Run a Profitable Gym

Two-Brain Marketing Episode 17: Dan VisentinToday we are joined by Dan Visentin, Two-Brain Business mentor and marketing team member and owner of CrossFit 416 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.Dan opened his gym eight years ago in a 1,200-square-foot space with just $25,000. Since then, the gym has moved twice and managed to not only survive, but thrive. But it wasn't easy.Dan takes us through the early days of his affiliate—when he was working too much, coaching too many classes and losing his passion—and shares how he revamped his business by defining his vision, putting the right staff people in the right places, and redefining himself as a mentor, not a manager. He also shares his ad-campaign and lead-nurture strategy, and how he turned $10,000 in ad spend into $30,000 in front-end sales revenue.Join us to learn how to hire and develop great staff and how to winnow your marketing and lead-nurture processes to get more clients. Links: CrossFit 416"Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't"Contact: Dan.visentin@twobrainbusiness.com@crossfit_416Timeline: 3:00 – Intro to Dan Visentin.6:00 – The early days: Working too much and relocating out of panic. 6:53 – Why join Two-Brain? 8:17 – The first big “aha” moments: Creating a vision and developing staff.9:37 – Mentoring—not managing—staff.13:53 – What it means to be a great leader.16:04 – Hire people who share your values—then find a place for them.18:49 – Selling a solution to people’s problems.22:07 – Ads and lead nurturing: trial and error.28:35 – Selling the prescriptive model. 29:54 – Converting six-week challengers to monthly membership clients.34:04 – The key to success: Putting the right people in the right places. 

Founder, Farmer, Thinker, Thief

Two-Brain Radio With Sean Woodland, Episode 7: Tim PaulsonOn today’s episode of Two-Brain Radio with Sean Woodland, Sean speaks with two-time CrossFit Games athlete and co-owner of CrossFit Pallas in Ithaca, New York, Tim Paulson.Paulson made his CrossFit Games debut in 2017, finishing 19th his rookie year. He returned in 2018 and will be competing again in Madison this year. He spoke with Sean about how he found CrossFit, CrossFit Pallas' early days in a dingy two-car garage, and why he gave up a job as an accountant with a nationwide firm to take his gym from hobby to career.Bonus: You'll also learn which high-fantasy novels and authors are his favorites and about his newfound love for photography.Links:https://www.crossfitpallas.com/Contact: @trexpaulson and @trex.in.the.wildTimeline:1:00 – How Tim found CrossFit.3:03 – Choosing CrossFit over hockey.3:59 – Becoming a competitor: Tim’s first Regional experience.6:16 – Finally making the Games.10:04 – Returning to the Games in 2018 with the wrong mindset.11:18 – Listening to Mat Fraser bark.13:12 – Navigating the changes to the CrossFit competition season.16:14 – Managing mental fatigue.18:51 – Thoughts on rumors of performance-enhancing drugs.20:51 – The history of CrossFit Pallas: from hobby to business.27:25 – How to be a great coach and relate to the average-Joe athlete.29:35 – Standing out among the affiliate—and non-affiliate—competition.31:13 – Thoughts on the disappearance of CrossFit Inc.’s social media.33:56 – Why remain an affiliate? 35:59 – What the future holds: Opening a non-CrossFit gym.37:15 – The biggest mistake affiliate owners make.38:25 – Tim Paulson nerds out on philosophy, sci-fi and photography.

Two-Brain Marketing Episode 16: Tyler Lee and Jonathan GibbonsTyler Lee and Jonathan Gibbons own CrossFit Resurrection in Barrie, Ontario, Canada.The pair bought the gym three years ago, navigating the sticky situation of raising membership prices and firing the previous owners after they began sowing discord. Neither Lee nor Gibbons had any prior business, sales or marketing experience and felt overwhelmed at the prospect of advertising and nurturing leads—until they joined the Two-Brain family about eight months ago. Since then, they've totally overhauled and automated their No-Sweat Intro and ad campaign processes. Last month, they spent $800 on ads and generated more than $5,000 in front-end revenue.Join us to learn how Lee and Gibbons used Two-Brain practices to take their gym from surviving to thriving.Links:https://healthystepsnutrition.com/https://crossfitresurrection.ca/Contact:crossfitresurrection@gmail.comhttps://www.facebook.com/crossfitresurrection/https://www.instagram.com/crossfitresurrection/?hl=enTimeline:3:49 – Intro to Jonathan and Tyler.5:54 – Life before Two-Brain: Running in circles.9:20 – The toughest business lessons they’ve learned so far: Firing the previous owners and raising prices.12:46 – Make decisions based on numbers, not emotions.18:09 – Why they turned down a marketer’s offer to get CrossFit Resurrection 100 new leads. 20:39 – Going through the Incubator: Learning to develop systems and train staff.27:29 – Overhauling the No-Sweat Intro booking process and lead nurturing.33:36 – Managing paid advertising campaigns.39:05 – Book No-Sweat Intros based on your schedule, not the potential client’s. 43:49 – The key to success? Communication.

How Excellence Makes You Money(Originally published on September 11, 2018)The Pursuit of Excellence is a CrossFit hallmark, but it is not unique to the fitness industry.From the start, we’ve written that excellence in coaching means great results for your clients. Excellence in business means great results for your family, your clients and your staff.Excellence in coaching does NOT make you excellent in business. They’re completely different skill sets. And if you own a gym, excellence in business is your job.This doesn’t mean being excellent once, or having peak moments of excellence, but being consistently excellent. Today we talk with Danielle Brown, manager of quality control at Two-Brain Business, on how to achieve operational excellence and consistency.Dani will give us step-by-step instructions to build a framework for excellence in your business. She’ll also tell you exactly how we do it at TwoBrain: from hiring future mentors; giving mentors feedback; continuing staff education and ensuring excellence for OUR clients. Then we’ll be discussing the “Queen Bee Role”  that we mentioned in last week’s episode. Call her Dani or Danielle; call her coach or use Her Excellency: Dani is a favorite at TwoBrain.Danielle Brown has been with Two-Brain from the start, first as a client and now as a mentor.She opened her CrossFit gym in 2011, where she dove into learning anything and everything about business that she possibly could. Since then she has experienced it all and knows what it takes to run a successful gym and helps other entrepreneurs achieve success in their gyms.Join us today and take good notes as this episode will truly be invaluable. After listening, be sure to head over to twobrain.com/test and see where you are at in your entrepreneurial journey!About Danielle:https://twobrainbusiness.com/mentor-item/danielle-brown/Timeline:3:03 – Introduction to Quality Control.4:35 – Danielle Brown’s journey from Two-Brain Mentor to manager of Quality Control.7:18 – The truth about coaching and business success in CrossFit.9:22 – How important is it to be awesome at the service that you provide?11:11 – Where to find the best practices for your industry.14:10 – Setting an example within your business for staff.16:08 – How are mentors at Two-Brain selected and trained?19:41 – The Two-Brain Mentoring quality-control process.23:52 – How to know whether your staff is running at a gold standard.25:32 – How to gain comfortability with reviewing the performance of your staff.26:45 – The importance of conveying what the gold standard is in your business.28:28 – The effects of implementing a quality-control system on gym retention.30:16 – Why Quality Control might be the Queen Bee role in your business.31:51 – Two-Brain Stories with Brian Strump.

Two-Brain Radio With Sean Woodland, Episode 6: Craig HowardOn today’s episode, Sean Woodland sits down with two-time CrossFit Games competitor and owner of Diablo CrossFit Craig Howard. Howard won the 50-54-year-old division at the CrossFit Games in 2013, and his affiliate in Pleasant Hill, California, is in its 13th year of operation. Sean talks with Craig about the keys to competing and training as a masters athlete, how he grew Diablo CrossFit from garage gym to the world-renowned affiliate it is today, and how his gym has managed to send nearly 60 people to the CrossFit Games while still nurturing a robust community of everyday CrossFitters. Links: https://diablocrossfit.com/Contact: @cshdiablo (Instagram)Timeline: 1:07 – Craig’s first CrossFit workout: Murph.3:52 – The 2008 CrossFit Games at the Ranch. 5:10 – Winning the “crispy division” at the 2013 Reebok CrossFit Games.7:37 – How to train effectively as a masters athlete. 10:16 – The early days of CrossFit. 11:32 – Opening CrossFit Diablo and finding clients before CrossFit was famous. 15:23 – Transitioning from hobby to business. 16:44 – Lessons learned: You can’t be everything to everyone. 19:09 – How to train your coaches to be effective trainers.21:59 – Dealing with assholes. 23:53 – The key to Diablo CrossFit’s longstanding success: Creating an environment where people thrive.26:48 – Thoughts on open gym.29:01 – On producing more than 60 Games athletes but not alienating the rest of the community.32:53 – Thoughts on CrossFit Inc.’s shift toward health, the elderly, and eliminating its social media.39:01 – Leaving a lucrative career in pursuit of the Perfect Day. 40:56 – Don’t sacrifice your bread and butter for the sake of add-ons. 

Two-Brain Marketing Episode 15: Dr. Ashley MakToday we are joined once again by Dr. Ashley Mak, physical therapist and owner of Hudson River Fitness in Hoboken, New Jersey.Through a detailed marketing and email nurture campaign, Ashley signed 50 paying clients in just the single month between when he signed the lease in December 2016 to when he opened the doors in January 2017. Since then, he's continued to streamline and develop his sales and marketing tactics, spending roughly $1,300 a month on ads and generating $7,500 in front-end sales. In this episode, Ashley shares every step of his sales process from his text and email nurture campaigns to the scripts he gives his sales team. You'll also learn how he uses role-playing to hone No-Sweat Intro consultations for the best sales outcome. Join us to learn strategies to improve your sales process and turn more leads into clients.Links: https://www.hudsonriverfitness.net/https://incitetax.com/Contact: ashley.mak@twobrainbusiness.comTimeline: 2:05 – Intro to Ashley Mak.8:15 – How Hudson River Fitness got 50 contracted clients before opening the doors.14:24 – Differentiating Hudson River Fitness from other local gyms and developing a founders deal nurture sequence.19:27 – Hudson River Fitness’ ad sequence and nine-touch point system. 21:11 – Letting go, learning to delegate the sales process and writing scripts.26:37 – Being a filter in the “noisy world of health and fitness.” 28:50 – Training your sales staff.29:36 – Using the No-Sweat Intro as an information-mining opportunity: the Discovery Phase.30:52 – Making an emotional connection. 33:01 – Identifying objections ahead of time. 37:21 – Training your sales staff through role play. 43:13 – The key to success: Ask for help.

Episode 173 - Replay of Episode 48: What To Do When It All Goes Wrong(Originally published on October 3, 2016)"Nobody wants our job. But everyone thinks they do."These are the words Two-Brain Mentor Jay Williams texted me on Friday night. After a rough week in which even my podcast interview didn't happen on schedule, I reflected on how well I handle stress NOW than I did five years ago. I recalled those dashboard-punching, angry-email-sending days, and thought, "I bet these lessons can help someone else get through it." This episode is dedicated to the martyr; to the workhorse; to the owner who thinks, "I'll just outwork everyone else, and things will be okay." It's not going to happen, and you're hurting everyone (including yourself) in the meantime. You need to do something different. But that's stressful. Here's how to deal with it. Other times, things are going to go wrong. Sometimes they'll all go wrong at once. When they do, here are the tools to get you through.Links: www.Uplaunch.comTimeline: 5:26 – Working on problems and making mistakes.8:34 – Dealing with stress.11:17 – Treat problems like math: Break them down.14:16 – Look at mistakes through the Growth Mindset.19:31 – Business is cyclical.21:32 – Practicing positivity.28:22 – Stoicism and the worst-case scenario.34:43 – Identify problems in advance.39:29 – Respond, don’t react.