nobody goes to the gym anymore.
I'll see you on Monday.
And what she was missing thereis like, yeah, people do cancel
gym memberships during financialchallenges, but nobody cancels
personal training.
And it's partially becausethose people are less affected
by the financial challenges andpartially because, you know,
(37:38):
it's like they're paying for apremium service, they see more
value in it.
When I was trying to sellpersonal training back then, um,
I couldn't afford a personaltrainer.
But as soon as I could affordit, that was the first thing
that I invested in was morepersonalized coaching.
And I think you'll find thesame thing with a lot of like
smart professionals, they wantpersonalization, customization,
(37:59):
human touch, even more now inthe age of AI.
So what the point John made isso important here.
Like, if you if you comparewhat people are charging and
what their close rates are, evenif you look like what what's
the ads for personal trainingversus CrossFit or Metabolic?
They're the same ads, it's thesame people coming in.
(38:21):
It's just, you know, one personis better at closing at a $600
than you are at $120.
That's all it is.
John (38:29):
Can I share my screen?
Are we allowed to do that onthe Run a Profitable Gym
podcast?
So yeah, so let's pull up theguide here, right?
To kind of put numbers to whatI'm speaking about.
So if you are a big group gymbased off the survey, you're
getting five new clients amonth.
If you're a small grouppersonal training gym, you're
getting four.
And if you're a one-on-one gym,three.
(38:50):
So you know it is less as youmove up the model, but then we
go down three or four pageshere.
Oh, this is a nice kilo ad.
We go down three or four pageshere to talk about what gyms are
charging, and let's go findwhat the most expensive
membership is.
Did I scroll past it, Chris?
Chris (39:11):
Um, I'm looking at page 30, ARM.
John (39:17):
All right, this is the median membership that I want.
This page.
Okay.
Chris (39:22):
Oh, we got you.
John (39:23):
I'm on page 32.
What gyms are charging?
So this is median monthly pricefor most expensive membership
or service package.
So let's run some numbers here,right?
We said the average big groupgym gets five new clients.
And if the most expensivepackage is $175 a month, that is
(39:43):
$875 in added monthly revenue.
So five new members at $175.
Perfect.
Now that's assuming everybody'sbuying the most expensive
thing, which they aren't, butyou know, bear with me, guys.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Yeah.
John (39:57):
Now we said four small group changing gets four new
members, and let's and then theaverage, let's see, $399 per
membership.
That is almost sixteen hundreddollars in revenue per month
added.
So that's double what a largegroup training gym is taking
home.
(40:17):
So five times 175 versus fourat 399, like on the same amount
of leads, same amount of effort.
Actually, it's less becauseyou're doing less appointments.
A small group training gym isbringing in $1,600 in monthly
recurring.
And then we go down to thepersonal training where they had
what did the what do we saythere?
Three and then three times$900, that's $2,700 a month.
(40:40):
So that's almost double whatthe small group training gym is
bringing home.
And so you can see how pricingis an incredibly important
variable when it comes to howmuch money you take home as a
gym owner.
If you are able to set, and andthe crazy thing is, if you can
sell stuff for $200 a month, youcan sell stuff for $900 a
(41:03):
month.
It's honestly not thatdifferent of a process, it is
not that different of a salesconversation.
And so I'm not tellingeverybody to go out and become a
one-on-one training gym.
That's not the message here.
But to go back to where westarted, how uh the the point
is, you know, if leads arerelatively constant, going down
(41:24):
the funnel is relativelyconstant, regardless of model,
pricing is an incrediblevariable and probably one of the
most important ones when itcomes to you know setting up
your business model and makingsure that you have a viable gym
that can pay you a fair wage fora long period of time.
Because I, you know, one of thebiggest problems that we see is
(41:44):
is just people getting out ofthe game.
Like, I don't know how many10-year affiliates are left,
Chris.
I I have no clue.
Chris (41:51):
Well, a couple of my friends, they actually went out
looking for them at the CrossFitGames and the Rogue
Invitational.
And what they found is thatthere are extremely few, and the
ones who remain who are morethan 10 years along, have
usually been through two orthree different owners.
So I I visited, you know, Billand Stacy Russell in Cleveland
last weekend.
They are an actual 17 or 18year affiliate, single owner
(42:13):
that whole time.
That's extremely rare.
John (42:16):
We um, I mean, we have we went down and we uh we have this
in the uh state of theindustry.
Yeah, but I will go dig for it.
Okay, here we go.
Chris (42:27):
You know, what's interesting about the numbers
John just showed is it's quiteoften the same people signing up
for personal training orsigning up for group training,
depending on what's offeredthem, they don't know when they
come in.
Like all they know is you're acoaching gym.
They don't know if you're gonnasay one-on-one is the best or
whatever.
So that means they really don'thave any idea what the pricing
is going to be.
And yes, there are some peoplewho know about group training
(42:49):
and they're only gonna wantgroup training, but there are
also people who don't want to dogroup training.
And if you don't have aone-on-one option, like they're
gone.
John (42:57):
Yeah, I'm someone who likes training in a one-on-one
environment.
I'm a weirdo, but like I wouldI would prefer to go to a gym
and have a personal trainer.
I just have like a history ofinjury and and I like that, but
like I want to go to a traininggym with a cool environment,
like I don't want to work out ina big globo gym.
And so if a gym near me doesn'toffer that, like I'm
(43:18):
disqualified like as a client.
And it is not unusual forpeople to be like me and prefer
that.
Like my partner Mateo at Kilo,same thing down the street.
He goes to uh he goes and getspersonal training at uh the
local gym down the street.
And and we're gym owners, likewe are both ex-gym owners.
Like we we can write a program,we can, we can, we can do it
(43:39):
ourselves if we wanted to, butwe just prefer like you know,
when I'm busy and stressed andthinking about a million things,
like to have somebody else beresponsible for thinking about
my fitness and not injuringmyself and telling me to back
down or push harder, like that'sworth a lot.
And I think that that like youknow, as people, some of the
(43:59):
data you know, I I know you dida couple podcasts with like uh
the younger, the the youthsbeing the trending demo, yeah.
But now my generation, themillennials, we're we're getting
a little older, our backs arefeeling our backs, our knees,
our shoulders are getting alittle tight, we're getting a
little jingle in our pocket.
And so, you know, we're we'redefinitely that next prime
candidate for small group or orpersonal training.
(44:22):
I do think even if you are agym that is primarily group,
which a lot of the surveyrespondents are, you should
offer that.
Like it just makes sense.
It just allows you to, it justallows you to serve a broader
clientele and allows you tocharge a higher price point for
a percentage of the membershipsand allows you to get to a point
where you can take a good wagefrom your gym.
(44:43):
Like I keep going back to thatpoint.
So much of TwoBrain's missionis making entrepreneurship,
making gym ownership asustainable career.
And to Chris's point, and youknow, it hasn't been, you know,
it's very clear if I think ofthe people who were operating
gyms when I was when I started,you know, 12, 13 years ago,
(45:06):
they're very I can count on onehand from my initial friend
group how many of them still owna gym.
And that's sad.
And I think a lot of that isand I think a lot of that can be
change.
Chris (45:17):
Yeah, that that's my belief too, John.
I'm I'm optimistic that we canchange things.
And you know, the the firststep of change is you got to
start from truth, and that's whywe do this every single year.
So, you know, John, you're ayou're a massive part of this.
Putting the thing together,you're you know, one of the
people behind the scenes thatnobody really understands is
putting in months and months andmonths of work to deliver this
(45:38):
thing that we just give away forfree.
So thank you for that.
But also thank you for yourexpert analysis as we go through
the process and sharing yourexpertise and thoughts on this
podcast, too.
There's there's a lot morehere.
You know, the the best thingyou can do is uh come to a
meetup where John is there andand peg him and corner them and
and drill him with your ownquestions because he really is
(45:59):
good at this stuff.
John (46:02):
Two brain summit, two brainsummit.com, go there.
I would be there.
Uh hanging out in the two brainbooth.
Come talk to me.
That's awesome.
Get your ticket now.
Chris (46:11):
Yeah, I mean, one of the best things that you can do is
you can get this guide, right?
Start from truth, like startfrom actual data, two brain
business.com forward slash data,download this guide for free.
And then if you want to havethese kind of conversations, we
have this public group calledGym Owners United.
It's public, but also private.
We put up some guardrails, weget the sarcasm and the funny
memes out really quickly, and wecan have a thoughtful,
(46:34):
meaningful conversation withoutbias in that group.
You can join that at any timefor free.
John and I are both in there,and people quite often ask
questions from state of theindustry.
What does this mean?
How should I interpret this?
Should I actually change mybusiness?
That's the best place to do itfor free.
And if you are decided thatyou're going to make a change,
the best way to do that is witha business coach.
(46:56):
Just like you know, yourclients come to you for coaching
and you help them change.
We help business owners changefrom whatever you're doing now
to more profitable.
So thanks for coming on, John.
John (47:07):
Hey, love being here.
Chris (47:09):
All right, man.
This has been a profitable gym.
Um, you can subscribe to us onYouTube as well as your favorite
podcast platform, and uh, we'llkeep bringing you this stuff to
help your gym become moreprofitable.
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