Episode 124: Two-Brain Marketing

the handyman
 

Speaker 1 (00:00:01):
You’re listening to, to brain radio. We make gyms profitable, getting you on track to making every day your perfect day. Every week we’ll deliver top shelf business tactics to help improve your gym, advance your fitness career, and move you closer to well get ready to start building your bigger and better business with your coats. Best selling fitness, author of to brain business, grow your gym and help first risks Cooper.
Speaker 2 (00:00:29):
All right, everyone. I’m here today with John Franklin and Mateo Lopez from to brand marketing. These guys are gonna walk us through a huge overview of what’s currently going on in the marketing world for gyms. Now these guys have been there, I unless you tell your own story guys, but we’re going to get into some pretty deep questions and I’m going to ask some pretty hard questions to so hope you’re ready. All right, so John, we’re gonna start with you like tell me the story of your gms and, and what brought you to this point. Hey guys, on the job.
Speaker 3 (00:00:56):
Franklin, a little bit about me. Flip side. My partner, Mateo, started in a park in Hoboken, New Jersey in 2014 with the EU set of Walmart cowgirls. It was just like a simple meetup group was like, hey, come try crossfit. We ended up renting a warehouse a right by that park and um, we were lucky to be in the right place at the right time. We ended up having a little bit over a hundred members in our first three months of operation. And uh, from there we use that success to leverage a second location in New York City because a, I don’t know how familiar you guys are with Hoboken or, uh, New York. It’s tough to expand. You just can’t like rent 5,000 more square feet. So just the way you need your hazard. We ended up having to open more locations. Kao came on as one of the first employees of that New York City location and that’s where we first discovered the beauty of paid advertisement.
Speaker 3 (00:01:54):
We ended up opening our doors in that location with a little over 220 members and we ended up doing a little over $250,000 in our first weekend. So that’s when we were like, oh, paid advertising. It’s kind of cool since then in that, in that first two years we were doing over a million in annual revenue or maybe double the size. Now we have four gyms in New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia. We call them submarines cause they’re smaller. We like stuff that’s between 1000 and 3000 usable square feet. And uh, all the facilities are profitable. And uh, maybe teo can tell you a little more about, uh, the marketing we do.
Speaker 4 (00:02:34):
Ah, yeah. Hey everyone. Thanks again, Chris for having us on. Yeah, I joined on with John. Uh, yeah, right when he opened the second loop tick location pretty early on I, I, well I started working the, the front desk and then front desk to coach and then coach to GM and then operator at the space. And then from there, now part owner in two of our submarines as John puts it. And throughout that time I’ve been in the weeds learning how to use social media advertising to grow the gyms and you know, cross across all of our locations in the, in the businesses we manage and advertise for John. I spend anywhere between 15,000 to $30,000 in 60 days on advertising. And so I’ve spent a lot of time studying this stuff and trying to get the, get the gyms to grow and we’ve definitely made some mistakes so we know what no longer works. And I think we’ve also been lucky that we’ve found some, some things that work as well. Uh, and then we’ll, we’ll definitely talk a little bit more about what those things are in a bit here.
Speaker 2 (00:03:35):
Yeah, I’m sure if people have already got about 12 questions written down and hopefully we haven’t caused any car accidents yet. Uh, but the first thing that I want to do is I’m going to let you guys answer this, like, uh, doesn’t to brain hate lead generation. This is a question that I get all the time. I’m sure you guys probably get it too, because a lot of our media focuses on like affinity marketing and organic growth, right? So why are we here as to brain marketing to talk about digital marketing now tail?
Speaker 4 (00:04:04):
Well, I’m, I first want to say this, I’m glad you brought this up because we, you know, we don’t, it’s not like we, we hate affinity marketing or anything like that. And you know, I think a couple of things that we just want to stress is we have found a way to make paid advertising work. However, we also believe in, in, in the two brain principles and kind of help first and some of the stuff you wrote about in your book and you know, we follow that stuff pretty religiously and, and pouring money into advertising and into a funnel definitely will not work if you do not have operational excellence. If you’re, if you don’t have sop, if you don’t treat your staff right, if you have dirty bathrooms, uh, and it, most importantly, if your clients don’t get results putting one of our campaigns into place, we’re going to get 30 members in the door that, that’s not going to help your business in the long run. In fact, it’ll probably, it’ll probably hurt it at that point. So I just wanted to preface that and say we want to make sure that gyms get clients results first. Having said that, I think there is a place when Jim’s are ready to grow or looking to grow certain programs. There is a time to place for, for paid advertising and that’s, that’s what we like to help businesses and entrepreneurs learn how to do.
Speaker 2 (00:05:13):
Okay, man. So you just said something there that I wanna date a little tiny bit deeper on before we get back to John. And that’s, uh, you said that uh, paid advertising can actually hurt a gym if they’re not ready for the influx of clients. Right. What did you mean by that?
Speaker 4 (00:05:26):
Well, uh, I just, I mean exactly that you need to be in a position where you have a product that gets your clients results, right? And so if your gym is at a point where you’re the only coach and you know how to get five people amazing results, but you don’t know how to get 10 people amazing results at the same time, and then we flooded the gym with 20 people, it’s not going to work, right? They’re not going to get the results they need, and therefore they’re not gonna have a good experience and I can continue to pay you. And they might even give you a bad Yelp review at the, when it’s all said and done, right? And so that’s a way in which you can just hurt your brand reputation, but in another way, right? It’s going to put a burden on you and your resources and, uh, you know, you’ll, you’ll, you’ll end up two steps behind where you, where you want it to be, right? You’ll get this maybe an influx of cash, um, for a little time being, but, but that’s not going to help you build a sustainable longterm business.
Speaker 2 (00:06:14):
It can also wash away some of your current best members, right? If they start losing your attention.
Speaker 4 (00:06:20):
Exactly. Exactly. It, you know, we’re, we’re going to talk about distractions here in a little bit, but, but yes, if you have an influx of new members, the tendency is to pour all your attention into that new blood and make sure they’re happy and all that good stuff, which is great. But yeah, the loyal clients who’ve been paying you for the past 18 months while you’re trying to get your, get your act together, they’re the ones who get, you know, hung out to dry at the end of it. So, so all that’s to say is to rain. We think there’s a time and place for paid advertising, but we also want to make sure that your gym is operationally sound before we pour gas on the flame.
Speaker 2 (00:06:53):
That’s cool. And I’m going to give you guys a lot of opportunity to make fun of me later. Um, so John, uh, for now though, like what’s going on in marketing in gyms, can you just kind of give us a broad okay.
Speaker 3 (00:07:05):
For is a jungle out there, Chris Cooper? It’s an absolute jungle. Uh, no, I think it tailored touched on where we were and maybe two or three years ago there was a lot of agency stuff so done for you. A company would come in, run a challenge for you. You do some kind of split, you know, there are times where we were seeing people getting 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 people running like one challenge within their gym. Unfortunately, the glory days of, you know, $1 leads are long gone. And I think there’s a lot more stress on that model. And what a lot of people start to find out is that if you bring 70, 80, 90 people in to your gym, you have 70, 80, 90 new people. When you’re doing, then you have to figure out how to service them. Um, and not only service them, you have to figure out how to maintain the quality of the surface for your existing members.
Speaker 3 (00:08:00):
The ones that are good, the ones that paid full price, the ones that have been there for awhile. And I think we’re starting to see things evolve a little bit now. There are a lot of companies that kind of teach how to, how to do that. Um, there are still plenty of the done for you agency types out there, but I think more and more common now gym owners are starting to take control of their own marketing, which I think is something we were, we’re very happy about. Um, but in general it’s very challenged based. It’s very LBO based on the front end and you have a lot of people uh, competing now. You know, it’s basically crossfits are now competing with the fit body boot camps of the world, the orange theories of the world, the general transformation based people who just want to lose 10 to 15 pounds of fat. And you know, we have to, we have to adapt our marketing tactic that, and we have to adapt the way we, we nurture leads in order to, to compensate for the more expensive lead cost set we’re seeing day in and day out.
Speaker 2 (00:09:05):
Okay. So, uh, obviously the model is changing all the time and like, you know, maybe this is the best argument, John, I don’t know if you’d agree with this, but is it the best argument for Jim’s knowing how to run their marketing themselves instead of hiring somebody else to do it? That this model is changing all the time.
Speaker 3 (00:09:22):
If you’re farming out your marketing, think of it as like, you’re farming out your coach. You, you, you’d never do that, right? Like you’d never hired a company to be like, come in and uh, just like, you know, you hire the coach and you run all the classes and then like, I’ll just make a bunch of money. And I think that’s the idea. And that’s how like most people treat their marketing. It’s like, oh yeah, I’ll just get the marketing and then like I’ll have a bunch of members. And the reality is like, it’s uh, like sales and marketing are central tend to your business is very important if you want to grow your gym. And the same way, like you don’t have to be an accountant to like run a gym, but you need to know your numbers in order to effectively run a gym. And marketing is the same way. Like you don’t have to be a digital marketing expert, but you have to have a general idea of the overarching processes. You have to understand what’s going on. You have to control those levers or, or else a lot of the marketing is going to go to waste, especially as it becomes more and more competitive and more and more expensive to do paid advertising.
Speaker 2 (00:10:21):
Okay. So instead of saying like what are people doing wrong right now, which is always my temptation, I’m going to actually start with a, so Mateo, if I’m about to take control of my own marketing, where do I start? Do I start just by running ads for crossfit? In my gym or do I start by having like a whole bunch of different options for people? What do I do first?
Speaker 4 (00:10:43):
Well I think we’re definitely gonna spend a good chunk of time talking about this in the next few minutes here about messaging and what you should be putting out there in the universe. But, but to answer your first question in terms of, you know, you know, options or crossfit or all my programs, what’s the deal here? Right. And I think, you know, we’re seeing that, right as people are trying to differentiate this. I was in the marketplace, you see a lot of gym owners trying to um, earliest, I’ve seen a lot of businesses to kind of add all these add ons and services. Like we also have a cycle class. We also have yoga, we also have kids bootcamp and we also have Monte bootcamp and we have all these things and trying to attract new members to their, to their gym. And you know, we, we have found that while, yes, in two brand fashion, building the stratified model and making your business more resilient with these other services. I think that’s important, but I also think, you know, you don’t, if you have all these different programs, your messaging can get bogged down and it becomes unclear on what it is that you want to, to be known for in the marketplace.
Speaker 2 (00:11:44):
Man, you are so frigging tactful. You should be the prime minister of Canada too. When I wrote to brain business, you had to understand like the market in 2012 was uh, people were just running group classes, right? No personal training, no nutrition, and they were already starting to undervalue that service and compete as commodities. And so the premise of to bring your business was let’s take the opposite approach. Let’s pull people back to the center by suggesting that you need to have multiple revenue streams. Um, where we’ve gone now is depending on the swung to the other side. So instead of saying, I am very good at these three pillars of my business is I have 20 different things that I sell. And so in two brain where it was once like, here are 20 ideas, try one of them. Now it’s, you need to do all these 20 things, right? So, so what’s the truth guys?
Speaker 3 (00:12:35):
So we call this like the in and out versus the sonic model, right? And for those of you Canadians who maybe have never had the luxury of going to an in and out in out a west coast burger chain, and they literally only have three options, they had like three, uh, like values. There’s fries, there’s a drink, and then it’s like, do you want a burger? Do you want a cheeseburger or do you want a double cheeseburger? Right? And that’s it. The menu is incredibly simple. Whereas if you go and you look at a sonic drive in menu, they have like cheeseburgers and Bacon, cheeseburgers in Burrito’s, they have chili dogs, they have chicken sandwiches, they have chicken nuggets, and then they have like three different kinds of like frozen drink things like a frosty, a blizzard, like a slushy thing. And the menu is insane.
Speaker 3 (00:13:25):
And the reality of it is, is like there, we’re trying to take people from there, their current state and move them to there desired state, right? So we’re trying to help somebody who needs to lose like 10 to 50 pounds. We’re trying to help somebody who wants to get ready for a marathon and they don’t need 25 different things, right? There’s nutrition, there’s one on one training and there’s group class and it’s just like, you know, you bundle those things together and I think you can package them very simply and elegantly and you can provide solutions based off of that for, you know, 98% of the people that walk in your gym versus a lot of people are a lot of gyms we’re seeing have 20 like we literally saw one with over 20 different options or like we saw one with like a New York sports club. Like they advertise it. We have 203 different class options and, and the reality is that just confuses people and, and they don’t care that you have 203 different class options. Like they want to lose 10 to 15 pounds. They want like an elegant solution that allows them to do that.
Speaker 2 (00:14:31):
Okay. So what you’re saying is like, people don’t necessarily want the bootcamp or the crossfit white, it’s, you know, so what do they want me to?
Speaker 4 (00:14:41):
So yeah, I, I want to briefly touch on a point that John was making and in terms of how the messaging, you know, asking about the messaging, right? What are we supposed to be putting out into the universe when we’re marketing? And I think this can be confusing for gym owners when they look very much what they offer on the website and the different programs that they provide. It looks a lot like the sonic menu that John was talking about, right? Where you have 20 different things. Uh, and it can be confusing, um, for, for a prospect to look and figure out and say, Hey, and make a decision, make a buying decision that these people have something that can help me. It’s, it’s harder to see that, right? Because it’s harder for the gym owner to say that when they have so many different things that they’re, that they’re juggling.
Speaker 2 (00:15:28):
Okay. So let’s say, you know, I know a lot of gyms are running these like crossfit and light or bootcamp or crossfit without the barbell programs. Like is that really where they should be focusing their time and attention then?
Speaker 4 (00:15:39):
Well, I think John was starting to talk about this a little bit and I think we can look at the examples he was giving for. You know, if we’re looking at the in and out menu or the sonic menu, you know, the same problems you see there with, with messaging and with uh, marketing and you can see that happening in fitness. All right. So, uh, he talks about New York Sports Club, right? With our 200 different classes. And if you’re, if you’re a prospect and you’re looking for a gym or you’re looking for solution to a problem, it’s going to be hard to see that 200 different types of classes and 1500 different types of instructions in a million locations. Like how that’s going to help you. I mean, the same goes for crossfit gyms, right? If you’re, if you’re looking to lose 10 pounds, it’s, it’s hard to, you know, come across across the gym site, see that there’s 30 different class offerings for Yoga bootcamp, mommy bootcamp, Finn, like all these different things.
Speaker 4 (00:16:25):
It becomes confusing, right? It’s tough to see that that’s going to be the solution to this person’s problem. All right. If you look at some of the other, you know, I know we like to hate on orange theory for example, but they advertise the best one I work out in the country, right? So the messaging there, it’s very clear, right? It’s very similar to this in and out exemplary we’re talking about, right? It’s very clear. It’s, it’s not confusing. I don’t have a decision fatigue, right? I’m looking to work out, I’m looking to join a gym. Do I want to go to the place with 200 different classes or do I want to go to the place with the best one hour workout in the country? Right? And then, and you know, I know, like I said, we’d like to hate on this brand, but you know, the, the, there’s something to be learned here when the average orange theory, right, the revenue per square foot is three times that of the New York sports club.
Speaker 4 (00:17:15):
Right? So I don’t want, uh, there’s anything I can, you know, teach here is I don’t want gym owners falling in the same trap trap, right? I don’t want them trying to chase the next fad and adapt to the marketplace and trying to add 20 different classes to try and meet this demand that really is not there. Right? Just focus on the one thing that really matters and that’s creating a service that gets clients results. Right? And don’t worry about, um, adding different programs that are just distraction and just makes your biggest, your business, um, bloated and convoluted and hard to manage as time goes on. Okay. So
Speaker 3 (00:17:50):
it’s not just that the owners are going to be distracted by adding all these different offerings. You’re saying that that would actually paralyze a client and stop them from buying. Yes, exactly what I’m saying, Chris. Well that makes a lot of sense. Definitely. So what do people actually want them? Maybe we should start there. So what people want is they want to go from their current situation and they want to go to their desired situation, right? So a 99% of the people that walk through your door wants some kind of results and the majority of those people are our weight loss. Like transformation based results. Like I want to lose 10 to 15 pounds. And the reason we’re talking about like one service really well versus a bunch of services okay. Is that like if you know that the majority of people walking through your door want this one thing, it’s the best use of your time to build a service that is really, really good at doing that.
Speaker 3 (00:18:44):
And from a marketing standpoint, we feel like you’re messaging needs to revolve around that rather than around all the different program offerings you have. Right. Because if I want to lose 10 to 15 pounds, I want to go to the gym. That’s the best at helping people lose 10 to 15 pounds, not the gym. That has the most instructors, not the gym that has the most class offerings, not the gym that has illegal barbells. Because my problem is that my problem isn’t that I need to lift on a Lico barbells and I mean maybe like a really, really niche gym could solve that problem. But in reality like it doesn’t matter. Right. I want to lose 10 to 15 pounds. I said, that’s what I’m looking for. So think about it like you have, um, my assistant for example, uh, she was recently going on a trip to Italy and she tried on a pair of jeans, sorry to blow up your spot either she tried on a pair of jeans like three months before she went on the trip and she’s like, shit, these pants are fitting tight.
Speaker 3 (00:19:41):
Like I need to lose some weight so I can look good for pictures on like I can look good for my pictures in Italy. And so she’s like, I’m going to start hitting the gym. I’m going to start eating right. And like that’s the point. Like we want messaging that that solves people cause that’s that pain point. That’s when people like are searching for that solution, right? Her current situations, pants or type desired situation are the pants are loose and then you know, if you look at a lot of the messaging that crossfit has, the community is doing right now, like you go on, like we literally saw one where their, their homepage said be your savage best. And so if the girl who wants to lose like 10 pounds for a trip to Italy goes to that site and see something that says like be or savage best, you know she’s going to lose interest pretty quick.
Speaker 3 (00:20:26):
Like we missed an opportunity to communicate with that person. Where if you look at some of the other ones, like examples we go to like good headlines, like we went to look at gym, their headline is be bikini body confident or another one said the world’s number one body composition experts. And so those are very powerful headlines. Those are very powerful messaging and it can be used to the majority of people that hey we can help you go from where you are to where you want to go. All right. Or to where you need to be and you know, our services do those things like crossfit can help people lose 10 to 15 pounds. In fact, they can do it better than anything else. I’ve found it yet. We’re not doing a good job of reaching these people. And I think some of the other fitness franchises are doing a better job of communicating that and their messaging is a little more powerful towards that transformation. I think it’s a missed opportunity for us as a community. So I’ll ask them to tailor this. Do you see more messaging from HQ that falls along the lines of what we actually want now? Is that changing?
Speaker 4 (00:21:29):
Yeah, I mean, so there is some good news there. Right? Um, you know, I think at least from my perspective, right when we were first I was first starting out, you know, and I came relatively late to the game. I was, you know, started crossfit in 2011. So back then, what was attractive? What it was, you know, the hardest workout. It was just like it was a Satish workout. Right? And that that was kind of the, the brand identity and the, in the messaging that that was going out there, maybe it had to do with them, you know, maybe they’ve tried, they were trying to prove that this thing works and it was hardcore and it was worthy of recognition. Maybe that was the case, I’m not sure. But yeah, over time you’re now starting to see like, hey there crossfits the messaging from HQ and kind of the, the, the media that they’re putting out is more focused and centered around the transformation.
Speaker 4 (00:22:17):
So if you look at some of the videos that come out, they’re more focused on the stories of people whose lives have been changed from starting crossfit. Right. So, uh, you know, one of my favorite examples is, is from a crossfit South Brooklyn. There’s this piece about one of their older members. She, she’s a 70 year old member and she, you know, had diabetes and, and cardiac issues and, uh, hip replacement, shoulder replacements, knee problems, all this good stuff, handout or bad stuff. And, uh, after having, after having joined a cross the South Brooklyn and working with David Sario down there, you know, she lost 20 pounds. She, she found her sense of physical aught how many she can bend down entire shoes. And, and I remember seeing that video flowing and floating around, uh, the, the blogosphere and, and putting up my cross of HQ and, and you’re seeing more and more of that messaging going out, focusing on people’s people’s stories and how their lives have been changed for the better because of this program.
Speaker 3 (00:23:14):
Okay. So let’s say that I want to use that messaging and of course I think every one of us has an inspirational member or two. John, where do I start with that? So like we were talking about a little bit before it, good messaging is centered around the transformation. We like to talk about, uh, what we call a www framework. So you didn’t know first who do you serve? Like who, who is your gym full of and who do you want it to be full, right? Those are the people you need to speak to. And then what do do so, so what is, what is the service that you offer that helps people, you know, go from their current state to their desired state? And finally like what results do you achieve? People come to your gym if they invest in you, like what can they expect for the money that they’re giving you for the services rendered?
Speaker 3 (00:24:09):
And we feel very strongly that this message needs to be market tested, right? A lot of people can can make it up and make it sound fluffy or like they can make like elite happy community that performs life altering fitness. And if you’d go to somebody like, Hey, we give me money to be a part of my elite community with life altering fitness, it’d be like, no, because you’re not really doing a good job of solving my problem. You need to have a message that resonates with the market and you need to do that before you’ve been thinking about advertising. Because if you don’t have a message that resonates with the market, people aren’t going to buy it from. And I think to brain does a good job of telling people to use organic methods first, right? So your affinity marketing, your organic outreach, Facebook posts, that kind of stuff, you can use that for $0 million to test your messaging, to create something that resonates really well with your market before going out and advertise. Okay, so then let’s say that I find a message that works, let’s say, oh now you know, I find something and it’s people are sharing it, they’re talking about it. Like what’s the next step? I’d say,
Speaker 4 (00:25:17):
so if you have operational excellence, if you have a product that works really well, and if you have something that consistently gets clients results and you’ve packaged it in a way that you know, if people’s attention, then yeah, you can start to pour some gas on the flame and start to driving traffic to that offer. Now you have something really cool and compelling and that you think, well, you know, we’ll help a lot of people. Now you can start getting eyeballs on it, right? And so that’s when you can start advertising and use some of the techniques that John and I have developed and been using for, for many years now with our gyms. Right? And so, you know, a good example of messaging that I think works and that follows this, this framework that John was talking about is the six week challenge, right? That, that we, everyone here probably knows about.
Speaker 4 (00:26:07):
Now listen to this, right? The six week challenge works and is compelling because a, it follows that framework pretty well, right? So usually ads that we run for our six week program mentioned something about who it’s for. So it’s for w we divide by men and women. So women in New York City, which is where our gym is at and where they live, and they talk about what the program is. And so the six weeks crossfit challenge, and then, uh, the messaging, we’ll definitely talk about the results they’re going to get. So we’re gonna lose that. And again, confidence. You’re gonna, you’re gonna get in shape. Um, and so our ads will say that. They’ll usually say, you know, huge opportunity for New York. Uh, women in new, we’re looking for 10 people who are ready to transform the health and fitness in the next six weeks. And then it’s a six week fitness program, our six weeks across the challenge. That is something that we know works in that a follows that framework.
Speaker 2 (00:26:56):
So how do we know what is being successful? Like what, what am I measuring here when I’m, when I’m talking about ad spend and putting things in front of people, uh, what should I expect for ROI?
Speaker 3 (00:27:07):
I’m going to go ahead and, and cut back in cause I just want to talk about testing it organically. So you know, the goto person or the p, the person that midtown I always referenced is Sherman Merricks, right? So if you talk about a guy over at dynasty crossfit who’s got it, www dialed in or does like an excellent job of testing this stuff. Like he’s the Goto guy. So He created his own variation of a six week challenge called it summer shred. And every time he runs one of those things, he can get 40, 50 people in his gym and he doesn’t spend a dollar on advertising. And the reason he’s able to do that is because he’s able to craft such a compelling message that people want to give him money. Right. And so, um, I think he did it recently with his like revive program, but that guy is constantly creating messaging and going out to the market and testing it, um, to make sure it works before he spends a dollar advertising on. And so, you know, we get a lot of people who come and talk to us and be like, you know, I need, I need new members fast. I need to do advertising. The reality of it is you can get new members very easily with a compelling offer using organic methods, not spending a dollar on advertising.
Speaker 2 (00:28:20):
Yeah. I’ll say, um, as an example from RGM, the founder, farmer, tinker thief kids summer camp is almost sold out with eight kids a week at 200 bucks a just because it’s an amazing looking program. Like, there’s, you know, we haven’t spent anything on, um, paid lead yet, but, but let’s say that we do get that and we say, okay, now we’re going to start putting some money behind this and really getting some results. Um, you know, what should we be looking at to tell us when it’s time or like what our ROI should be?
Speaker 4 (00:28:52):
So first of all, you have to make sure that you understand the three important things that are gonna Control, uh, your growth before you’re starting to actually put, put money in this thing, right? So you, we talked about testing the, the messaging right in the marketplace, right? So you have to make sure that messaging is strong. So you need a strong ad, essentially need a strong headline and a strong messaging you need is a strong advertisement. You’re also gonna need a very strong sales process in place to be able to take on the new interest and then you’re going to need it, like we said before, have a tested program and a tested system for getting your clients results, right? That’s, that’s kind of the secret to, um, to get in, to get in massive growth and getting people in through the door. And the secret to making sure that when you put money on this thing that it’s gonna, it’s gonna work for you.
Speaker 4 (00:29:43):
And then for us, once you, once you have those systems in place, right? And you already start advertising, we take them, we essentially build out a funnel, which is the sexy term, right? The, the thing that people are talking about every time. I’m sure it’s showing up on people’s, uh, feeds now how to get leads and build the best funnel in the funnel blueprint, right? So, but that’s essentially what it is. And all that is, is the way to get, and you talk about this to Chris in your modules is how to get people interested in your product and then into your door so you can sell them, right? And so the way our funnel work works is, um, I thought I talked about this briefly, but you, you want to have an ad, a strong ad that’s going to get people interested. Uh, from there they click on the ad and they’ll be taken to a page where we then talk about the program, how it’s going to get them results.
Speaker 4 (00:30:29):
A couple of things that involves like it’s fitness and there’s nutrition and then we, we get them to inquire for more info by submitting the information or often it, right? So their phone number, their email, we capture that information and then we drive them to another, another page where they can, uh, schedule an intro to come see us. And on there we have directions, we have more social proof, right? We will do everything we can to get them to book an appointment. But most people, you know, won’t book one right off the Bat, right? So joining a gym is scary, can be intimidating, especially if you’re not feeling very confident in yourself. And so it’s up to us, right? To then pick up the phone and follow up with these people. That’s a major part of our process, right, is the lead nurture process. And we call them, we pick up the phone and actually call them.
Speaker 4 (00:31:09):
It’s not just automatic emails anymore. Right? This and calling them, you know, I talked with a lot of gym owners, this seems to be a big, a big point of contention, right? It’s like I don’t want to pick up the phone and I don’t want to sound scammy or bother people. And the reality is people have a, they’ve, they’ve offered themselves up as tribute. They have said, I, they identified themselves as having this problem where it’s like, Hey, I’m trying to lose 10 pounds and you seem like you might be able to help me. So it’s your kind of your duty to, to call them and try and help them. Right? And so we call them up. We tried to get them to come in for furniture and no sweat and show a where we then use the prescriptive model that we teach in to brain and we prescribe a solution.
Speaker 4 (00:31:46):
And, and it’s, it’s typically our six or six week program and that’s pretty much how it works. And after that point, after we had them as a customer, then we fulfill on that, on that promise. We get them the results we show that we have the best coaches. We have an amazing community. We have an amazing facility and they discovered that for themselves and they’re going to continue to stay, stay because of the community, because the results they’re getting. And, and because, uh, you do have an awesome happy gym, but they find that out after signing up. Right? And, and that’s how the process continues because it’d become a repeat customer and they continue to pay you month after month for these results.
Speaker 2 (00:32:21):
You know, Matteo just mentioned the six week challenge, John, and I want to, I want to give you the opportunity to differentiate what you’re doing and calling a six week challenge versus what’s commonly understood to be the six week challenge in the crossfit world right now. So like what do you guys do?
Speaker 4 (00:32:38):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (00:32:38):
So yeah,
Speaker 3 (00:32:40):
so six week challenge, we’ll just, that’ll be a blanket like front end offer, right? Is what we’ll call it. And that’s just the, the www. It’s the messaging we put out in the world to get people’s interest to come into our gym so that we can then sell them on our amazing service, our amazing community, et Cetera, et cetera. Right. And so there are three kind of six week challenges that are surfacing in the crossfit world right now. Right. There’s the, there was a hard start date and hard stop date. Uh, so it’s like, it’s a separate classroom. You meet Monday, Wednesday, Friday at Timex and you put 30 people in that class and then you sell different class times. That is not what we do. Uh, another one that’s super common is, is like free six week challenge, which you know, a lot of people are calling like bait and switch marketing where you offer like a free six week challenge but you end up like taking a deposit from people and, and holding that captain from them basically in that, and that’s not the kind of marketing we do either.
Speaker 3 (00:33:48):
A, the third piece is just running what’s called like an evergreen challenge. So that means there’s no hard stop, there’s no hard start. We run the ads year round and the way our challenge works, and when I say challenge, I’m putting it in quotation marks here that uh, you know, we start people off by bringing them in for no sweat intro based off of their fitness teams. We make a prescription based off of like one of our three offerings. So we have like a bronze, a silver and gold package. And those are different like each, each one has a variation based off of like how much one on one training you get, how much nutrition you get and how quickly you’re put into a group crossfit classes. And that’s based off of you know, what their needs are. And within that framework we pepper in goal setting sessions in, in body scan so we can monitor frameworks, right?
Speaker 3 (00:34:40):
And so it’s not like a dump 30 people in your class and do a bunch of air squats. Like our six week challenges is same exact experience we give to every single person starting in our gym. So we have this blanket front end offer that we think is the most effective way for getting people to lose 10 to 15 pounds. Right? Like we want you to do goal setting sessions. We want you on an inbody, we want you doing one on one training, we need to do a nutrition program. If you want to get your, if you want to get from your current situation to your desired situation quickly. And um, that front end offer allows us to package, like create our ads and get our marketing within a proven framework that works really, really well. But it allows us to run our ads year around and it allows us to then like, you know, it’s an individual challenge rather than a group challenge. Um, so we can run that marketing over and over and over again. Okay, that’s great. So let’s here, the big question that people are asking me right now is like how much should I spend on ads? You know, in
Speaker 2 (00:35:37):
a lot of guys are saying, Oh, I spent a hundred bucks on this ad and I just wasted a hundred bucks. Like, I should’ve mailed the checks as Zuckerberg. So this is a huge question. How do you answer it?
Speaker 4 (00:35:48):
Well, my answer is a, is it going to be, it depends, which is not a good answer, right? But the only reason I stay is because you need to know your, your numbers. And what I mean by that is, you know, there is, we have the system, right? We have the system in which we drive people to an ad or we put an ad out, people click on it, we drive them to an offer, we drive them to a page, we get them to inquire and then we follow up with them and we get them to come in. And, and so we have this whole process, right? And you need to know how you’re doing on each step of that process to see, um, you know, how much you should be spending, where, how much effort and time and money you should be spending at each step.
Speaker 4 (00:36:33):
Right? So I know based off of, because we track our numbers and we track everything. I know on average, um, how much a click should cost. I know how much a lead should cost. I know how much it’s gonna cost me to get someone to inquire and book an intro. I know how much it’s gonna cost for them to actually show up to that appointment. I know how much it’s going to cost to sell them. Right? Because I know at each step along the funnel, we know what good performance looks like and what bad performance looks like. But at the end of the day, um, you know, as long as you have an accurate picture of that system and you know that you have a positive ROI on your front end offers. So, you know, if you spend on ad dollars on ads and you’re able to get one person to come in and they’re going to buy a package that’s $101, um, that’s a positive ROI, then you know, you can do that for forever. Uh, your, your ad budget essentially becomes infinite at that point.
Speaker 2 (00:37:32):
Okay. So, you know, one of the things, one of the problems that we’ve seen is, uh, people will spend $100 on hat. Three people will come in. None of them will sign up, right? So where’s the problem and that whole scenario and what do you do about it? To me, it’s obvious that the problem is in their, their ability to convert or like their sales process, right?
Speaker 3 (00:37:53):
So again, we kind of talked about our Taito touched on the three drivers of ROI. So it’s your marketing, it’s your sales and it’s your service, right? And um, your front end offers gonna look pretty similar to a lot of the other stuff out there, right? There’s, there’s a bunch of different iterations of the same thing. There’s a bunch of different messaging, the same thing, but most people tend to create some kind of challenge or offering that’s either 21 days, six weeks, or like 90 days slash 12 weeks, and they’ll give it like a fancy name. And everybody says like, you know, everybody claims results. Um, so like the funnel is a small piece of like, setting up the funnel is definitely important, but where the magic happens and where real competitive advantage happens is your lead nurture your sales process and in your service.
Speaker 3 (00:38:40):
Right? And so one of the reasons why you have to have such a, like you have to have such a focus on having a really amazing service is that like if you understand like one of the things we track pretty diligently is our our lifetime value and not just lifetime value of the gym, but also lifetime value of people who come through our, our challenges are like our friend and offers our ads. And so a lot of the people that we work with, there’ll be like a, the challenge mentalities. So people will come in and just like leave, right? And the reality is like if you get really good results that that’s not necessarily the case, right? And granted like people coming in through paid sources are not going to convert as well as people who are just like seeing your website saying like, Hey, I want to go here.
Speaker 3 (00:39:28):
Scheduling to notice what interns showing up at your gym. Right? Those people are always going to have a greater longterm value or lifetime value than your guys who came off of that. But the reality of the situation is like, and you know, one of the people in to brain marketing, like he was, he was getting frustrated because he was converting like 50% of the people who came in through his ads into long term members and, and the dude ended up growing his gym by like 30% in eight weeks. And he was like frustrated because he’s like, you know, I’ve only lost like three members from my regular service. It’s a brand new gym, so he’s not, he doesn’t offer the best service in the world is just relatively new. Um, you know, he’s like, I’ve only had like three people drop in the last eight weeks from my regular gym.
Speaker 3 (00:40:12):
And like, you know, I had six people dropped from the challenge, but, but the reality is like, he had an insane ROI, like an absolutely insane ROI and you just need to batten down the hatches and like understand his numbers and keep running with it. And I think Teo was able to talk them off the ledge. But like that’s a, that’s an example of, you know, you need it, you need to have an understanding of what your numbers should be like in every step of the funnel. And, and if they’re safe, you need to have the ability to think long term and know that, you know, if I’m breaking even on the front end, even though from a cashflow perspective, like you know, it may not look like your bank balance is going up. You wake up three, four, five months down the road and there’s an extra five, $10,000 of recurring revenue on your business that you didn’t realize that you kind of built up gradually.
Speaker 2 (00:41:02):
So th the formula that you guys keep coming back to is basically like, you gotta have a strong ad, you’ve got to have a strong conversion or intake process, but you also have to get your clients results, right? Correct. That’s absolutely correct. Yeah. It’s funny that we even have to bring this up, right, because I mean five years ago, all the messaging coming out of crossfit HQ was you just have to give your clients results. And that may or may not have been true at the time, but now we’re, the pendulum seems to have swung toward, you just see that good marketing. It’s still important that
Speaker 3 (00:41:34):
you’re actually helping people, right? I think any affiliate owner has the ability, they really sat down and thought hard to be like, how do I, if I was to, if I needed to get a client 10 to 15 pounds lighter in six weeks, like what would I do with that person? What would I prescribe to them? Right? If this person had no budget, this is the package I would put together to serve that person. And I think like that needs to be the top end of their offering. I think they need to scale down from there, but they need to constantly remain focused on the client results when they’re creating their offering and when they’re creating their messaging. Because you’d get a lot of people who like they go through on ramp but an on ramp know maybe they don’t even have like a workout when they’re, when they’re onboarding people.
Speaker 3 (00:42:20):
And so this person, maybe they’re selling like a six week challenge and it’s been two weeks and the person hasn’t done a workout yet. It’s like I came to your gym to get results and like it, yeah, you taught me how to saturate the PVC pipe but you know, I’m going to go to orange theory cause I got to get a burn on. Okay. That makes a lot of sense to me. Um, so obviously you have to get the results. Um, but where, where I think most of the sources, podcasts really need the most help is they have to learn how to market and they have to learn how to convert. Like nobody gets into crossfit just for the reason that they’re going to make a lot of money. All of these people want to serve, you know, other people. All of these people are probably really good coaches. How do you guys step in and, and what is to brand marketing and how do you,
Speaker 4 (00:43:04):
so we want to teach people how to fish essentially. Because I think you’re right there. Everyone. You know, most people here are great coaches, have a great product, know how to get people the results that they want. Know how to teach the fundamentals of crossfit. Know how to explain to someone that hey, like you should vegetables and lean protein and [inaudible] and you’ll be, and you’ll get to where you want to be, right? Everyone, everyone has the pieces, right? Everyone, everyone knows what to do because that’s what crossfit is. We already have the system, right? So, so in to brand marketing, what we do is we want to teach people how to fish. We want to teach people how to essentially build their own machines so they don’t have to hire someone else to do it for them. Uh, we teach people how to take what their services, package it in a way that’s going to follow the ww a w framework and then build out a campaign that will consistently get them, uh, people who are interested in their service so that they can follow up, get them scheduled intro, and then sell them on the service.
Speaker 4 (00:44:06):
Uh, and we teach them and mentor people on every step of the funnel. Right? It’s not just the ad, it’s not just the page, it’s also the lead nurture process. It’s also the sales we teach people so that there is no, there is no gap on any one place in that funnel, in the step by step process. Okay. How’s it all work? Uh, so the way it works is, uh, we have, uh, like, like your, like your modules. We have video modules, we have lessons. Uh, there’s about 10 of ’em in there. And, uh, we’ll teach you, you know, the basics of, uh, crafting your offer, your messaging. We also give you templates that we know have work, are battle tested ads that are proven pages that convert very, very, very, very highly. And it’s all there for people to learn how to use, take what we’ve given them and then basically attach their own spin, their branding, their messaging on there as well.
Speaker 4 (00:45:01):
From there there’s uh, there’s mentor calls with me to make sure that everything works properly, that everything looks good and everything makes sense. And then how to optimize the campaign once it’s up and running. All right. And the value there is, you know, I know people can get intimidated by, hey, I don’t know where this pixel thing goes. I don’t, I don’t, I just can’t do technology. You know, that’s what the videos are there for. And that’s what the phone calls are there for as well. The mentorship that’s um, not only just with me and John, but, but also in the Facebook marketing group where there’s lots of people in there who are constantly trying out new things, experimenting, testing a new messaging, new www is putting them to the test and sharing with the group. And so that’s really what’s been awesome is seeing other people take the, the, the lessons that John I have created for people and running with it. And creating new things in advertising for, for, you know, kids programs and competitions and things we never even would have thought about doing before.
Speaker 2 (00:45:58):
Yeah, that’s super cool. And I think the key there really is mentorship. And that’s the two red model all over the place. It’s, it’s not just a video modules, which are amazing, but it’s, it’s one on one mentorship to help you, you know, really dial in your gym. Um, so I kinda wanted to bring this back to Franklin because when we were starting to talk about having a two brain marketing program under the mentorship on Brella, we said right from day one before somebody can get into to brand marketing, they have to go through like an incubation stage. So John, you know, maybe you can just touch on why, why that’s our decision.
Speaker 3 (00:46:35):
Business excellence simply put, so there are a lot of marketing programs out there. There are plenty of people who can teach you how to set up a funnel really quickly. And there plenty of people all in every corner of the Internet who will set up a funnel for you. But, but the magic isn’t in the funnel. Like I, if there’s one overarching message for this podcast is that magic is not in the funnel is the easiest part. The magic is in the service. The magic is in getting your clients results. And the magic is in having a strong sales process that does a good job of explaining to people that you’re the person who can get them from their current situation to their desired situation. And the reason we love to brain gym is because we are two brain chips. It’s the same services that helped us get a grip on our business.
Speaker 3 (00:47:27):
And so like, you know, there are plenty of people I’m sure listening to this podcast who have large affiliates like we do. Like when we, when we joined two brain, you know, we were doing well over a million, uh, multi location but, but some of our systems weren’t tight and you know, we were spending a lot of money on marketing. We had very positive front end ROI, but we weren’t doing as well on the back because we didn’t have our system style that we weren’t getting people the results that we needed to. And I think tutoring does an excellent job. Uh, making sure everything in the back of the gym is dialed in so we can turn on the fire hose in the front of the gym and you can handle all that growth.
Speaker 4 (00:48:10):
And that’s why the people who’ve done, uh, the best in our program, the people who have had the most success are also not coincidentally. They’re also the ones who have operational excellence who have owners and operators in there who have these systems dialed down. Uh, we have one, uh, one two main veteran who, um, has, you know, gone through the incubator, had gone through the system’s, gone through the mentorship. He applied our two main marketing techniques from our course and he was able to add a hundred new members, um, since February into his June. So in two months, uh, another one of our, our students Wa is also a mentor to and mentor. Right. So he is probably the best example of someone who follows the two reign principles and has operational excellence. And he was able to, to get, you know, $23,000 in revenue from his advertisements in 12 weeks.
Speaker 4 (00:49:04):
Uh, and then another one from, uh, who is also now a new tube, a mentor. Um, he was able to, you know, generate $45,000 in 12 weeks. So these are people who have followed the two brain principals who have now gone through the incubator but who’ve followed them to the t to the point where now they are teaching others these principles and these guidelines and gone through the incubator and follow the process. And they are the ones who have seen the best and most massive results from the paid advertising and marketing techniques that John and I teach in our course.
Speaker 2 (00:49:35):
Yeah, indeed. I am so, so thrilled for all of these guys because, um, you know, their, their systems are right on. I know their clients are having an amazing experience when they go to this gym. They’re going to keep these clients longterm and change their lives. And, uh, you know, that just fills me with joy. So, you know, we’ve taken years and years to, to come to the point where we’re ready to say this is the to brain marketing program and John Mateo, you guys are definitely the guys we want delivering this program. I absolutely love you guys and your intent and we’re gonna change a million entrepreneurs together and this is where it starts. So thanks a lot for coming on the show and thanks a lot for explaining this stuff. Thanks for being there. And thanks for being such an important part too. Right?
Speaker 3 (00:50:20):
I think Chris and Mateo hit it on the head, right? A lot of our people who see the best results are in fact mentors have to reign. And the reason they’re two great mentors is because they have operational assets, right? And so if I spend $1,000 on ads and people only stick around for six weeks, you know, I am at a severe competitive disadvantage. If I’m going up against a guy like big boy, Kim Layton out there in Edmonton where he’s bringing in 80 new members and retaining 80% of them because it’s Jim’s ops, right? He can afford to spend a lot more on ads than I can because he knows 80% of those people are going to stick around and become longterm mentors. And that service piece, you know, get through to brain and I think the, the front end stuff, when they start to work with us, it’s really easy and really natural and they’re mature enough to do a really good job marketing and they can think longterm enough to really provide these people with excellent service.
Speaker 3 (00:51:19):
And so we want to help you with that regardless of what stage you’re in, right? So if you aren’t into brain, I want you to get on a call with either Chris or Mateo and we’ll, we’ll tell you how to do that and we can talk to you about how you can go through incubator and then start working with us and market when you’re ready. And if you are in to rain, what are you doing? Get in our group already. Don’t be ridiculous. All right, so, so anybody who’s listening to this, if you’ve made it this far, thank you. But you can head over to to brain marketing.com and there’s going to be a landing page there. You just enter your information. Then there’ll be a spot where you can book a call with Mateo and uh, we’re happy to talk with you regardless of where you are, whatever your unique situation is and uh, see what can help you get to where you want to go. All right guys. Thanks Chris. Thanks Teo. Thanks Chris.
Speaker 5 (00:52:09):
This episode is sponsored by and they’ll coffee creators of the new CEO brand coffee from two brain. If you’ve ever been to a to brain seminars summit, you’ve heard me do a little segment called what is the value of a cup of coffee? And I shared four key points in my life where I’ve shared a cup of coffee with somebody, really influential and it made a big deal. So in one circumstance, you know, the coffee was worth a dollar 70 but it got me through this mountain pass in the dead of night in Utah. While I was working on a story about polygamist and there are three other even larger examples where a coffee has been worth, you know, up to $100,000 somebody, what is a great cup of coffee worth? Well, it can be almost priceless and if you’ve met me, you know that I’m always either holding a cup of coffee, drinking a cup of coffee, or maybe even talking about a cup of coffee if I’m not doing one of those three things, I need one.
Speaker 5 (00:52:58):
Now. When I approached Brian, I approached him from the help first mentality. Hey Man, I want to talk about your coffee on my show. It’s fantastic. And he turn right around and out, help first to me. He said, yeah man, we are going to help. Every time somebody in the two brain family orders some coffee from Advil, we are going to make a little donation to the Special Olympics, which is a charity that is very near and dear to my heart. I can’t say enough about these guys. The coffee’s amazing Brian and amazing person. He’s a valuable part of the two brain family and he’s going to make a contribution to special Olympics. Thank you Brian. I love your brother. I love your coffee. If you’re listening to this, give anvil coffee a shot. You will not be disappointed except for this one little disappointing thing. You can’t buy CEO coffee. The only way to get CEO coffee and the coveted two brain CEO Mug is to sign up for the incubator details for that are on our website to run business.com
Speaker 6 (00:53:51):
oh hey guy. Hey Anthony. How are you sir? I’m good. I’m just going to turn this up. That’s fine. It’s not as hard as it was. Not as hard as I thought it was going to be. Not a problem. Welcome to two brain stories. How are you? I’m great. I like how we got matched. Right. Great mind thinks alike. I like it. So I’m jumping on here. Of course with two brain stories we talk about not only success stories but struggle stories as well and all different aspects so that we can connect to other gym owners and other business owners and show them that, hey, they’re not alone in this. There are other people that are going through the same stuff or have gone through the same stuff and may ha may have a solution to it or may let them know, hey, I’m going through this struggle and this is just how it is and we can go forward from there. But so why don’t we get into it? Tell me about your story.
Speaker 7 (00:54:37):
Yeah, so I think my, the story of our gym is, is me, I’m playing with the puzzle pieces too much and not drinking the Koolaid and really taking action on. I think for the longest time for us, I wasn’t, did take advantage of the expertise where our mentors and I kind of spun my tires for a really long time and I didn’t really start regaining traction in the gym until I actually, until the mentors helped me clarify what those two or three important things we working on a month to month basis where I would say I’m very much like, you know, certainly at the time when we opened our gym in 2013, um, we were kind of here locally. We were kind of on the, a little bit behind the big wave of, of people opening affiliates. But I made the same assumptions I think a lot of people did, which is you put crossfit on the door and there’ll be a whole bunch of doozies in their garage and they’ll crawl up from under rocks and line up at your gym. And then even though coop had certainly, uh, said you might get a couple, but you know, it might not be enough to fill your gym. And, and that was kind of this narrow what we were in.
Speaker 6 (00:55:45):
And going back to that, you said basically action was, was a big appoint that you noticed that you weren’t doing. When specifically, did you notice that that was uh, or came to light in your mind that that was an issue for you?
Speaker 7 (00:56:00):
Well, I think, again, I think I made a lot of IX a of the same mistakes is like I was coaching every class. I was at the gym from 5:00 AM until seven or eight at night and I completely bought into the martyr complex. You know, I was still involved in with it with the two brain. I mean I still been a member. I was kind of seeing successes with their successes, but I knew for, I wasn’t, I knew I was a gotten, so I’ve gotten so mired in like being blown out from coaching all day and then being so stressed out from looking at this impossible task list that I brought, you know, you had to break down and change something. And really the change something was me was like, you know, I got to get ahold of like I was as a Brian basically. I said, I got to call this guy and figure out what I’m going to do next because I can’t sustain another two years of this.
Speaker 6 (00:56:50):
Exactly. Okay. Uh, what actions did you take?
Speaker 7 (00:56:54):
So the biggest thing I think from talking to Brian was, and actually though our conversations that are primarily around staffing, which is I had either on Whitney unwittingly or otherwise have locked myself into that icon role. And I was um, nervous about entrusting my athletes to another person and it kind of boiled down to the whole like, you know, certainly I would, I’d be willing to admit I’m very particular, my staff knows I’m very particular, they say it in a very loving way, which I really appreciate them. But I certainly you have to kind of, you, and I mean, Brian talked about it this year at the summit, which is like you can’t be a puppet master. Like you’ve only got two hands. Right? And if you have to control your staff every little thing they do, you are not going to be able to get anything done, right. You’re just going to be standing on top of your staff member and then you haven’t saved yourself any time. So our big breakthrough was we had a couple of great athletes who were really great people and we promoted them up into and developed them as coaches. And that kind of helped me at least take those first couple baby steps forward.
Speaker 6 (00:57:59):
Excellent. And so what’s, what is the outcome of that now?
Speaker 7 (00:58:02):
Well, the outcome of that now is that I have a much better, I mean they’ll come of, it really is like, because I started that process three years ago, I’ve made enough mistakes. I’m much better at hiring and training staff. I mean that’s really the, and it, and um, and I mean for me that’s been a big breakthrough too. Cause like I’m a the classic overthinker which means I’m risk averse in some ways. In other ways. I’m, I’m, I, I’m an entrepreneur. I like taking risks, but I overthink cause I don’t want to make mistakes. And then I realized like I just can you take action, you, it’s never going to be perfect. You just automize the process. And could just kind of keep iterating and improving. So that’s been like, that’s been the only way we’ve been able to move forward.
Speaker 6 (00:58:42):
Excellent. Excellent. So basically having your, having recognizing was the biggest portion wasn’t even taking action, but recognizing that you had, that you’ve, you have downfalls, you have, you have things that you know are things you want to work on but aren’t exactly going the way you expected them to. And because of that realization that caused you to have the action, especially like you said, with your staffing, to be proactive with the hiring, but then also make sure that everyone’s on the same page and that you’re constantly trying to make them better, but not through pinpointing every little thing. Cause I think as gym owners we sometimes do that. I know I do that with my staff and I’d much rather be conductor of the orchestra with one hand than a puppet master without a doubt.
Speaker 7 (00:59:25):
Yeah. You don’t want to take your coach by the hand and necessarily show them where the chalk look it goes. I mean there’s no, there’s better uses for your time. Right. I mean obviously they should know because they should know where everything in the gym goes. But um, yeah, it’s gets moving on to the higher level basically experience. And I will say too, cause I know we talked about this is like in the first couple of years, and I think this is important for like for everyone to kind of take note of this. So like the first couple of years there was some ad servers like meetings that I didn’t go to because I didn’t think I could leave the gym. And so for me, going to the first, uh, not to the first, but going into Chicago two years ago was a massive breakthrough for us because the things that you gained from that environment are, I mean you’re paying basically nothing.
Speaker 7 (01:00:10):
You’re getting a massive, massive like that, you know, it’s already a 10 x return on just going to the summit in terms of financials. And you know, if you’re one of those gym owners that feel like it’s too expensive to like take that weekend off or to travel or wherever, it really, I can’t stress enough how much value you get out of that. Like our first year alone going to the summit was like, I use it to, to like, I would call that the Canadian version of profit first, which is like there’s just collect government taxes for the government first as the Canadian Virgin. But like that was a massive health in terms of us organizing our own accounting internally. And it saved me a ton of time because now I can get almost all of our gym sort of like this stuff I can do, which is the, the paying the bills and, and um, our fixed costs, if I can get that done in like two hours a month.
Speaker 7 (01:01:00):
So calving that down to like a system, understanding where all the money goes so I don’t have to stress out about it was huge. And I think this year I was already kind of ahead of the curve in terms of some of the talks this year in that like I came down a week early, I, I did the big five personality tests and so that kind of, and I did a bunch of writing around. Both me and Brian are fans of Georgia, Dr. Jordan Peterson. So I did some future authoring work and I did the personality tests and it’s really helped bring up during home what my strengths and weaknesses are. And so now after this year I’m, I’m much bigger about a, making sure that our philosophy is communicated to all of our employees and be communicating kind of like what our individual strengths and weaknesses are so that I am more willing to like for me just being willing to delegate tasks often and admitting that there’s, there’s big things that are a part of this business that I’m not great at. And so I can work on the things that I’m really good at and I can crush on a day to day basis and I can delegate out those things where I’m going to be sloppy or I’m going to be angry about doing it or whatever.
Speaker 6 (01:02:08):
Excellent. And it’s again, self-actualization. And then on top of that, that other piece of it, because it doesn’t matter how much you realize something, which is the first step, but then taking that action, which is what you did and not only going to the summit, cause I agree with you 100% in my first year when I got to go to the summit and actually be immersed into that group, not thinking I could leave my gym completely changed my mindset. So with that then causing me to have action in the gym and realize, no, I need to take a step back. So I completely understand where you’re coming from. And that makes perfect sense.
Speaker 7 (01:02:38):
So it’s so much like that week after the summit, like you get so much done, you’re so inspired. And I realize it’s, it sounds so cliche, but like for me it was so much easier for you to jump over barriers in terms of like implementing projects or, or you know, for me I’ve been putting off like hiring that other staff person to kind of help me stay organized and I realized like one of my wires, the resistance coming from right. I just gotta go and do it and that’s what we’ve done since we’ve been back. So it, yeah, it just makes such a huge difference and it’s so good to talk to people who are, for me it’s like talking to people who are a, like a couple steps ahead of you and then also talking to people who are a couple of steps. We’re working on the same things that you’ve had to work through as well because we’ve all gone through these struggles.
Speaker 7 (01:03:26):
Certainly the first summit I felt a little bit like a small fish in the big pond and then over the past year I, you know, it’s a lot of that is like, you know, I’m a competitive person. That’s why gone into crossfit as well on like I want to do really well. Understanding like what helped, what helped a lot of these gym owners like take these next steps. It has been like just so helpful as opposed to being afraid of like, you know, they’re gonna make fun of me or something. I don’t even know what, what the downside possibly could be, frankly. Because everyone there and internally the mentors and the people who are very, very successful are more than happy to share with you and, and uh, give you some really good advice as to how to move on
Speaker 6 (01:04:04):
or the greed getting, feeling that vulnerability definitely takes a part into it. You have to be vulnerable to say, Hey, this is where I’m at compared to, hey, maybe this is where I’m at when it really isn’t. Maybe I’m above where I think I am, but it takes some vulnerability to be able to do that. But then on top of that, making sure you’re moving forward with the advice that you’re getting and using it accordingly.
Speaker 7 (01:04:25):
Yeah, it’s people are human beings are amazing and I think, but I mean sometimes we have the same sort of fall downs, which is like that. Exactly. That fear of being vulnerable of like, you know, I’m five years in, I should be at a, or I should be at B. And really that’s completely nonproductive thinking like I am at where I’m at now and I need to take that next step like, and for the, so for this year, like you know that tasks where I like testing and like I know I’m still in the farmer phase and that’s like, I’m like cool. Like I at one point I probably would have been disappointed with that thinking like, Oh I should be further ahead than where I’m at. But it really is just like, okay cool. This is where I’m at. This really helps me understand what my next items are to move forward to the next phase and how, you know, what, how can I execute on that?
Speaker 7 (01:05:07):
As I said, like even in the opening, like the more I’ve resisted kind of like the organization side of things because I am as entrepreneur, I definitely lean more the artistic slash like big vision items as opposed to like the maybe I should make a to do list and prioritize, right? Like that’s the thing that moves the ball forward. It’s good to have these big ideas, but then it’s good to come back down to earth and then take that next step. And, uh, so for us, I’d say like those last year, think that’s the side that’s really come together for us. And understanding that like, even though I’m not that to do list person, that I can have people help me with that and that it doesn’t make me, you know, like I can buy you, it doesn’t take a bruising from, from, from coming to that understanding. Right. Like, cause now I’m getting things done. I would prefer just to get, I would prefer to win right then to hide in the corner. Worried about my ego.
Speaker 6 (01:05:58):
Exactly. And I think a, I think that’s a perfect place for us to stop. Uh, this is been a great talk with you and, and getting people to hopefully understand where they’re at, putting their ego to the side, being vulnerable, and then of course, taking action on either the advice or, or some kind of dream that they have for the gym or program. So I think this is perfect. So I want to say thank you, Anthony, for jumping on. If anybody else has anybody out there that wants to jump on and, and has a story, please let me know. Let’s, uh, let’s get them on here. But again, Anthony, thank you. Thank you for your time. Thanks so much. Take care. You too.

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