Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Chief: Leadership for Gym Growth

Why do most gyms plateau at 122 members? The answer: leadership.

In this episode of "Run a Profitable Gym," Two-Brain CEO Chris Cooper explains how your leadership skills determine whether your gym grows, stalls or shrinks.

Your gym will rise to the level of your leadership and fall to the level of your worst staff members. To take your gym to increasingly higher levels, you must evolve as a leader.

Chris presents the four phases of leadership for gym owners and lists the skills required to climb the ladder:

✅ Founder—Master self-leadership with focus and discipline.
✅ Farmer—Build team leadership through clarity and systemized delegation.
✅ Tinker—Develop peer leadership by collaborating and mentoring.
✅ Chief—Become a better storyteller and improve your ability to create and inspire new leaders.

To avoid outpacing your leadership development, Chris recommends you build your gym business plan with 150 members as your first target—not 300. If you try to go big too soon, you'll always slide back to 120-150 members.

But if you learn to serve 150 people in a rock-solid business and develop your CEO skills, you can acquire as many members as you want or move on to the next legacy-building project.

Watch this episode to get clarity on your current leadership phase and learn exactly which skills you need to break through to the next level.

Links

Gym Owners United

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2:17 - Why gyms plateau at 122 members

9:02 - Founder: self-leadership

11:35 - Farmer: team leadership

14:43 - Tinker: peer leadership

18:20 - Chief: tribe leadership