Care-Coach-Lead: Recent Episodes
Andrew Frezza
Strategies and tools for running a better and more profitable affiliate gym. We share our mistakes and lessons learned building FitTown Jupiter (formerly CrossFit Palm Beach) in Jupiter, FL into a seven figure gym. Whether you want to create a gym with seven figures of annual revenue or just your dream gym that you love showing up to each day, we can help.
For years, we've witnessed that one of the defining factors for treating your gym like a real business instead of a hobby, was making the transition from part-time to full-time coaches on your team.
But the right part-timers can be a massive asset to any gym business, when the aspirations, buy-in, and availability of the part-time coach is in alignment with the needs of the business.
At its essence, part-timers can provide versatility and stability to a full-time team, serving as a utility player that can allow the rest of the staff to have a more stable schedule.
For gym owners and managers, this can keep you from getting pulled back into the day-to-day, allowing you to work on your business instead of in the business.
In today's episode, we break down the potential value of part-time coaches, and what to look for when bringing them on to your team.
If you want to improve your 1 rep max in a lift, most experienced lifters understand that you shouldn’t max out every day.
Yet when it comes to developing well-rounded fitness, most people attack all of their workouts with the intensity of a 1 rep max every single day.
This leads to them hitting walls with their conditioning and aerobic fitness, and plateauing their skills where bad habits become ingrained instead of improved.
As coaches, we can all picture those clients who go out hot in every workout only to redline and crash, or still do the same 2-part swing on their toes to bar, or a massive donkey kick on their double unders.
The problem is these athletes are trying to “compete” every single day.
They aren't willing to sacrifice today's score for tomorrow's improvements.
They don’t realize that there’s a difference between developing their fitness and showcasing their fitness.
When we are constantly trying to compete and showcase our fitness, we’re never able to address the underlying deficiencies that are there.
As coaches, it's our job to understand these nuances, so we can educate our clients to get the most out of their daily training.
In today’s episode, we break down the difference between practice, training, and competing to help coaches map out a better plan for all of their clients to improve.
What if you could streamline your gym business to only the most important parts?
What if you could intentionally downsize your gym in a way that allowed you to pay yourself more than you ever have, while restoring the work/life balance that excited you about owning a gym in the first place?
If you've owned your gym for any length of time, you understand that it's extremely common to reach member or revenue milestones with your business, only to realize that there's little to no profit at the end of the month.
For years, the common vanity metrics have been total revenue and total number of members. Anything we could do to get more members or increase revenue was promoted as a great thing, even if it didn't equate to growing the bottom line.
But there are other less-known vanity metrics like average client value, number of revenue streams, or even personal training revenue that can become distractions to a business if not approached with the right intentions.
In today's episode, my good friend Chris Thorndike is back on the podcast to talk about how to streamline your gym around group fitness classes and nothing else.
He breaks down in detail how he downsized his gym, staff, and programs by over 50% post-pandemic, while freeing up his time and growing his bottom line.
On the care-coach-lead youtube channel, we've posted several videos over the last few months discussing universal movement patterns and how they can make you a better technical coach.
One example is how we look for a vertical forearm in most pushing and pulling exercises like push ups, dips, handstand push ups, burpees, and bent over rows.
Another example is what we call knuckles around the bar, which shows up in many barbell pulling exercises like cleans, snatches, and deadlifts but also in bodyweight exercises like pull ups and toes to bar.
By understanding the safety, efficiency, and transferability of these specific patterns we can become a more confident coach.
In today's episode, we discuss what universal movement patterns are and how they can be used to make athletes of all types better at what they do.
We're looking for our next rockstar coach at FitTown Jupiter!
Do you believe that coaching is your calling?
Do you love learning every day and being part of a strong team?
Do you love coaching both group classes and personal training?
Do you want to make a great living helping others and transforming lives?
In today's episode, we discuss what we look for in an ideal coach at FitTown, and how we set up coaches to thrive once they join our team.
Whether you are already coaching in another part of the country, or are a gym owner that has realized that coaching is actually your true calling, email me at andrew@fittown.com if you are interested in joining our amazing team.
All scaling is not equal.
When a client is in the middle of a workout, rarely are they happy about regressing an exercise to make it safer or to better achieve the stimulus for that day.
It's usually not fun to take weight off the bar, switch from a barbell to dumbbells, or come off the pull up bar to perform ring rows.
But one of the things that I've learned as a coach is its not the modification that's being delivered that matters, its how and why its delivered that makes it valuable or not.
It's the difference between customizing a workout and scaling a workout.
Customizing workouts = making valuable personalized modifications before class or prior to a workout based on individualized knowledge about the client's injury history, recent training, and goals.
Scaling workouts = reactive modifications done during a workout to make an exercise more appropriate or safer for an individual.
When we scale reactively, it can make us feel like we are at odds with our clients, instead of working towards a common goal.
It turns one of the biggest values we can provide as coaches, custom modifications, into something that actually feels like a takeaway from the client's perspective.
In today's episode we discuss the difference between proactive and reactive scaling, and all of the various attributes that we should take into consideration when determining whether to scale a client or not.
What if the people who needed your help most were already part of your gym?
What if the people who were most willing to invest in themselves were already the ones who know, like, and trust you?
What if you had an extra $100k in potential annual revenue for your gym that didn't require you to bring in a single new client?
The PT Legends Dave and Scott are back on the podcast to discuss how to upgrade existing members to higher-touch, higher-ticket coaching.
For group class facilities that already have a solid membership of people who love us, one of the things we overlook the most is the ability to help these people on a deeper level.
In today's episode, Dave and Scott lay out a blueprint for ascending existing members who just show up for the workouts and community, to higher-ticket offerings that have the capacity to change their life and change their story for good.
Since the sale of CrossFit Inc. almost 2 years ago, there's been a noticeable increase in the tools, resources, and desire to help CrossFit affiliates succeed from a business perspective.
This includes things like:
- Launching an affiliate network of brands and businesses to leverage the purchasing power of thousands of affiliates and save owners $$$
- Creating an affiliate playbook that incorporates staff and business ideas, not just training methodology.
- Launching CrossFit Affiliate Programming, and recently announcing that this would be programmed separately from CrossFit.com programming
- Partnering with Best Hour of Their Day, the first time CrossFit has ever had an approved mentorship service for business support.
In today's episode we discuss our thoughts on the recent changes CrossFit has made to their affiliate resources, and whether we believe CrossFit understands what affiliates need to succeed today and in the future.
We have a pretty thorough hiring process at our gym.
Every candidate goes through multiple phone calls or in-person interviews, fills out questionnaires, spends time shadowing classes, meeting with our team, and immersing themselves in our community.
We have had a few coaches throughout the years that have made it to the final stages of our hiring process, but we ultimately decided it wasn't a fit.
In today's episode, we discuss what would keep a coach from getting hired at our facility, and what we look for in someone that is a no-brainer to add to our team.
Last month, my brother Tony and I got invited to attend the FitPro Growth Summit in Nashville, run by Tim Lyons.
Tim opened the weekend with a powerful talk about the 19 Pitfalls that Fitness Businesses Need to Avoid if they want to be successful.
Some of them that resonated most with us were:
- Focusing on more, instead of better
- Lack of balance between front-end revenue and offerings, and back-end revenue and offerings
- Low pricing, and margins too slim
- Falsely believing more leads will fix our problems
- Seeking silver bullets that will magically turn around our business
In today's episode, we discuss the pitfalls that resonated with us most from Tim's talk. We touch on many of the mistakes we've made in the past, and where we still have lots of room for improvement in our business currently.
When I first started coaching, I was attending 2-3 certifications per year to develop my skills and help my clients on a deeper level.
Some of those certifications would conclusively make me a better coach, and other certifications sometimes created more client issues, not less.
The problem with most certifications I was attending, is that they were strictly focused on the technical aspects of specific modalities; kettlebells, olympic weightlifting, gymnastics, mobility, or pose running.
Every certification was focused on what to coach, but very little focus was placed on how to coach it and create buy-in with the everyday person.
So I would start nerding out on the nuances of a snatch or kettlebell swing, only to see everyone's eyes glazed over.
I quickly realized that coaching has less to do with the knowledge you have, and more to do with how you can relate that knowledge to each client and group you are working with.
In today's episode, we discuss how certain certifications could be making you a worse coach, and how you can formulate a mindset and framework that allows you to get value from.
As coaches, we want our clients to feel comfortable enough with us to open up about their goals, their struggles, and what's missing from their lives.
But in my experience, coaches can accomplish this in a positive way through a foundational relationship of trust, or they can accomplish this through negative means like gossip, complaining, and venting to their clients.
So we may feel good about clients sharing their secrets with us, or confiding in us about the struggles they are going through, but a client opening up to us as a coach isn't always a positive sign.
When we put out gossip, complaining, and negativity into the world, we often times will attract it in return.
In today's episode, we'll help you distinguish between opening up and gossiping so you can be a more effective coach, teammate, and leader. We'll help you recognize when you and others on your team are falling into these patterns, so you can address it and continue to level up your team.
One of our favorite exercises that we have all of our employees take on is building out their perfect day.
It can teach someone a lot about themselves and where they thrive, and it allows us as a business to put them in roles that come effortlessly to them, creating a win-win scenario.
But over years of running this exercise, we've also seen downsides to focusing too much attention on the perfect day.
Often, coaches get so focused on their perfect day early in their careers that they become impatient. They say no to opportunities that could help them grow, because they can't directly connect that opportunity to their perfect day.
Or coaches become so focused on "work/life balance" that they are quick to judge themselves if they are feeling even a little off-balanced. This begins a cycle of seeing work as an obligation, instead of something they love doing.
In today's episode, we dive into some of the downsides of the perfect day exercise, and how you can use this exercise to help you thrive instead of making you susceptible to burnout.
Have you ever fallen prey to the idea of chasing passive income?
You're rushing so hard to get to a point where you don't have to "trade time for money", that you don't even make enough money to support yourself or your family today.
Most coaches falsely believe that the only way to ever make a living in the fitness industry is to be a gym owner, not a coach.
Meanwhile, many gym owners are making less per hour than their coaches are, even though their coaches may only be making $15-20 per class.
The idea that trading time for money is inherently bad, is rooted in a society where most people hate what they do.
But most coaches and gym owners love what they do, and would even do it for free in some cases.
In today's episode, we dive into why in many cases it can be a great thing to trade time for money. We talk about the importance of finding work that you love, increasing your value to others in that work, and how it's possible to make passive income outside of your day job.
What if you could generate $250k in revenue as an online coach, only to find out that this path wasn't for you?
In 2020/2021, Drew Girton decided to hire out all of his responsibilities for his brick-and-mortar gym Pendulum Fitness in California, so he could move to Austin, Texas with his family to go all-in on online coaching.
Despite having massive success in terms of revenue and profit ($250k in about 12 months with almost no overhead), Drew found he hated the online coaching space.
He wasn't able to deliver on the results that he could produce in-person, he burnt out his social media following, and lost friends and brick-and-mortar members in the process.
Now he's back in California rebuilding his gym and community, with the added tools and experience he has gained from the online space.
In today's episode, Drew gives us an honest and behind-the-scenes look at what the online coaching space looks like, and how those skills can be leveraged in an in-person gym.
Most coaches that pride themselves on being a great coach, would prefer not to believe that the clock or music can have a drastic impact on our ability to be effective coaches.
Most of us see it as a necessary evil, not something that can make or break the results we are providing for our clients.
But like it or not, the clock and music play a significant role in the level of enjoyment and engagement that you will get from your clients.
The clock can help us start and finish on time, maximize the hour, help us manage larger classes, and notify the group on transitions between exercises or intervals.
The music can add energy and fun to the room, signal the intensity we want to see from our athletes, or become a cue to pay attention and listen when the music is turned down.
When used properly, the clock and music can actually make us a better and more effective coach.
In this week's episode, we explore in detail how you can use the clock and music to enhance your class experience, and dedicate even more time and attention to your clients.
I was recently invited to be a part of a really interesting conversation about how personal trainers can level up, and make a lucrative career within a gym.
It's pretty common to see a physical therapist or masseuse renting space out at a CrossFit box or microgym, but it seems to be more rare where a freelancing personal trainer will rent out space at those same gyms.
In the rare cases where it does happen, those relationships usually end poorly if the personal trainer starts to achieve too much success that is then seen as a competing service.
Where we've seen the most success, is personal trainers finding gyms that align with their values, and where they align with the brand of the gym. When a trainer is invested in the core service of the gym they are a part of, and especially if they are a client themselves of that service, it creates alignment where all parties benefit from the partnership.
The other important thing to note is that early on in this business relationship, the gym is providing most of the value in terms of marketing, training, and stable pay. As a trainer develops and fills their book of business, they grow their value to the point that the opportunity cost of losing that coach is significant to the business.
In this discussion, we dive into all aspects of the trainer-to-gym relationship, and how that relationship can and should evolve as value is created and shifted over time.
In a recent interview with Stuart Brauer of WTF Gym Talk, we discussed how our programming has evolved over the last decade, and if we made any significant changes since rebranding from CrossFit.
The answer to that is yes, there have been lots of small changes that have been made, but we didn't do it with the goal of differentiating ourselves from CrossFit.
All of the programming changes we have made over the years have been in an effort to create a better product that clients enjoy more, reduce injuries, and improve results.
Some of those changes have taken us away from traditional CrossFit, but we're not trying to be different for different's sake.
In this episode, we discuss a lot of the changes we have made to our programming over the last decade. Those changes include things like adding more tempo work, incorporating functional bodybuilding, eliminating specific kipping movements, and varying levels of intensities instead of doing all high intensity all the time.
When you make the transition from a coach or staff member into a leadership position like head coach or owner, it can be difficult to now become the authority when you are not used to being the one in charge.
Many new gym owners and managers struggle setting and upholding policies in this new role. They don't want to be a hard-ass unnecessarily, but they also want to create the systems and structure for their team to thrive.
One simple framework that has helped me become a better manager, is to think about policies in terms of agreements instead of meaningless corporate rules.
Policies are often one-sided rules that benefit the business, but can feel like punishment for the employees. Many are outdated, or never served an intentional purpose when they were initiated.
Agreements, on the other hand, force us to understand the needs of all parties involved, and create a buy-in to achieving a specific objective or solving a problem.
In today's episode, I dive further into this concept of policies vs agreements to help you become the most effective manager and leader you can be.
A long time listener of the podcast reached out for some quick advice before he opens his first gym later this summer, Gowanus Fitness in Brooklyn, NY.
Instead of answering his questions 1-on-1, I thought it would be fun and valuable to bring him on the podcast and give him some feedback and coaching live for everyone to learn from.
In today's episode, we dive into how to set up your memberships, pricing, and marketing in a way to fill your gym and be successful right from Day 1.
We discuss when and where to use discounts, and how to set up founding member packages that bring clients into the gym, but don't overextend the business and crush the profit margin.
When you are coaching a warm up in the group class setting, do you prefer to lead the class exercise-by-exercise, or do you prefer to explain the entire warm up and then have athletes go through it on their own?
It's common for coaches to have a preferred style, or believe that one format is better than the other.
But we use both formats are our gym, and here's why:
Coach-Led formats are great for keeping the group together, working through progressions or higher-level skills, and minimizing the pre-class preamble that can feel slow or tedious.
On-your-own formats are great for building relationships, maximizing your 1-on-1 technical coaching, and when you want to opt for simple formats that don't require a lot of time or explanation.
We've found that by balancing both, we get a nice mix of coaching, relationship-building, and skill practice over days, weeks, and months, that we couldn't get if we just stuck to one format.
In today's podcast, we break down the pros and cons of these 2 warm up styles in more detail, so you can maximize the beginning of your class each day.
If you struggle with your confidence or your effectiveness in public speaking, then the solution might be simpler than you think.
So often we get caught up in how we appear to others or whether we are doing a good job or not, that we lose sight of our role as coaches or presenters in that moment.
But if we can (1) keep our focus on the audience and off our own performance, (2) find our unique voice or value that we want to bring to the table in every class, and (3) reframe our nerves as excitement rather than anxiety, then we are likely to see our speaking ability improve tremendously in a short period of time.
To hear in detail how you can implement these 3 principles into your next class, seminar, or presentation, check out the latest episode of the Care-Coach-Lead show.
Whenever we are coaching a group class or 1-on-1 training session, our clients are placing an expectation on us to deliver value to them above and beyond what they are paying for that day.
That value typically comes in the form of answering 5 key questions each day in a way that resonates with each client. But I should note that these questions aren’t usually asked out-loud by our clients, they are just inherent in how the client is experiencing the value they are receiving each day.
If we can proactively answer these questions each day for our clients (without them asking), that client is going to come away from each session feeling like they got way more than they paid for, and hopefully stay a client for years or decades to come.
Every gym needs someone who's setting the standard and making everyone better.
We'll call this person the head coach, whether you have this as a defined role at your gym or not.
In the simplest sense, there are 3 objectives that all head coaches should be looking to achieve with their staff.
- A way for delivering consistent feedback (Both formally and informally)
- A shared language among your staff
- A way of doing consistent and ongoing coaches development (Both internally and externally)
And ultimately what we're striving for is to create a culture where everyone wants to grow, and feedback is shared often. That way our growth doesn't rely on quarterly performance reviews or outside certifications to happen, but it happens through every class, interaction, and podcast that we listen to.
That's where the real magic happens with great teams.
If you want to hear more about how these 3 must-haves for head coaches can help you establish a culture of excellence and growth, tune into today's episode of the Care-Coach-Lead Show.
Ideally your first interaction of the day with your members is a positive one. This doesn’t only mean it’s not a negative one, but that also means avoiding it being a neutral interaction as well.
In a perfect world, before class even begins we’ve greeted each person individually and used their name. Realistically, though, when we get into a class setting we aren’t always able to greet each and every person like we want to.
In this episode, I’ll discuss how to make each interaction positive and sincere, regardless of when the interaction happens in the class.
On March 28th, the next round of our Rockstar Coaching Intensive begins. This course is for anyone who is looking to make a career out of coaching. The course focuses on softer interpersonal skills alongside leadership skills necessary to become a professional coach. Head over to care-coach-lead.com/rockstar to sign up
We didn't always have a great Kid's Program at FitTown Jupiter. When we rebranded our gym, we felt passionate about starting a great kid's program. Without that, we felt like it would be hard to leave a lasting impact on future generations.
Melissa really forged the first successful FitKids Program. Since she started the 8-12 group, it's been a huge hit. In this episode we'll discuss the elements that have allowed the class to thrive from not only an attendance perspective, but also from the perspective of parents and kids.
This also translates to good coaching in general. As we've learned to simplify topics such as nutrition for the kids, it's allowed it to better simplify it for our adults as well, and better serve our community as a whole.
Many great coaches turned gym owners struggle to translate their coaching skills into business success.
As coaches, we are clear on the objectives we are trying to achieve with our clients, and we have a good understanding of what it takes to get there.
As gym owners, we often feel like we are trying to do a million things at once, and don't have a clear path to success.
The fundamentals of coaching seem clear and tangible, but the fundamentals of business seem vague and all over the place.
In today's podcast, Justin Hanover of Fitness Revolution joins the show to help us distill the fundamentals of business into 3 key concepts that anybody can apply to their business.
By defining our ideal client, narrowing our core offering, and creating a unique selling position in our market, we can create consistent and repeatable success with our gym business.
Most tech start ups take years or decades to see their first profit, investing heavily in growth, at the expense of short-term profitability.
Even a great company like Amazon, which was founded in 1994, didn't have its first profitable quarter until 2001. It didn't become the money-printing machine that it is today, until 2 decades after its inception.
Unless our goal as gym owners is to start a franchise with hundreds of locations, our businesses don't benefit from massive scale the way most tech start-ups do.
We are better off chasing steady, consistent, profitable growth month-after-month that allows us to support ourselves, our teams, and invest consistently back in our businesses.
In today's episode, I break down in detail why the physical and local limitations of most gyms require them to treat their gyms differently from most tech start-ups, and how most of the costs that we view as fixed costs for our microgym are really variable costs that will increase at scale.
It's easy for us as coaches to get stuck in our own functional fitness niche, and forget that the profession of coaching extends to sports, business, and so many areas outside of fitness.
In many ways, coaching is coaching.
Whether you are coaching professional athletes making tens of millions per year, or coaching Moms and Dads at your local gym, the principles of great coaching remain the same.
You have to build trust and buy-in with each person you work with, and you have to connect your expertise in a way that allows them to get the most out of their potential.
In today's episode, I have my good friend, FitTown Jupiter member, and 1st base coach of the Los Angeles Dodgers Clayton McCullough on the show to talk about his journey through professional baseball, coaching, and leading some of the best baseball players in the world.
If you've been following along on the new Care-Coach-Lead Youtube channel, you've seen how we incorporate range of motion assessments to create better modifications for clients in the class setting, and help them attack the root cause of their pain or performance issues.
Having these assessments has been one of the biggest upgrades to our coaching staff since our inception, yet we still see so many coaches and gym owners that don't utilize this amazing tool.
One of the big misconceptions that we see with movement assessments is that they don't really have a place in a general fitness group class setting, and they are only for coaches that want to specialize in helping clients resolve pain and injuries, similar to what a physical therapist would do.
But movement assessments can make you more valuable to every client that is coming to your gym; helping you to create better modifications and warm ups, sharpening your coaching eye, and helping you build more empathy for clients.
In today's episode, we break down why movement assessments are so important, and explain why all coaches should use them, even if you don't plan to ever specialize in the rehab setting.
The principles of great coaching are universal, whether you are coaching a sports team, coaching employees at your business, or parenting your kids.
Being a great coach requires you to be great at connecting with people, hold them to a high standard, and to be empathetic to the challenges they are uniquely facing.
No one understands this better than Danny Lehr. Danny's coached wrestling, CrossFit, and weightlifting, all while starting multiple businesses, and being a Dad of 2 girls.
Coaching isn't just something he does from time to time, but it's baked into his identity.
In today's episode, we talk about how to translate the principles of coaching to all areas of your life to be more productive and increase your impact.
If you've had any success as a personal trainer, you've probably experienced those moments where your schedule is full, and you can't take on any more clients at those prime times.
You end up having to turn down great training opportunities, or forcing clients into inconvenient times, which usually results in the client not being happy.
In today's podcast, we discuss an overlapping PT model, which allows coaches to fit more clients during their busiest times, while allowing them to double or triple their hourly rate.
This results in the client getting their ideal training time, being surrounded by other like-minded people, without taking away from the individualization which brought them to PT in the first place.
Coaches are more powerful than they think.
Not only can we help people lose weight, gain muscle, and get in the best shape of their lives, but we can help people get out of pain and overcome injuries that aren't currently being solved by their doctors or physical therapists.
Through smart modifications, corrective exercise, and helping to manage a person's lifestyle, we can help our clients do what they love, without being held back by pain and injury.
No one knows this better than Dr. Ray Gorman, who is today's guest on the Care-Coach-Lead audio podcast. Ray has been working with coaches and clients for over a decade to help them resolve pain and injuries.
In today's show, we discuss how coaches can transition group clients who need help to 1-on-1 training, and how to think about building a remote business to expand our reach.
After years of building a successful CrossFit gym in New Orleans, Jonathan DeJean realized that what his city needed was not another CrossFit gym.
If Krewe Fitness was going to fulfill their mission and help more people, then it would likely happen with a model that was more accessible to the average person.
As a former rower at LSU, Jonathan and his business partners decided to build a gym around the 3 Concept 2 machines; the row, the bike, and the ski.
ErgoFit was born.
In today's podcast we discuss Jonathan's journey building a successful CrossFit gym, how he grew his gym by 100 members through covid shutdowns, and the future of his new brand, ErgoFit.
One of my favorite insights from the episode is that ErgoFit will enable them to comfortably fit up to 24 clients per class in about 2000 sf, where his current barbell-centric model at Krewe Fitness only allows them to fit 15 clients per class in about 4000 sf.
That's 1 client per 83 sf as compared to 1 client per 266 sf!
Or said differently, their current Krewe Fit model requires more than triple the space to serve the same amount of clients, which is not cheap in a major city like New Orleans.
Whether you want to open a 2nd location, open a new gym concept, or maximize the square footage in your existing microgym model, this episode is for you.
Years ago, it was common to have anybody who was interested in your gym try a free class, and then hope they liked it enough to sign up.
As the micro gym industry has matured over the years, many gyms have moved to doing a no-sweat intro or consultation in order to learn more about what their clients are looking for and to potentially prescribe higher value services.
The next evolution of sales in the gym industry is happening, and the key to making it all work is a simple 7-minute discovery call.
In today's episode, Dave and Scott from PT Legends are back on the podcast to talk about how a 7-minute phone call can enable gym owners to sell high ticket packages in the realm of $4K-8K per package. You won't want to miss this episode.
When I first started coaching CrossFit over a decade ago, I didn’t really enjoy running personal training sessions.
CrossFit in a group setting seemed like a magic pill that could solve everyone’s issues, so personal training just seemed unnecessary, overly expensive for the client, and a little boring to run.
For those first several years, I would gladly take a group class over any personal training session.
Over time, my skills evolved as a coach, and my ability to help clients in a deep and individualized way evolved with it.
Personal training became so much more enjoyable for me, and the value clients got in return was night-and-day.
When done correctly, personal training is not just a 1-on-1 version of a group fitness class.
It’s a chance to deliver individualized value to help clients overcome pain or injuries, develop complex skills and techniques, or train for a specific sport or event. And these types of high-value solutions are almost always best delivered in a 1-on-1 environment.
In today’s episode, we discuss why some coaches may be adverse to 1-on-1 training, and why that may be a sign that it’s time for you to double down on your skills and education as a coach.
Imagine opening a gym in your twenties only to see it go out of business a couple years later.
Now imagine re-opening a gym under the same name in your thirties, and it reaching such a massive amount of success that you quickly scale to multiple locations and have franchisees knocking down your doors.
That's what happened to my good friend Craig Avera, but with his drive-thru coffee concept, Cali Coffee.
After seeing his dream coffee business fail over a decade ago, Craig spent nearly a decade growing personally and professionally through CrossFit, working at Brick Los Angeles, and competing for their teams at the CrossFit Games.
We hired him and his girlfriend Rose to coach at FitTown in early 2017, as they were working to find a location to re-open their new and improved Cali Coffee concept.
Today, Craig and Rose have 2 thriving locations in South Florida, with many more on the way.
They are incredible business owners that have mastered the art of branding, taking action, and building culture in their business. Craig joins the show today to talk about his journey in CrossFit and in business, why he was successful the 2nd time around, and what it was like training high-profile celebrity clients while working at Brick.
A few months back, we starting working with a company called PT Legends to help us create high-ticket, high-impact transformation programs at FitTown Jupiter.
We've known for years that many of our clients needed more than just group classes, personal training, or nutrition coaching, but we struggled to create a system that could have a deep impact on the mindset, lifestyle, and habit changes necessary to see deep and lasting change.
Dave and Scott are the owners and creators of PT Legends, and they have nearly perfected a process for creating, selling, and executing high-ticket programs.
They are already helping many gym owners and coaches save their businesses, stop trading time for money, and create a level of impact with their clients that is renewing their love and passion for why they got in the fitness industry in the first place.
This is the first of many episodes with Dave and Scott, where we layout the backstory behind their transformational programs, and layout the mindset changes that coaches need to embody to create lasting success in the fitness industry.
A few years back, I got an email from a listener of the podcast, recommending that I check out a book called the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. That email came from Brandon Simpson, the general manager of Swamp Rabbit CrossFit in Greenville, SC, and was the start of a relationship that has provided tremendous growth for both of us.
Brandon and I share a love of learning, curiosity, and a desire to learn what most other people would accept as "untrainable skills".
Most people assume that things like empathy, leadership, love, and caring are things that can't be learned and trained. You either have those traits or you don't.
But we've both experienced in ourselves and others how these traits can be learned and cultivated, just like any tangible skill can.
In this episode, Brandon and I discuss how to be a rockstar coach and a more conscious leader. We talk about how to find a great mentor, and how to be one for others.
A few years ago, we almost hired a coach out of Canada to re-locate and work at FitTown Jupiter. The coach talked really highly of his home gym, Greater Purpose Health and Fitness, and was excited by how much our core values lined up with where he was currently working.
The owner of that gym is Matt Chenard, and he is an incredible coach, gym owner, and leader.
What I love about Matt's approach, is that he doesn't just settle for helping people lose weight, improve their performance, and set PRs.
Matt truly believes in a holistic approach that thrives in 5 key areas: Physical, Mental, Spiritual, Connection, and Purpose. He challenges clients to get uncomfortable and ask difficult questions that helps them create insights they haven't experienced before.
It's one of the reasons why Matt has challenged himself to do ice baths and post to social media every single day, despite the resistance he feels towards these activities.
If you want to deepen your impact, conquer fear, and live a more meaningful life, this episode is for you.
It's almost assumed in the fitness world that you are either a great coach or a great salesman.
It's common for coaches to say that they "just want to coach", so they leave the selling and asking for money to the gym owner or someone else in the business.
But our experience has taught us that you can't defer these skills to someone else if you want to be a great coach. Because sales skills are so closely intertwined with coaching, that you will inevitably have to get good at selling in order to be influential and effective as a coach.
So if you are struggling to sell or build your book of business, instead of asking how can I sell better, you should be asking how can I coach better?
By answering this question and developing the skills necessary to improve your coaching in this way, you will inevitably have to become better at selling.
In today's episode, FitTown coaches Melissa Dixon and Austin Bettigrew join Andrew to discuss the necessary skills you need to develop to improve your coaching and sales ability.
Facebook ads can be a powerful tool for microgym owners to fill our gyms, but they can also be confusing, time-consuming, and feel like a distraction from the most important parts of our business.
Not to mention if you don’t see the results you hoped for, you feel like you just flushed a wad of cash right down the drain.In today’s episode, Jono Petrohilos joins the show to simplify Facebook ads for us gym owners.
His approach is great because you don’t need fancy landing pages or funnels.
All you need is a few simple photos from your gym paired with the right headline.For photos, he’s seen gyms have the most success by sharing group shots of clients smiling and gathering after workouts, NOT while they are exercising. For headlines, he recommends always using the location in your headline, and sticking with the word “challenge” which he claims will always outperform other buzzwords like fat loss or transformation.
To get the full rundown on how to fill your gym with Facebook ads, listen to the full episode.
You can be running the best group classes or personal training sessions in the world, and still be failing to give your clients what they really need to transform their lives.
Even if your clients workout for 60 minutes every single day, that still leaves 23 hours per day that can make-or-break their health, happiness, and sense of purpose in their life.
But how do we as coaches begin to have an impact on those other 23 hours?How do educate our clients on the importance of proper nutrition, sleep, hydration, and mindset, without overwhelming them with information, or pushing them away altogether? For the last several years, that has been the focus of today’s podcast guest, Brian Costello.
He’s on a mission to deconstruct what it means to live a healthy and fulfilling life, so we can make it simple and actionable for our clients. Enjoy today’s episode with Brian where we discuss how you can help your clients master the other 23 hours of their day.
When I started Seven Figure Box back in July 2018, I wanted the brand to motivate gym owners to think bigger about what their gyms could be, and the value they could provide to their teams and clients.
After nearly 200 episodes, I’ve realized that Seven Figure Box doesn’t really say who we truly are, or what we care about. The last 18 months has been especially challenging for the microgym industry, and many gyms and coaches have decided to, or been forced to leave an industry that they once loved and were extremely passionate about.
For those that are left, we will need to find a deeper purpose for what we do, and separate ourselves from a commoditized industry filled with franchise brands, globo gyms, and Pelotons. We believe that what separates us from the rest of the industry is the coaching and mentorship that we can provide. And specifically we believe in coaches that care, coach, and lead by example on a daily basis.So moving forward, Seven Figure Box will be transitioning to Care-Coach-Lead.
We have a brand new Youtube channel where we will be posting coaches development content every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 6:30 PM EST as well as 2-3 audio podcasts on the same podcast feed as before (which will be rebranded).
In today’s podcast, I share an update from the last 4-6 months, explain the why behind the rebrand, and lay out my vision for the future of the Care-Coach-Lead brand.
My good friend Chris Thorndike of LIV Athletic and Factory Forged is back on the show to talk about how to eliminate excess in your business, in order to increase profit, improve your client and coaching experience, and fall back in love with owning your gym again.
Chris is a master of helping gyms simplify their model down to one core program.
This allows them to raise prices, and then cut out any unnecessary and unprofitable services like on-ramp, personal training, nutrition coaching, and kids classes.
This podcast is all about how to scale your business by focusing on simplicity rather than growth.
A few years ago, Stu Brauer leveraged his success as a CrossFit gym owner, into purchasing his own commercial real estate building in Charlotte, NC to house his rebranded gym, URBN MVMNT.
Recently, he just accepted a lucrative lease offer for that same building, that officially has made him no longer a microgym owner. The offer was too good to pass up, and allows Stu and his business partner to each clear 5 figures per month in income, without having to worry about the ups and downs of running a gym.
In today's episode, we talk about how Stu was able to transition from CrossFit South End to URBN MVMNT to now being a commercial landlord that can focus 100% of his time on helping other gym owners. We also talk about his brand new project, The Gym Real Estate Company, where he will be helping other gym owners find and buy/lease their own buildings.
In this episode of the SFB Show, we're playing Overrated vs. Underrated. We stole this idea for this episode from Gary Vaynerchuk.
We'll be talking about all things related to coaching, the gym setting, and athletes, and whether we think things are overrated or underrated.
Great coaches and great leaders are those that can find the balance between seemingly opposing ideas or attributes.
Great coaches know how to strike a balance between being caring and being commanding.
They are great at building 1-on-1 relationships, but also great at managing large groups.
They balance seriousness and professionalism with the ability to be playful and fun.
They create a class experience that feels full and worth the money, but doesn’t feel crammed or rushed.
They take complex ideas and find ways to communicate them as simply as possible.
Because of this dichotomy that exists, it’s very rare to find a single piece of advice that will help 100% of the coaches out there.
Some coaches need to focus more on 1-on-1 connections, while other coaches need to stop getting stuck in individual conversations or corrections while the group is waiting.
Other coaches need to be more serious and professional, while someone they coach with may need to be more relaxed and lighthearted.
The goal is to be able to embrace these seemingly opposite attributes, and strike a balance that fits with the audience we are working with in that moment.
In this week’s episode, we discuss how to adopt these characteristics in a way that will make you a better coach, leader, and teammate.
On Wednesday, July 7th, we will be launching the Rockstar Coaching Intensive.
If you want to learn how to retain more members, improve your class and client experience, build a world-class coaching team, and finally get some freedom from your business, then this course is designed for you.
It's the only coaches development course specifically designed to help you retain more members, and the only one that you and your entire team can go through together.
It comes with lifetime access, which also means it can serve as your training and onboarding process for any new staff that you hire in the future.
This episode breaks down why we felt the need to create the Rockstar Coaching Intensive, and how you can use it to gain more freedom, reshape your team, and grow your business.
Building and maintaining a great coaching team is one of the toughest parts about being a gym owner.
But it can also be one of the most exciting and rewarding parts of what we do.
And while no team is perfect, being a part of a great team that is committed to growing and getting better every day is a game changer.
For gym owners, great teams provide support for key decisions, the ability to delegate tasks that you aren't great at or don't enjoy, and the freedom to spend time away from your business.
For coaches, great teams provide valuable feedback, others to learn from and bounce ideas off of, and a work environment that is fun and motivating to show up to each day.
Great teams allow all of us to compound our impact, and maximize the amount of people we can reach.
In today's episode, Andrew and FitTown Head Coach Austin Bettigrew share what it's like to be a part of a great team at FitTown. Our goal with this episode is to help inspire you and give you the vision for what work could be like when you are surrounded with other humble, hard-working, and like-minded people.
I believe that the CrossFit Level 1, 2, and 3 courses are among the best certifications out there for coaches.
CrossFit’s simple definition of fitness, their ability to teach coaches how to see, cue, and correct, and their formula of constantly varied, functional movements, at high intensity, is invaluable for all coaches to understand.
But there are still many things that I wish were taught at the L1-L3 courses that haven’t quite found their way into the curriculum.
In CrossFit’s own definition of what makes a great coach, they talk about 6 components of effective coaching.
• Teaching
• Seeing
• Correcting
• Demonstration
• Group/gym management
• Presence and attitude
As someone who is a current Level 3 coach, I’ve found it interesting that so much time is spent on the first 4 attributes (Seeing, Teaching, Correcting, and Demonstration), but very little time is spent on the last 2 (Group/Gym management, Presence and Attitude).
As a gym owner, it didn’t take long for me to realize that it didn’t matter how good our coaches were at seeing and correcting, if they weren’t great at group management, presence and attitude, building relationships, and communication, then they weren’t great coaches. It's that simple.
In this episode, I sit down with Austin to discuss what we think the biggest pros and cons to the CrossFit certifications are.
To join my Rockstar Coaching Group, head over to https://www.facebook.com/groups/rockstarcoach7
Pat Barber is a former CrossFit Games competitor and gym owner, and currently owns Warm Up and Workout, a programming and lesson plan company for CrossFit Affiliates. He is also a CrossFit Level 4 Coach and continues to work as part of CrossFit Seminar Staff.
Pat's desire to help people and live a values-based life is something that I believe all coaches and gym owners should aspire to. Pat has left previous positions because it didn't align with his values, and he currently optimizes his work and life to maximize the amount of time he gets to spend with his wife and kids.
In this episode, we discuss why the soft skills of coaching are so important, and how coaches can start to develop those skills. We talk about his views on CrossFit programming, and what he would change about CrossFit's certifications in order to make them better.
The purpose of this episode is to talk about the pros and cons of personal training as well as group classes for getting people the result that they want, as well as when to know when clients are a better fit for PT versus group classes.
Most coaches tend to skew towards one side or the other. They love group because of the camaraderie, energy, and plethora of coaching opportunities.
Other coaches prefer PT because they feel like they can go deeper with athletes and solve real issues.
Some 1-on-1 coaches become elitist in their views on personal training. They make it seem like the only “right” program is one that is 100% individualized to the client.
We believe:
· The case for group - The perfect program that few people follow is no where near as good as the mediocre program that people follow and get excited to do everyday. For many clients, fun and excitement means being in the group setting.
· The case for PT – group is great for well-rounded athletes but can be unsafe, or inefficient for those that have pre-existing injuries or health .
As Sean Pastuch has said, group classes are great for well-rounded atheltes, but most athletes have corners.
When most people think of a leader, they think of someone is loud, outspoken, and very demanding of the people around them.
Often this leader will have a title like business owner, head coach, manager, CEO, or captain. But leaders come in all shapes and sizes, and you don't have to have a fancy title in order to have influence over the people that you interact with on a regular basis.
Most great leaders weren't born as leaders, they learned, developed, and refined their skills over years of working with people, and working on themselves. In today's episode, Layci Nelson joins the show to talk about all things leadership.
I especially loved the exercises she shares on how to define your core values, set a 10-year personal vision, and map out the 27 things you want to experience before you die.
Most gym owners have a clear idea in their head on what their business needs to look like in order for it to be successful and reach it's potential. But we often struggle to get our business partners and employees to work towards the vision that we see in our heads.
This is often because we've never done a great job of spelling out what that vision really looks like. We may share elements of the vision, or create roles or tasks that we think will move us closer to that vision, but rarely do we provide a written-out and detailed vision for where the business can be in the next 5-10 years.
In today's episode, I show you why no one can see and feel the vision, and how important it is for you and your team to have a clear and written out vision in place.
When we design career opportunities for our coaches, we think of it as a 3-pronged approach.
Group Classes
1-on-1 Training
Non-Coaching Business Roles
We believe that by balancing these 3 areas, we give our coaches the best chance of making coaching a sustainable career, where they can make at least $70K per year, in their first 5 years as a full-time coach.
In part 2 of this 2-part episode, we discuss why 1-on-1 training is the most likely path for most coaches on the road to $70K. We'll share our favorite high value skills for increasing your value in 1-on-1 and group training, and why sales is the x-factor for most coaches.
To get our free 20+ page guide on how to get to 70K as a coach, head over to sevenfigurebox.com/roadto70k
We believe that full-time career coaches should be able to earn $70K per year within their first 5 years of coaching full-time.
Why $70K?
Because this is a number that will allow coaches to make coaching a long-term and sustainable career where they can cover all their basic needs, buy a house, and support a family in most areas of the world.
In order to get to these numbers, coaches need to have a basic understanding of math, an appetite to develop their skills, and a whole lot of patience along the way.
Having a love for fitness, and a passion for helping others is the bare minimum.
In part 1 of this 2-part episode, we discuss how to go from a brand-new coach, to a full-time coach making at least $40K per year, to a career coach making at least $70K per year.
We talk about why it's so hard to make fitness a sustainable career, and why patience is one of the most important traits you can harness along the way.
To get our free 20+ page guide on how to get to 70K as a coach, head over to sevenfigurebox.com/roadto70k
As we are currently in the process of hiring our next coach at FitTown Jupiter, it's become obvious that I have a very specific standard for what we are looking for in that next coach.
We want someone who is a team player, we want someone who has experience and perspective, but most importantly we want someone who is psyched to work for FitTown for the next several decades.
Similar to an intimate relationship, we're only looking to date you if we think there's a chance we're going to marry you at some point. If you want a short-term fling, you can look somewhere else.
Most of our excitement in wanting to hire you as a coach, is derived from your excitement of wanting to join our team.
For those of you that know you love working in the fitness industry and believe that coaching could be a career or calling for you, do the hard work to create clarity on what that ideal path might look like for you.
In today's episode, I elaborate on what it means to create clarity, find your calling, and separate yourself from the pack when your dream job shows up.
Many gyms have nutrition coaching as an option for clients, but most struggle to gain clients or to retain them once they’ve signed up.
Danielle Bettigrew has been our nutrition coach at FitTown Jupiter for the past 3 years, and has helped hundreds of our members transform their bodies and lifestyles through nutrition.
Recently, Danielle decided to up her game by signing up for her own 1-on-1 nutrition coach. What she found is that her experience lacked a personal feel and accountability. That disappointment she felt as a client has already helped her become a better coach.
Today, Danielle joins the show to discuss the approach she takes in coaching her clients, why she doesn’t advise counting macros for everyone, and how she builds honest and personal relationships with her clients.
She discusses how a client may evolve in their first 90 days, why it’s important to celebrate small victories with them, and how to recognize when a client is going off track or losing enthusiasm.
Most gym owners are trying to wear too many hats, and end up doing a mediocre job at most things.
The owners who realize they are taking on too much will often offload a lot of these administrative tasks to their coaches, only to realize that their coaches are even worse than they are at most non-coaching tasks.
The owner ends up wasting a ton of time and energy trying to micromanage their team, instead of getting the right people in place that will excel in these roles.
In today's episode, I talk to Josh and Scott from VAs for gyms, to talk about how gym owners can leverage virtual professionals to run their social media, take over their admin, and remove their most time-sucking tasks.
I have a lot of conversations with gym owners regarding the importance of lesson plans. Often times gym owners express hesitation in requiring structured lesson plans, because they feel it takes away from the coach’s ability to bring their own personality, creativity, and unique coaching skill set to the table.
For years, my brother Tony resisted certain elements of organization and structure, because he didn't want to come off as a drill sergeant or like he wasn't a fun coach to be around.
Whether it's staging the gym, requiring coaches to dress a certain way, or following a structured lesson plan that is consistent from the first class of the day to the last, these elements of organization actually are a gateway to more personality and creativity, not less.
In today’s episode, I sit down with my brother Tony Frezza to discuss all things lesson plans, including why they’re important, and how to keep them fun and avoid over-structuring.
For many years at FitTown, we didn’t have a solid kids program. It was inconsistent and relied on a single passionate coach to keep the program going.
If we're being honest, it wasn't a part of our core competency, and we usually offered it because a coach suggested it, or a parent asked for it, and we felt like it was something we "should" provide.
With the FitTown rebrand we did in the summer of 2020, we realized that the impact we want to have in our local community relies on us being able to help the kids and teens in our area build confidence and find a lifelong love of fitness through our programs.
Now we have a well established program that’s been incredibly successful, with kids ranging from 5-15 years old.
In this episode, I sit down with Coach Melissa (who runs our 8-12 year old program) to discuss how we created a successful kids program, and how you can launch a great one at your gym.
Have you ever had a client that makes you cringe a little bit when you see their name show up on your class reservations?
Are there clients that you just can't stand coaching or having in your classes?
Do certain clients make coaching a chore for you?
All coaches have clients that they don't connect with as well, and some coaches have clients that they just flat out don't get along with.
In today's episode, Coach Mo is back on the show to discuss how we approach clients that we don't have a great relationship with. Some of these clients will require you to spend more time building the relationship with them, others will need to have their issues addressed, and some will need to be "fired".
Today’s episode is very different than what I normally do.
We set up a camera and microphone to record a live sales training session we did with our general manager, Melissa, and our front desk manager, Rachel.
Rachel is going to be taking on more no-sweat intros at FitTown Jupiter, and we wanted to record and share our training with her.
This episode starts with a mock no-sweat intro with Rachel pretending to be the new client, and myself running the No Sweat Intro. You’ll get an idea of what it’s like to be in that intro process, and then you'll hear the analysis of how we felt it went. I believe the most beneficial part of this episode is the feedback that Melissa provides after.
If you want to improve at sales, get better at your intro process, or if you’re ready to start training your team to take on more of the sales process, this episode is for you.
When you think of being relentless as a coach, what's the first thing that comes to mind?
For me, I imagine the coach that is doing squat therapy with his client up against the wall. The client is struggling to hold the bottom of their squat for 30 seconds, as the coach expertly tweaks every joint to get into a perfect squat position.
And I cringe a little bit when I think about this happening with most clients in our group classes.
Being relentless or persistent as a coach is great, but most coaches either aren't relentless enough, or they are relentlessly trying to squeeze out so much from a client today, that they overwhelm the client and make working out feel like a chore.
In today's episode, I share why I think it's valuable to be relentless as a coach, and how coaches can approach being relentless with their clients in a way that will provide the most long term value for clients.
Once a client has been a member with us for 3, 5 or 10 years, their goals and the type of coaching they need will have to evolve with them.
The typical path for most gyms has been to try to give them more advanced or individualized programming, but for someone who loves being a part of the group setting, this isn't always the best solution.
In our experience, you can continue to provide a ton of value to your veteran members within the context of your normal classes, but it requires you to approach them differently than you would your beginning and intermediate athletes.
You can't just give them the same "knees out" cue that you've given them a thousand times and expect them to not tune you out or ignore you.
In today's episode, FitTown Head Coach Austin Bettigrew is back on the show to discuss 4 ways that we can add value to veteran members within the daily class experience, and how to avoid the 2 most common patterns that veterans coaches get stuck doing.
I often hear from coaches who will share how they despise just being a cheerleader when they are coaching group classes. They tend to only enjoy classes if there is a lot of technical aspects to coach, and get bored or burnt out when the workouts tend to be simpler or more cardio-based.
I'll be honest, whenever I feel like I am just being a cheerleader in class, I feel the same way.
I haven't dedicated the last decade of my life to health and fitness just to yell "good job" to a group of 15 athletes who just want to break a sweat.
I want to feel like I am giving value to each client, and I want each client to come away from every class feeling like they got their money's worth.
But I also believe that the cheerleader role is a foundational aspect of all great coaches, and that most coaches are just approaching it wrong.
In today's episode, I share how team sports has shaped my view on being a cheerleader with our clients. Instead of focusing on yelling random encouragements to members, I try to embody the traits of great teammates that I played with in years of baseball, soccer, and basketball growing up.
A couple weekends ago, I went to a local coffee shop, and was surprised to see how in-your-face and aggressive some of their policies and signage was.
There's nothing wrong with having rules or policies that hold your customers to a standard, but we should never get so focused on preventing issues from happening, that it takes us away from creating an experience that ideal clients will love.
Or said another way, we shouldn't allow the issues of 5-10% of our customers, take away from creating an amazing experience for the 95%.
As coaches, sometimes we let the 1 late member, the "competitive" athlete who shaves reps, or the couple that isn't paying attention when you're talking, distract us from helping the group to the best of our abilities. We speak and act more towards what we are trying to prevent or fix, rather than what we are trying to create.
In today's episode, I share some quick thoughts about how to approach your classes and your business in a way that will create and retain more ideal clients, instead of trying to fix the ones who aren't.
Many gym owners want to help their coaches make a career out of coaching, but struggle to help them build their book of business.
If the gym is solely responsible for selling clients personal training packages and individualized programming, it will be a constant uphill battle for both the coaches and the gym owners to create careers.
Sales is often the missing link, but most coaches have an aversion to anything that appears like selling.
But if coaches can learn just a few basic communication and sales skills, it can mean the difference between being a part-time coach that needs to find a real job, or a coach that gets to make a lifelong career out of doing what they love.
In this episode, Brittany Welk of LadyStrong Fitness is back on the show to discuss ways to get coaches involved in the sales process. We talk about how to get coaches involved with signing up new members, how to find clients in the class setting that would be a great fit for 1-on-1 training, and how selling is really just an extension of great coaching.
In January of 2020, when the economy was strong and most people didn't know what COVID was, most micro gyms were already underpriced. Even if these gyms were to fill their facilities to capacity, the numbers wouldn't work for them to pay their coaches what they deserve, and pay themselves a sustainable living. This is especially true in barbell-based models like CrossFit, where each person requires more space and equipment to be able to work out safely.
Fast forward over a year later, and an estimated 10% of micro gyms have gone out of business.
Those that are still operational have had to increase their cleaning and staffing costs, and are restricted to operating classes at 10-50% LESS than their normal capacities.
If you want your gym to be open and thriving a year from now, it will likely require you to increase your prices sooner rather than later. And for many gyms, they have decided that having smaller classes with a more personalized experience, is now a part of their long-term vision.
In this episode, my brother and FitTown co-owner Tony Frezza joins the show to share why we believe now is the perfect time for many gym owners to raise prices, and why we just recently increased our rates at FitTown Jupiter.
As a group class coach, improving your public speaking and communication skills is one of the best things you can work on to become a better coach.
It doesn't matter how much knowledge you have stuck in your head about training, nutrition, or mindset. If you can't communicate it to your members effectively, then your impact will be limited.
For nearly a decade, I struggled with public speaking and being on camera. I would often get so nervous that I would stutter, or forget what I wanted to say, and it caused me to dread anytime that I would have to be put on the spot in front of an audience.
In today's episode, FitTown Coach Mo Smith (who found a passion for speaking at an early age) joins me to share some of the things that have helped us become more confident speakers.
We talk about why you should only talk about subjects you are passionate about, the importance of preparation, and whether or not you should memorize what you want to say, or just wing it.
On our mission to help professionalize the coach and provide career opportunities to coaches, we've found that one of the biggest obstacles to creating career coaches is burnout.
Burnout can show up in a number of different ways.
Sometimes it is self-inflicted by successful coaches who don't prioritize their schedule or don't communicate well with their gym owners about their needs. Other times, coaches are in a bad situation, and need to move on to a gym that values them and is willing to compensate them accordingly.
Ultimately, it takes intentionality from both the coach and the gym owner to help coaches avoid burnout.
In today's episode, FitTown Head Coach Austin Bettigrew is back on the show with Andrew to share 8 ways coaches can avoid burnout.
Over the last few weeks, we've been doing class evaluations at our gym, where our head coach will take notes and provide feedback to each coach on a given class.
Recently we've been pairing up coaches with one another, so in addition to getting feedback from one of their teammates, they also get to be the one observing and giving feedback as well.
We find that most coaches learn just as much or more from being on the feedback side, then on the receiving end, which is why we do it this way.
In this episode, we break down how to perform better class reviews, and Nick shares his personal experience from going through the evaluation process.
We recently listened to an Active Life podcast, where Sean and Larry were discussing member reactions to culture changes. They were discussing how gyms will often lose veteran members or even coaches, as they shift their culture away from hardcore workouts, to a more sustainable, holistic, and higher-touch fitness experience.
We experienced these similar growing pains over the last few years, as we’ve shifted our culture away from competitive CrossFit, and rebranded our gym to FitTown Jupiter..
In this episode, we share our personal experiences of losing veteran members and coaches, as we’ve defined our core values, and starting aligning our programming, coaching, and culture, with those values.
We start the episode by defining the difference between culture vs community, and how important it is to intentionally build your culture, even if it means losing key members of your community.
Have you ever felt restricted with your programming or workout designs?
Are there movements or workout formats that you have considered programming for your clients, but you decide against because they don’t seem sexy enough, or are outside of what you would have typically programmed in the past?
About a month ago, we had the realization that we were starting to feel boxed-in with our programming.
Coming from a CrossFit background, it can be easy to skew our programming towards exercises that have shown up only in the CrossFit Open/Games, or only do workouts that give our clients the endorphin rush they get when they are flat on their back at the end of a workout.
But as coaches who are trying to do what’s right for our clients, we know that’s not the ideal approach.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve redefined what our programming needs to look like to give our clients the most well-rounded version of fitness, that serves them for the entire 23 hours of the day, not just the hour they are with us.
In this episode, we discuss how we’ve put that into action, and specific workout formats that we’ve started incorporating that we may have programmed less or avoided altogether in the past.
Charlie Lima is back on the show to help you fill your personal training schedule, and run a successful personal training business.
In this episode, he teaches you how to price your sessions, and how to know when to raise those prices.
We discuss how he uses the Inbody machine to provide feedback and add value to the personal training experience, and how no amount of tools like the Inbody will replace you deeply caring for your clients.
Charlie also shares how he avoids burn out as a personal trainer (he takes weekends off), and why he never fires clients.
Whenever we coach a group class, our goal should be to deliver 3-5X the value that our clients are paying for that class. If the average person pays you $10-15 per class, how can you make sure that they leave everyday with $50+ in value?
Great coaches do this by excelling in 5 key roles; the cheerleader, the director, the technician, the programmer, and the coach. They seamlessly transition from maintaining the flow and energy of the group (the macro), with the needs and connection to each individual (the micro).
They also realize that different clients have a greater thirst and need for different types of coaches. Some clients need a coach who is a great cheerleader, while others need someone who is a great technician.
The type of a coach that a client needs, will often evolve as the client's knowledge and experience level grows.
In today's episode, I discuss how the roles of the Rockstar Coach can be applied differently based on where each client is in their journey with us. You'll learn how to assess each class you coach, to make sure that every client in that class is getting what they paid for and a lot more.
Markus Gerszi is back on the show again to discuss his new project, Alpha Hippie. Markus has been one of the most influential people in the CrossFit business space over the last decade, and has been a great mentor for us over the years in building FitTown Jupiter.
When we was originally on the show (Episode 054), he was working with Gymwright and was transitioning to launching his own brand to help gym owners, Gym Breakthrough.
While Markus was tremendously successful helping other gym owners grow their business, his real passion is helping people build themselves. He always found himself coaching the person more than the business, and has stepped fully into that role with Alpha Hippie.
In this episode, Markus shares how he was able to break through some of his own limiting patterns, and how he now helps Men live their life with clarity and purpose so they can be better business owners, husbands, and Dads.
This week I had the awesome opportunity to have Josh Rempel and Dayne Toney, owners of Targhee Athletics, here at FitTown Jupiter.
They traveled all the way from Driggs, Idaho to join my team and me, learning the ins and outs of our business.
Dayne and Josh started Targhee Athletics (formerly Targhee CrossFit) 8 years ago, and also run Enduro Method, a subscription based service solely online for enduro and dirt bike riders. They’re passionate about both of these businesses, but felt stuck after covid and needed the inspiration, excitement and love for business back.
In this episode, I give you all a sneak peek into what the Seven Figure Box Immersion Experience looks like, and talk to Dayne and Josh about the key takeaways they're leaving with after this week. We'll also narrow down some of the ideas that have been thrown at them over the last 5 days to hopefully implement at home.
When most of us started our gyms, so many of the decisions we made were based on what others were doing or expecting.
Pricing - What does the gym down the street charge for their memberships?
Programming - How does Ben Bergeron or Jason Khalipa or CrossFit mainsite program their workouts?
Staffing - What's the going rate for coaching group classes?
Instead of making decisions based on first principles, we often reason by analogy, blindly accept the assumptions of what other gyms are doing.
One entrepreneur who is known for his visionary and first principles thinking, is Elon Musk. When Elon started SpaceX, he questioned the assumption in the space industry that rockets couldn't be reusable, and now he's building rockets that are.
As we look forward to a world post-COVID, now is the perfect time to rethink your gym from a first principles perspective.
- What does the perfect gym look like if we built it from scratch?
- What outcomes do we really want to create in people's lives?
- What kind of life do I want this business to provide for me and my team?
- What would I have to charge in order to support this type of gym?
Are You Meant to Be a Coach or Gym Owner?
Most of us got into coaching or owning a gym because we are passionate about it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that us and our teams are in alignment with the business and the things we work on daily.
When we are talking about creating alignment, we are referring to spending the majority of our time on things that:
1) We love doing
2) We are good at
3) Others are excited to pay for
This type of alignment allows us to 10X our output, push through tough times, and live in a way that feels effortless.
In today's episode I discuss how we have created more alignment in our business, and some simple frameworks and exercises for you to create more alignment in yours.
If you own or coach at a group class gym, you know how difficult it can be to implement personal training into your existing customer base. In order to be successful with PT, we first have to realize that the clients that are looking for one-on-one training, are often very different from those that are looking for group classes.
They don't want to be thrown in the corner of a loud and grungy gym where they are doing a version of what the group class is doing, but with a babysitter. They want a more intimate and upscale atmosphere where each session is specific to their background and goals.
In this week's episode, I have Charlie Lima of BoomFit Personal Training and CrossFit College Station on the show to discuss all things personal training. Charlie has such a unique passion and viewpoint on PT, as he's been a personal trainer for over 18 years, and owns an incredible gym that has a separate CrossFit gym and personal training studio.
I was blown away by Charlie's passion and insight into PT, and will definitely have him on for a part 2 in the near future.
In order to become a great coach, it requires more than having a great technical knowledge of your subject. And in many cases, mastering the social and psychological side of coaching, the "soft skills", will actually produce better results and happier clients.
In today's episode, Josh Martin of TwoBrain Coaching joins the show to talk about all things related to coaching, coaches' development, and building a team.
This is a must-listen for anybody who is looking to make a career as a coach or gym owner.
When most people think of wealth, they think about amassing large sums of money. But when we really look at the essence of wealth, we are talking about freedom of time and money, not some arbitrary number in a bank account.
When it comes to our coaches, we have 3 main goals as it relates to wealth and retirement:
- Find coaches that love what they do so they aren't chasing retirement.
- Help those coaches make enough money that they can make a career out of coaching, and don't need 2nd jobs, or to find a "real career".
- Teach them strategies of investing and automating their savings in a way that allows them to choose if and how much they want to work in their twilight years.
When I look at a lot of the career coaches out there, I don't see many of them retiring in the traditional sense. But that shouldn't stop them from doing everything in their power to put themselves in a smart position financially where they are never forced to work when they don't want to.
Today's episode shares some simple strategies that coaches can start to implement to increase their hourly rate, automate their savings, and put themselves on a path to wealth.
As coaches, we're often guilty of chasing degrees or certifications, without a clear reason or objective for chasing that next certification. We know we should never stop learning and developing our skills, but it can be difficult to decide what certifications or continuing education is going to add the most value to our careers.
It's important for us to realize that there are certain skills that are more valuable than others, skills that we would refer to as high value skills.
Skills like sales, negotiation, public speaking, digital marketing, and graphic design, are all skills that can make you a more valuable asset to your clients and the business you work for.
In today's podcast, we break down some simple strategies and frameworks for thinking about high value skills, and why its so important to learn skills that you can implement right away, as opposed to consuming knowledge for some unknown point in the future.
Frankie Loccisano is a full-time coach out in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and we've been in contact on and off over the last year, when he applied to be a coach at FitTown Jupiter.
Frankie is still fairly early in his coaching career, but was approached by a family member that would be willing to invest in him to open his own gym when he is ready.
He reached out to me for some advice, and I thought it would be fun and useful to have him come on the show to discuss the pros and cons of opening your own gym, versus finding a great gym that you can become a career coach at.
In today's episode, we cover what we would do differently if we were starting our gym today, and my recommendations for what he can do over the next few years to best prepare himself for if/when the time comes for him to open his own.
Today I sit down with Tim Thackrey of the Juice Compound, to discuss everything from building an online coaching business to running a successful kids program.
Last year, we ran Tim's Youth Empowerment program with our FitKids at FitTown Jupiter, and fell in love with the level-based, character-driven fitness system he created. Tim shares how he built the YES program, and how he thinks it can be applicable in an adult setting.
Over the last 3 months, Tim has transformed his online coaching business. He's gone from being scattered trying to help anyone and everyone, to now working specifically with former athletes. This has enabled him to have a deeper impact, make more money, and create more freedom.
Today I sit down with a true legend in our industry, Chris Cooper.
Chris joins the podcast to talk about his new book, Gym Owners Handbook, and the future of the gym industry.
The thing that I enjoyed most about our conversation was hearing about Chris's journey in scaling Two-Brain Business, and his views on investing in coaching and mentorship, including why he spent over $230,000 on mentorship in 2020 alone.
He opens up about many of the obstacles he has had to overcome in order to grow his mentorship practice to over 35 mentors and over 800 gym owners.
In early 2021, Two-Brain will be releasing their State of the Industry guide, which is an 84-page analysis of what separates successful gyms in 2020 and beyond, and we discuss some of the key takeaways from that guide in today's episode.
For successful gym owners that want to scale their business beyond a single location, it's often not worth the risk of owning and taking on the overhead and stress of all of those additional locations.
After years of working towards a franchise model for his gym Urban Mvmnt, Stu Brauer just announced last week that he will be launching with a licensing model instead.
Most gym owners are familiar with the licensing model that CrossFit offers, where you pay between $500-$3000 annually to use the CrossFit name, but receive very little guidance on how to run a successful business.
In Stu's case, he felt there was a huge gap between the typical hands-off licensing model, and the highly structured, but often inflexible, franchise model. So Stu set out to create a model that maximized the best of both worlds.
In today's episode, Stu shares his vision for the Urban Mvmnt licensing model, and his thoughts on how other gym owners can follow in his footsteps to build a brand that scales to multiple locations.
In order to be successful as a coach or gym owner, we need to understand the rules and objectives of the game we are playing. Often though, the game we think we are playing, isn't the one we need to be playing in order to break through that next plateau of success. This episode dissects how to think about success as a game, and how to evolve your approach for what your business or career needs from you most right now.
Throughout a coach's career, there is almost always some sort of evolution. In fact, evolution is necessary in order to become a successful coach.
In this episode of the SFB Show, I sat down with Matt DellaValle, Chief Fitness Officer of NC.FIT to discuss the evolution of a coach, and specifically Matt's personal evolution from CrossFit coach to the coach he is today. He talks about how CrossFit helped shape him into the coach he is now, and why effort, focus and intentionality wherever you're at can help you grow into the position you're meant to be in. Matt also talks about how his corporate skills have helped him in his current position, and how following passion and putting in the effort really can pay off.
Spend 2 ½ days with me and my team getting the full behind-the-scenes experience of how we run our gym, learning how to run an exceptional business, and getting your 1-on-1 questions answered in real time.
This immersion is designed for gym owners, although we do plan to offer experiences for coaches in the future. The immersion will take place Monday through Wednesday on the dates listed below. Each group will be limited to no more than 3 gyms and no more than 4 total people, so we can maximize the amount of 1-on-1 discussion and troubleshooting, and tailor the immersion experience to you.
This is the first time we have offered this opportunity and expect the price to go up in the future. We have 3 dates available below, and as I mentioned above, are capping the spots at 3 gyms per immersion.
2021 Dates: (All Mon-Wed) · January 25th – 27th · February 22nd – 24th · March 22nd-24th
If you are interested, head over to sevenfigurebox.com/immersion
When we first started our gym, we rejected the policy-laden corporate structure that we saw at most globo gyms. We aimed to create a more relaxed, "clubhouse" feel, where people would want to hang out for hours on end.
Over time though, we realized that policies weren't an obstacle to creating a great culture or experience, but the very thing that allowed us to protect and sustain the great culture we already had in place, for the most amount of people.
But adding new policies at will can quickly become overkill, especially if you are trying to eradicate every potential issue that comes up in the gym with a new policy.
And the mistake we see most gym owners make is that they often set policies in private with their team, that they aren't willing to uphold in public when it's time to address it 1-on-1 with a member. This leads to lack of clarity among your team, and a policy that no longer holds any weight.
In this episode, my brother Tony is back on the show with me to discuss all things policies. We discuss how better coaching can eradicate the need for many policies, and the 3 different types of policies you should consider having at your gym, to maximize team buy-in and create the best experience for your customers.
Often times it's easy to let our fear of sales to get in the way of listening, understanding, and being empathetic to our clients' wants and needs.
Our job as coaches and gym owners is to help people. If we stop overthinking sales and simply do our job to hear our clients out, it actually has the potential to lead to far more sales, and will feel like a lot less work in the long run.
Today I sit down with FitTown Head Coach Austin Bettigrew to discuss one of his personal training clients who initially planned to do our start up package and hop into group classes. After a few sessions together and a long discussion about what this particular client really wanted, Austin ended up selling a 30 session PT package and Nutrition Coaching, simply by listening to the needs of the person sitting in front of him.
In this episode, Austin details out this story, and we discuss why it would have been selfish to NOT sell more to this client.
Over the past 8 years, we've been evolving our gym constantly. As we've grown, we've made decisions and changes based on what we felt was best for the members, coaches and business as a whole.
Ultimately, any "final decision" is about what we feel is best for our members based on our day-to-day experiences as gym owners. In this episode of the SFB show, I detail out 5 things we've eliminated from our gym in the past 5 years, and why I think this has helped our business thrive, and built better relationships in the long run.
We’ve all heard it a million times that we need to be creating more content.
But most gym owners and coaches are already spending time creating content (even if it’s as simple as an occasional Facebook post or Instagram story) and dedicating more time to content can often feel like it's coming at the expense of other more important tasks.
By bringing more intention and strategy to your content though, you have the ability to transform your content from being seen for a day or two, to being utilized as a piece of your brand for years on end.
And instead of people seeing your content and feeling good for a moment, you can use your content to build a relationship with your client, and eventually convert that into a sale.
This episode discusses which pieces of content have the best lifespan, and how you can build a supporting strategy around your content, to make sure that every piece of content is providing a positive return for you and the business.
The reality is, people like to be around other people.
This is the basis of The Nightclub Phenomenon, and it came up for us at FitTown just this past week. We decided to remove some classes and shift the schedule around to better utilize prime times. We've found that eliminating these classes short term, actually benefits long term success.
Why? Because people like the presence of other people. When you go for a night out, you don't want to be at an empty bar. If you're primarily operating a group class model, your members come expecting to be around other members.
In this episode of the SFB podcast, Andrew discusses The Nightclub Phenomenon, and how this might be best applied to your micro-gym.
Most coaches and gym owners analyze programming based on their own personal preferences.
Does that workout look fun or boring?
Do I like the exercises?
Does the rep scheme look cool?
But being able to analyze programming beyond this surface level is key to creating a balanced program that keeps clients excited and engaged for years to come.
Instead, we should be asking questions like...
What are the primary movement patterns and the volumes of those movement patterns?
Do we have a variety of time domains, intervals, and intensity levels?
Do we have a balance of exercises and workout formats?
Are the rep ranges and ratios appropriate for each exercise?
How will our fastest and slowest athletes fare on this workout?
Will this workout work in our biggest and smallest classes?
When we are able to ask questions like these, we go from seeing a week of workouts in blurry black-and-white, to seeing them in high-definition, full-color, 4k.
In today's episode, I break down in detail how I analyze a week of programming at our gym, so you can understand how to do the same thing at your gym. By developing this skill set, you can begin to align your brand with the workouts you put out each day, regardless of whether you run a CrossFit, boot camp, strength-focused, or cardio-based gym.
Jason Ackerman is a jack of all trades in the CrossFit world and the creator of the Best Hour of Their Day podcast.
Jason comes on the show to debate the merit of the hook grip, and to share what he feels are the greatest areas of improvement for most coaches.
We discuss how he manages the infinite amount of ideas and projects he has, and how he has built one of the most successful podcasts in the fitness industry, in less than 2 years.
A coaching friend of mine recently shot this question over to me via email, and I'm taking the time to answer it on today's podcast.
The simple answer is No. There are successful gyms that run all types of business models.
Places like Orange Theory, Barry's Bootcamp, and Soul Cycle have been able to grow very successful class-based franchises with little to no personal training. On the flip side, there are lots of smaller personal training studios that have found success without doing any group classes.
For most micro gyms in the CrossFit and functional fitness space, they are trying to run a hybrid model combining PT and group classes, and trying to figure out what the right balance of both is.
My advice is to decide what you want your primary service to be, and make sure that is able to fully support you, your team, and the business, before investing too much time and energy in the other service.
If you are primarily a group-class facility, then your facility should be able to survive and thrive long term, even if you didn't run a single PT session. Personal training can then serve as a bonus to your revenue and profits, as well as a great way for your coaching staff to create careers for themselves, rather than a bandaid on a poorly run, or poorly priced, group class membership.
Today's episode breaks this down in detail, and should provide you with a better framework for how to think about personal training's place in a group class facility.
I met Jason Rule back in 2016 when we were both attending the Barbell Shrugged Business Mastermind, and have always been impressed with Jason's quiet confidence and consistent execution as he has built an incredibly successful supplement company within the CrossFit space.
Jason has been in the supplement industry for nearly 2 decades and takes a different approach from most supplement companies. He takes a holistic approach to the supplement business, always making sure he is doing what's best for the athlete, the coach, the gym owner, and his team.
In this episode, Jason shares a ton of nuggets about how to build consistent and valuable content, develop trust with your customers, and the business advice that has had the most lasting impact on him.
If you want to build retail in your gym, up your content game, or become a more sincere and strong business leader, this episode is for you.
Whether you run a single type of class at your gym or offer multiple different programs, it's important to take the time to define what you want the programming and experience to look like for each one of those classes.
When it comes to programming, most micro gym owners focus solely on the effectiveness of the workouts, and not enough on the class experience they are trying to create or the type of clientele they want to attract and retain.
In this episode, I break down how we define and distinguish our BeachFit and FTX program from each other and from other gyms that do functional fitness, to showcase an example of how you can do so within your 4 walls.
To get a PDF breakdown of what this looks like, head over to sevenfigurebox.com/programming
The allure of starting your own business seems to be growing over recent years, as entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Gary Vaynerchuk have become mainstream celebrities.
But entrepreneurship isn't always as glamorous as it may seem, and just because you may have decided you want to work for yourself, doesn't mean that you have to build a massive business and take on a lot of risk.
In fact, most people that think they want to be entrepreneurs, might be better suited as freelancers, especially in today's COVID economy.
In this episode, we discuss the difference between being a freelancer and an entrepreneur, and how this shift in approach can alter your path as a coach or a business owner.
While COVID and social distancing restrictions have made it difficult on the group class model, there's no better time than now to grow your book of business as an individual coach.
More people are understanding the importance of their health, and a lot of those people aren't fully comfortable working out in the group setting yet. Personal training and/or remote programming are the perfect avenues to help your clients start reaching their goals, while creating a path for you to become a professional coach.
In today's episode, FitTown Coach Austin Bettigrew is back on the show to discuss some strategies and tactics for growing your book of business immediately. We share ideas for improving your sales ability, creating better results for your clients, and how to get more referrals.
I'm joined today by 2 of our FitTown Coaches, Amanda Jackson and Austin Bettigrew, as they share their perspective on our hiring process.
While most micro gyms wait for one of their current members to express interest in coaching, or offer the coaching job to the current best athlete in the gym, we've used a multi-step hiring process to hire 6 of our last 7 coaches from out of state. We've found that this extra time and energy we have put into hiring, has returned the greatest ROI of any area of our business over the last 3 years.
Today, we are detailing that hiring process, but through the perspective of 2 of the coaches we have hired over the last 3 years. We discuss their reactions when they saw the job postings, their most memorable questions from the interview process, and their thoughts about staying with me and my family for an entire weekend prior to getting hired.
Whether you are looking to hire full-time A-players for your team, or you are a coach that wants to know how to land your dream job, this podcast will provide you with a detailed path to get there.
Nicole Race is the owner of Elevate St Pete, and she joins the show today to talk about how Elevate has managed to weather the Coronavirus storm, and has their business operating as strong as it ever has.
We discuss how and why she operates a 2-class system, with a 60-minute Lift class centered around strength training and functional bodybuilding, and a 45-minute Sweat class focused on high intensity interval training.
We talk about messaging and why she chooses to target women with most of her marketing. She explains the role and importance of developing offers, and why having a great offer is not enough.
If you want to learn more about Nicole or have her help you grow your gym, check out her new company the Gym Solution.
The last 6 months has been tough on gym owners and coaches. What might be the most difficult part of it all, is that there is no clear end in sight.
Even once COVID restrictions come down, it will likely be several months before consumer confidence fully returns. It' makes us feel like we are just spinning our wheels, and that business will never be good again.
But I do believe there is light at the end of this tunnel. And that the gym owners that can successfully weather the storm for the next 12-24 months, will come away from this time stronger and more profitable than ever before.
This episode discusses why and how to weather the COVID storm, and the potential benefits that will be awaiting your business on the other side on this pandemic.
Mike Wuest is one of the owners and creators of UpLaunch, a CRM designed for micro gyms. He joins the podcast today to reveal why the chase for “more leads” is hurting most micro gyms.
He discusses how gyms can dial in their messaging, marketing, and systems, regardless of whether they use UpLaunch or not. He talks about the importance of the first 100 days of a new member’s journey, and how to maximize those first 100 days so you can get most of your clients to stick around for years.
We started using UpLaunch back in May, and couldn’t be happier with our experience so far. It’s allowed us to dial in our lead and sales process for the first time in our 8-year history. To learn more about UpLaunch and schedule a free demo, head over to sevenfigurebox.com/uplaunch
2 years ago, LJ Regine was living in Virginia and applied to be a coach at CrossFit Palm Beach. Through that process of looking for his dream coaching job, LJ realized he wanted to be more than a coach, and 6 months later opened RoxFire Fitness in Ft Lauderdale, FL.
What started as just another CrossFit gym, has evolved into his own unique brand built around the idea of becoming your own superhero.
This episode dives into LJ's journey from coach to gym owner, and discusses the shifts that transformed RoxFire Fitness from just another CrossFit affiliate into a stand-alone brand.
My good friend Dr Sean Pastuch is back on the SFB podcast for a third time to discuss his vision for the healthcare clinic of the future. We discuss how the Coronavirus pandemic shapes this vision, and how gym owners and coaches can adapt to the current climate.
To hear the previous episodes with Sean, check out episode 40 and episode 70 of the Seven Figure Box show.
Anat Peri is the Founder and Head Facilitator at Training Camp for the Soul, a transformative personal development program that has attracted many coaches and gym owners in the CrossFit and functional fitness space.
I am currently finishing up the final week of the 90-day online version of TCS, and have already noticed a huge difference in my awareness, my relationships, and how I interact with my businesses.
In this episode, we discuss the 5 stages of transformation, the role Mom and Dad played in shaping who you are today, and how the ego is affecting so many of the decisions you make on a daily basis.
Almost 2 weeks ago, we found out that several of our coaches were positive for COVID, and we made the decision to shut down our gym for over 2 weeks. Unlike the first shut down 4 months ago where we were able to loan out equipment and provide remote workouts and coaching, we felt it was right this time to put all of our memberships on hold, which was a significant loss for our business. As we look to open back up in the next week or two, this episode dives into how we are approaching things to limit our downside and protect the long-term future of our gym.
Mike Bledsoe is the former co-founder of Barbell Shrugged, and now helps coaches build six-figure businesses via his Strong Coach program. This wide-ranging conversation with Mike discusses COVID, the value of paying for a coach, avoiding the victim mentality, and what success looks like to him. We also talk about why so many coaches and gym owners that take on his Strong Coach or Training Camp for the Soul programs, end up selling or leaving their gyms.
Two months ago, we rebranded our gym from CrossFit Palm Beach to FitTown Jupiter. One of the things we learned in the rebranding process, is that it's important to define parameters for how you come up with a brand or class name, and not just pick a name that feels right in the moment. This episode breaks down our process for rebranding to FitTown Jupiter and how we decided to change our CrossFit class name to FTX.
Chris Thorndike from LIV Athletic and Factory Forged is back on the show to share his thoughts on the recent sale of CrossFit Inc and the new CEO Eric Roza. Chris has been a CrossFit affiliate for over a decade, even though it hasn't been his main brand for the last couple years. He recently took a stand for change within CrossFit, by announcing his de-affiliation.
In this episode Chris breaks down the value of the CrossFit affiliate program, and what he would like to see moving forward to regain his love, passion, and affiliation with the CrossFit brand.
Greg Glassman's recent comments have sparked a mass exodus of CrossFit Affiliates De-Affiliating from the CrossFit Brand. Many CrossFit gyms are still taking a "wait and see" approach while others have already made the decision to de-affiliate, but with the hope of coming back to the CrossFit brand someday. This podcast explains why our de-affiliation from CrossFit will be a forever decision for us, and what things to consider as you are making this decision for your own gym.
Racism and systemic oppression is still happening regularly in our society, and we have a platform as gym owners to create change. We got into this industry to change lives, and this is another opportunity to do just that. Today's episode is about opening that conversation and helping each other find and create opportunities for change in our local communities.
Were almost 3 weeks in to re-opening our gym under limited capacity restrictions. This episode details our experience so far.
This is the rest of the interview from last week's episode with Brian Costello of the O23 Coaching System. In this week's episode, we discuss how to structure and price this type of program, and how to implement this as a solo coach or as a gym owner who's in charge of an entire team. Brian shares some great nuggets for helping clients see better results, while increasing their buy-in to working with you.
The Coronavirus shutdown was a wakeup call for me to prioritize my own mental and emotional health and not allow my identity to be wrapped up in the success of the gym.
This episode covers a wide range of topics related to prioritizing your energy as a leader, trusting your team, and handling the feedback and input of others.
Tyler served as our business coach at CrossFit Palm Beach for a little over a year. We share a lot of beliefs about business, and run nearly identical businesses in terms of the size of our gyms, programs we offer, and the make up of our teams. In today's episode, we discuss some of the biggest lessons he has learned from over 9 years of running Badger CrossFit.
In this episode, Joe Tebaldi and I talk about the benefits of taking your gym online.
Joe has created a brand new platform called Studio, which is designed to help microgyms expand beyond the physical limitations of their walls and compete with virtual platforms like Peloton.
This is a summary of a conversation I had with another gym owner that I had about coach compensation.
He's using the shutdown of the coronavirus to reevaluate how he pays his staff and setting up the compensation in a way where the business and his staff can prosper long term.
This episode shares my quick thoughts and tips for him on how to attack it.
In this special 100th episode, I'm challenging you to use this Coronavirus shutdown to test your assumptions on both a personal and professional level.
This episode covers several of the beliefs that I am currently challenging in my own life as well as with CrossFit Palm Beach and Seven Figure Box, including whether or not to make this my final episode.
There's no better time than now to rethink how you structure your hybrid memberships
Traditionally, hybrid memberships have been built around the exercise component. This has typically been Class + PT or Class + Individualized Programming.
Over recent years, it's evolved to look more like Class + Nutrition, but even that has focused around tracking macros specifically.
We believe that the future of hybrid memberships will take on a more aerial view of the entire athlete and their goals and will be centered around accountability and behavior change.
This episode covers why now is the perfect time to rethink hybrid memberships.
If you aren't going on offense to seek feedback from your best clients, then it's likely that the majority of the feedback you get as a gym owner is from clients that are less than happy with your service. While any feedback can lead to positive changes in your business, feedback from unhappy clients can often put you in a position where you are problem solving and putting out fires, instead of intentionally building your gym around the people you want to serve the most.
In this episode, we discuss a few ways to play offense as a gym owner, including how to see problems as opportunities, and how to attack the root cause of the issues you are facing, instead of the symptoms.
We're big on leading by example at CrossFit Palm Beach.
This means we expect all of our coaches to take at least 15 classes each month. It also means when our coaches are in class, we want them to carry themselves like an ideal athlete in those classes.
Athletes should be on time for class and take each class from start to finish. They should pay attention at the whiteboard and come ready to learn. They should move to the best of their abilities and be coachable. They should add value to the experience of others by bringing a positive energy and putting the needs of others above their own. They should be open to modifying and scaling when appropriate to preserve the stimulus of the workout.
If we aren't willing to do it as coaches, we shouldn't ask or expect our athletes to do it either.
In this episode, we break down what it means to be the ideal client in every class that we take.
As gym owners, we often hear we should be working ON our business instead of IN it.
And while the statement is true, I find that it's rarely backed up with any type of tactical or tangible recommendations for what you should actually do with that time you have dedicated to working ON your business.
And if you spend so much of your time IN the business coaching classes, managing staff, creating programming, planning events, and handling customer service, it's easy to feel lost when it's finally time to work ON the business.
This episode covers 3 simple ways for you to be productive with your time building your business, including mastering your membership software, building checklists and scripts, and trusting your team to carry out roles and tasks that they are capable of doing without you.
Many gym owners don't meet regularly with their teams, because they are afraid they will have nothing to talk about, or the meeting will be a waste of time.
One of the best ways to make meetings worthwhile, is to carve out time in each meeting for coaches development.
This time can be used towards sharing class feedback, allowing individual coaches to present on topics of expertise, or by doing movement breakdowns and brainstorms.
This episode breaks down 3 of our favorite coaches development formats that you can rinse and reuse for hundreds of meetings to come.
This is a special episode because it's an excerpt from our Rockstar Coaching Course, which will be available soon.
Here, we talk about the four different types of coaches, what defines each of them, and how they're different.
There's nothing wrong with any of these types, but it's great to understand each of these so you can manage them differently and help them show up for your gym in the best way.
We purchased the Inbody 270 machine back in April 2018, and can't imagine going back to using the scale or measurements for tracking our clients' transformations.
By measuring body fat percentage and total muscle mass, it's great for those clients that don't have a lot of weight to lose, or those who actually want to gain muscle.
In this episode, we discuss the benefits (and downsides) of having an InBody machine, how much it will cost you to purchase and maintain, and if it will provide a return on investment for your gym.
Most of us understand the value of creating more content for our gyms or our personal coaching brands, but often struggle getting started or staying consistent with it. We may even tell ourselves “we’re not creative”, thinking that creativity is this god-given talent that we either have or we don’t.
But one thing I’ve learned over the years is that creativity is a skill that can be harnessed and developed with practice. We don’t have creativity, we do creativity.
This week’s episode shares some of our top tips for harnessing your creativity and creating more content in 2020 and beyond.
For years, we often looked at the onboarding process as a way to get people up to speed with the technical movements of CrossFit prior to joining our group classes.
While that is one important piece of the onboarding puzzle, the decision to start your members in personal training vs group fundamentals vs going straight to classes, is not as important as your holistic onboarding system.
We’ve found that it's more vital to get new members comfortable with your culture and your community, instead of making it all about thrusters and AMRAPs.
When we think about onboarding new members today, we aim to make a ton of high-quality, individual touch points, that will happen throughout the member’s first 30-60 days.
This episode discusses those various touch points, and explains the why behind our current fundamentals process we use today.
Over the years, I've learned that it's not about the number of books that you read, but how much you apply the few great books that really resonate with you.
When I look back at 2019, there are 5 books that had a massive impact on me, that I plan to read and revisit again in 2020 and beyond.
Those 5 books are:
1) Never Split the Difference - Chris Voss
2) Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief - Chris Cooper
3) The Infinite Game - Simon Sinek
4) Chop Wood, Carry Water - Joshua Medcalf
5) Atomic Habits - James Clear
In this week's episode, I share some of my key takeaways from each book, and how I try to immerse myself in the material, rather than reading with the goal of finishing each book.
As gym owners, a lot of us have been sold the idea that we can build our business to run itself, and we will never have to step in and handle minor day-to-day issues.
But even 7 years in to running our gym, I still find myself plugging holes in various areas a couple times each month. Just a couple days ago, I covered our childcare room for a couple hours, since our attendant for that day had to go home sick. I've learned to be okay with these moments, and often find a way to enjoy them and the perspective I gain from being thrown back "in" to the business.
If you find that plugging holes is becoming a recurring pattern though, it may be time to take a step back and attack the problem at its root cause.
This episode shares some short examples of when it might be okay to step in as a utility player in your business, and when you will be better off solving the underlying issue, and delegating that solution to someone on your team.
Learning is one of the most high value skills we can have as gym owners, yet most of us are never taught how to do it at an exceptional level.
We read a book with the goal of finishing that book and checking the box, instead of using books as a tool and resource to solve real world problems we are currently facing.
Over the years, I have learned that there are mindsets, strategies, and tools that you can take into any book, podcast, or course that will drastically change your ability to retain that information and actually implement it into your life.
This episode covers 7 quick tips for learning faster, so you don’t get caught up in the trap of consuming information, and not applying it to your life.
In this episode, I sit down with my good friend Carl Penney, who runs CrossFit El Cid in West Palm Beach, FL, which is about a 30-minute drive from our gym, CrossFit Palm Beach.
Carl and I have made it a habit of meeting for lunch or coffee every 3-4 months for the last couple years, regularly trading business ideas or providing a sounding board for each other to work through issues we are facing in the gym.
Our relationship has been vital for me to clarify my ideas, learn what things are working for other successful gyms out there, and to just remind me that I’m not crazy for believing what I believe.
Entrepreneurship and running a gym can feel like a lonely pursuit at times, and I can’t overstate the value of having someone to share the journey with that isn’t your direct business partner or your business coach.
I recommend that every gym owner finds a “Carl” near them that they can vent to and learn from.
This week’s episode will give you a window into what one of our regular conversations might look like, as we dive deep into topics like managing your time, working ON your business instead of IN your business, and dealing with unhappy members.
Over the last 7 years, we've run in the ballpark of 15 different types of nutrition challenges at CrossFit Palm Beach. We've run challenges as short as 28 days and as long as 90 days. We've done challenges centered around paleo, macros, lifestyle, and habits.
You name it, we've probably done a version of it.
I'm a huge fan of nutrition challenges for getting more clients thinking about their nutrition, getting them to step outside their comfort zone with their dietary habits, and providing a platform for us to educate about nutrition on a deeper level.
This past fall, we ran a successful 28-day nutrition challenge, that was my favorite challenge that we have run so far at CFPB. It had the perfect mix of group and individual accountability, clients saw great results, and it wasn't super time consuming on our team.
This episode covers exactly how we structured that challenge, from pricing to prizes. If you are thinking about running a nutrition challenge to kick off 2020, this is a must listen.
Also, head over to sevenfigurebox.com/challenge to pick up the exact templates we used to run the challenge in our gym.
While most gym owners would agree that nutrition is at least as important as exercise for helping our clients create results, most owners still aren’t clear if and how they should implement a nutrition program at their gym.
Luckily for us, companies like Healthy Steps Nutrition, Working Against Gravity, and Precision Nutrition are building out plug-and-play solutions that we can add on to our current service offerings.
But adding 1-on-1 nutrition coaching may still not be the best use of resources for most gyms at this time.
In order to run a successful nutrition program, we need to have the right coach to run the program, have regular access to a body fat tracking machine like an InBody, and we need to price the program in a way where it serves the coach, the gym, and the client long-term. (Most gyms are screwing up the pricing and then ending up in a race to the bottom)
In this episode, we dive deep into how we structure our nutrition programs and pricing at CFPB, why we work with HSN to oversee our program, and how many people you can expect to join your program if you do launch it.
When you think about the future of your business, do you worry about your competitors or new technologies taking your members and putting you out of business? Do gyms like Orange Theory and F45, or technologies like the Peloton and Mirror, feel like threats to your future?
If we try too hard to be different in the micro gym industry, we will likely put ourselves in a rat race against bigger and more powerful brands that we don't have the funds or the resources to keep up with. Even if we are "successful" with our different concept, it's only a matter of time before others copy us or replicate our ideas.
So rather than aim to be different for the sake of being different, I encourage most micro gym owners to aim to be timeless with their service and their offerings. What services and environment can you create that will never go out of style? What issues can you solve, or experiences can you provide, that your customer will still have a need for years and decades into the future? What value do you provide today that can't easily be replicated by new technologies?
In this episode, I discuss what it means to be timeless versus being different. I also talk about how we are in the process of re-writing our vision statement at CrossFit Palm Beach to be more timeless, and adopt a more infinite mindset.
Back in 2008-2010, I did sales for Norwegian Cruise Line. I wore a suit every day to work and spent the entire day making sales calls, with the goal of making 150+ calls per day. It was my first real job after college and a short stint in professional baseball, and taught me a lot about sales, hard work, and navigating corporate culture.
Many of the lessons I learned in those 2 years at NCL have stuck with me to this day.
I overcame my fear of selling, while learning how to listen to customers. I learned that there is a lot of money and abundance in this world, and it isn't my job (especially in sales) to project my personal beliefs about money onto others. I learned what it took to become a top performer, and that it's a lot easier to stay at the top then it is to ascend there.
John Briggs is a rare breed in our industry. He's a CPA and tax professional that also happens to be a CrossFit affiliate owner. He specializes in helping microgyms become profitable, which he shares in his brand new book, coming in January 2020.
The key message of John's new book, is that we as microgym owners, deserve to make money and make a living off of what we are doing. And while he shares a ton of tactical tips in this podcast and his new book, the most important hurdle most gym owners need to get over is this mental block that its okay (and necessary) for them to make money for the value they are putting into this world.
This episode covers a range of topics regarding gym ownership, tracking numbers, and mindset. We even dive into the book writing process near the end of our interview, which I found fascinating.
Brittany Welk is the owner of LadyStrong Fitness, a women's only fitness studio in the Chicago suburbs.
In this episode, we dive into the nitty-gritty details of how she generates leads, gets them to actually show up for their free trial, and converts them into long-term members. She shares the exact step-by-step blueprint for how she has grown her gym to 250 members in 3 years.
I was personally impressed with the systems she has set up to reach out to new leads automatically and immediately, and how she aims to engage all of her new prospects in a conversation within 5 minutes of them becoming a new lead, which she says increases your chances of converting that person by 5X or more.
We also discuss what it's like to own and run a ladies-only facility, and whether or not co-ed micro gyms should consider offering a gender-specific class.
Brittany is a wealth of knowledge and a true student of the craft of business ownership. If you are looking to generate or convert more leads into your long-term membership, this episode is a must-listen.
If you follow Dr Sean Pastuch and Active Life RX on social media, you know they haven’t been shy about sharing their thoughts on coaches pay and the 4/9ths model.
In today’s episode, Dr. Sean Pastuch comes back on the show to debate all things personal training and coaches pay related.
We broke down:
· How to set your personal training prices
· How much coaches (and the gym) should be paid on each session
· The 6 questions you need to ask to get clients to sell themselves to you, even if you hate sales
· How to start getting more personal training clients today
I'm constantly asked what we do to recognize and retain veteran members who have stuck with us over months and years. In addition to things like the committed club, sending out handwritten postcards, and running consistent seminars and events, one cool thing we added last year is to recognize our members when they hit specific career attendance milestones.
At the end of every month, we recognize every member that has surpassed 100, 300, 500, 750, and 1000 career classes at CFPB. Each level has a corresponding rubber bracelet and postcard that is sent to the member, that represents one of our core values of our gym.
The idea came from a podcast I heard with Michael Cazayoux of Brute Strength, who mentioned that "people don't usually quit your gym or service because they are unhappy, they usually quit because they don't know what's next."
We love the rubber bracelet idea because it allows people to aim for future attendance milestones, while focusing the majority of their energy on the simple act of showing up consistently.
In this episode, Tony and I share our rubber bracelet retention system, from how we operate it on the back-end, to examples of the actual bracelets and postcards we use. Watch the full video on our Seven Figure Box Youtube channel, or head over to the blog to download the postcards.
When we started working with a business coach back in 2017, one of the best things that came about from it was being forced to track monthly numbers, every single month. It was something we did off and on prior to 2017, but never did it with the consistency and level of detail that we have done ever since.
The magic of tracking your numbers doesn’t usually come from tracking a single month. The snapshot of a single month can be informative, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. It’s why a lot of business owners will start tracking and then give up after a month or two.
The magic of tracking your numbers comes from having weeks, months, and years of data to review. By seeing these trends over stretches of time, you can begin to make key decisions in your business based on data, rather than hear-say or gut feelings.
This episode covers why and how to track your numbers, and which metrics to focus on to grow your business.
We also put together a comprehensive guide for maximizing the financial side of your business, which you can find at sevenfigurebox.com/numbers.
In July 2018, I made a promise to myself that I would record and release a Seven Figure Box podcast every Friday for a year. I wanted to focus on the habit of publishing every week, and enjoy the process along the way, without getting too caught up in how many listeners I had, or whether or not my effort was "paying off".
15 months later, I have kept the promise to myself and continue to publish each week. While I have seen several benefits from having the podcast, I still feel that I have a long way to go before I can say it's been a successful project in terms of listeners and tangible business results.
In today's episode, I share with you an open and honest look at the results I have seen from my first year of podcasting, including a detailed breakdown of my listener numbers throughout that first year. I also share with you a few of the ways that I define success for myself, so I can be proud of the things I am accomplishing along the way, even if the project ends up being a failure by most objective numbers.
One of the questions I get most often is "how much should I pay my coaches?"
Most coaches are usually paid a standard hourly rate for classes or paid on salary, but there is a lot of debate on how much we should pay coaches for auxiliary services like personal training, programming, nutrition coaching, or specialty classes.
The standard practice in our industry (popularized by Two Brain Business) is to pay coaches 4/9 or about 44% of any incoming revenue that they bring in to the business. Many owners and coaches believe that this number is way too low, and I've even heard of some owners paying as high as 80, 90, or even 100% of all auxiliary revenue to the coaches that are executing those services.
This episode breaks down all the factors that we need to consider when deciding how much to pay our coaches, and what I feel is the ideal percentage for most gym owners to pay their staff in order to provide career opportunities to their coaches, while also protecting the profit margin and long-term sustainability of the business.
I was doing some reminiscing recently and remembered that the first "business" I ever started was back in middle school when I was about 13 or 14 years old. I was burning custom CDs from songs I downloaded through Napster and Limewire, and selling them to friends, and friends of friends for $5 to $10 a pop.
While I never really set out to start a business, word of mouth spread quickly, and I went from selling 1 to 2 CDs per week, to selling 4-5 CDs per day in less than a month. But after a couple weeks of late nights, a few disappointed customers, and little to no profit to show for it, I decided to close up shop.
Looking back on it now, I see many parallels between that business and many of the mistakes that I see most CrossFit gym owners make, myself included. We created our gyms with a desire to help people, and create an experience that was better than everything else out there, but we don't have the processes, the people, or the profit, to support our lofty goals.
In this episode I break down the mistakes I made with my first business and how we can avoid those mistakes as gym owners, so we can be around for years and decades to come.
.If we want to be able to engage and retain members for years, and not just a few months, it all starts with your daily class experience.
Your classes need to be designed in a way that keeps your veteran, ideal members engaged even after they reach a lot of their goals and have a good handle of the basic skills.
And when we talk about class experience, were not just talking about how you write your workouts.
It’s how you:
· Write your lesson plans and class timelines
· Teach skills or progressions
· Present and communicate at the whiteboard
· Execute and dictate the pace of class
If all of this is designed with the veteran, ideal client in mind, then we are much more likely to create more veteran, ideal clients like them.
This episode breaks down how to think about who your classes are designed for, so you can increase member retention and keep members engaged for years on end.
Keeping your members engaged and committed throughout the year isn't always easy, especially if your gym is seasonal or has slower times of the year. One of the ways we have found to improve engagement and retention during our slower summer months is with BINGO.
BINGO is a month-long competition that combines various tasks and challenges related to fitness, attendance, community, social media, and more. It's an idea we originally stole from Orangetheory Fitness, and has become a much anticipated event over the last 3 years at CrossFit Palm Beach.
This episode covers everything you need to know to run a successful BINGO month at your gym. To download our cards and rules, head over to sevenfigurebox.com/bingo to learn more.
This episode shares some of the things that I've had to give up in recent years in order to create the time, energy, and attention to do the necessary things to grow CrossFit Palm Beach into a seven figure gym.
If you have a lot of extraneous activities like social media, TV, Netflix, Prime Video, golf, drinking with your friends, surfing the internet, shopping, and video games eating away at your time, then it's going to be difficult to find room for important business and personal development action items.
But rather than just simply cutting out everything from your life, I want you to build some self awareness around what activities actually give you joy and contribute to your life, and which activities are actually taking away from your overall health, happiness, and well being.
Today's episode is more of an announcement to let you know that I will be posting our first official Youtube version of the podcast tomorrow, and I plan to post at least one Youtube video a week moving forward.
Over the last few months, I've become a huge fan of Youtube as both an entertainment and educational platform. Youtube has some of the best content available for helping your grow your gym, and develop on a personal and professional level.
Please subscribe to the Seven Figure Box channel on Youtube and let me know what kinds of content you want to see more of.
And while you are there, check out some of these great channels that I have been enjoying over the last few months:
- GaryVee
- The Active Life
- WTF Gym Talk
- Tom Bilyeu
- Matt D'Avella
- Graham Stephan
- Ben Bergeron
- Tim Ferriss
Writing great sales copy is a skill that most gym owners could benefit from, but very few owners ever commit the time or energy to getting better at.
But most of us would love to have a way to get the attention of our potential clients, without coming off too sleazy or salesy, or without having to pay thousands of dollars to a marketing consultant to do it for us.
In today's podcast, I run you through a simple exercise that will help you create great sales copy immediately. I literally learned and went through this exercise for the first time last week, but found it so interesting and useful, that I had to share it right away with you guys.
And even if you don't want to use this exercise for sales copy, the ideas you come up with can also serve as an endless supply of content topics for blog posts, videos, and ebooks to build your brand and get more customers.
For many years at CrossFit Palm Beach, I felt like I was failing miserably as a leader. I wasn’t able to get my team to do things that I knew they were capable of, and even saw some good employees become entitled or become worse team members under my watch.
I’ve realized that leadership is a lot like dating, where you will likely have to go through a lot of bad relationships to eventually know how to create good ones. If you’ve ever been in a good relationship and then broken up, it’s likely because you and the other person lacked the maturity, communication, or relationship skill set, to make that relationship work in the long term. But there’s also a high likelihood that the other person wasn’t going to be your soulmate anyways, regardless of how mature or skilled you were, simply because they weren’t the right person.
As I’ve started to become more confident and more effective as a leader, I realize that the progression hasn’t been 100% due to the changes I’ve made to my personal approach or personal development. A large portion of my growth as a leader has come from being surrounded by great followers and great team players, that have taught me how to be a better leader.
In this episode I talk more about this concept of how leadership is like dating, and how you can be more patient and forgiving of yourself as you develop into the coach, business owner, and leader you want to be.
Have you ever been asked by a prospect if you would match their rate at their current gym?
What was your response? Did you say yes? Did a part of you consider it, even if you ultimately said no?
If you're pricing your services based on what someone else is charging, you are likely setting yourself up for failure. Pricing shouldn't be some arbitrary number that you think your potential customer can afford to pay, but it should be based on the value you want to provide to your customers, your employees, your business, and yourself.
And once you set your prices, you aren't helping people out by discounting those prices, just because the gym down the street charges that much. We've seen several local gyms shut down over the last few years, and we would likely be in a similar situation if we didn't protect our rates.
In today's episode, my brother and business partner Tony joins the show to discuss all things pricing related.
Daniel is an immigrant entrepreneur from Budapest, Hungary that now owns 6 gyms, is an Amazon best-selling author, and a wealth of knowledge. In this episode we discuss how he built an 1100 sq ft facility into a seven figure gym, why and how to raise prices, and how to create multiple successful locations. I especially enjoyed how Daniel broke down the difference between delegating and leveraging, and he shared his favorite book on the subject, Lincoln on Leadership.
Over the last few years at CrossFit Palm Beach, we have evolved our coaching staff where everyone on our team is now a full-time coach or working towards becoming one. We've noticed a huge benefit from having 100% of our coaching team fully invested and fully committed to CFPB and our members, and we've decided that those are the people we want to work alongside each day.
But every week, I still talk to gym owners that have several part-time coaches on staff, and I try to break down the advantages and disadvantages of having part-timers.
Part-time coaches can be a great asset to your business, we just need to be intentional about their role, and they need to be held to a clear standard, similar to what you hold yourself and your other full-time coaches to.
In this episode, I break down those 3 standards that all part-time coaches need to meet, in order for them to be a valuable asset to your gym. I also talk about how to start moving away from a part-time team, if you think your gym could benefit from having more full-timers on staff.
Being a great coach, business owner, or leader, often requires us to find a balance between seemingly opposing ideas or personality traits.
When it comes to coaching, it's important for us to find the balance between:
- Being personable, while also being professional
- Being professional, but not formal
- Being knowledgeable, but not academic in how we talk or teach
- Educating our members, while also entertaining them
- Holding a high standard, without being overbearing
- Empathetic of our members struggles, without coddling them
- To have high energy and be encouraging, while also providing a ton of substance and value
- Be present with individuals, while also putting the needs of the larger group first
Finding the balance between this dichotomy, is what separates the great coaches from the good ones. And in order to pull this off consistently, it requires massive self awareness.
This episode dives into the dichotomy of great coaches, and how you can begin to develop more self awareness around your own coaching.
Nathan Holiday is the owner of Level Method Gym in Lake Forest, California and the creator of the Level Method which is used by over 150 gyms across the world.
The Level Method is essentially a martial arts style color system, that coaches and members can use to accurately assess where they are today, and have a systematic approach to improving their fitness and attacking their weaknesses.
It’s a powerful tool for improving member retention, upselling to more services like personal training and programming, creating powerful moments in your community, and differentiating your gym from others in the industry.
In this episode, Nathan and I discuss the power of the Level Method and also dive into the business side of running both a CrossFit style gym while launching an online business.
We dive into his favorite resources and tools for productivity, which has become a necessary skill for him to thrive in both businesses.
Last weekend, we just completed our 6th Annual Deadly Duo In-House Competition. We've run over 15 in-house competitions over the last 7 years at CFPB, and have made a lot of improvements over the years in how we run these competitions.
In this episode, my brother Tony joins the podcast to break down every detail that we believe goes into a successful in-house competition.
We talk about how and when to line up sponsorships, increasing member participation, how to think about programming, and coordinating day of logistics, scoring, judging, and everything in between.
As coaches, most of us are constantly stressing the value of mastering the fundamentals to our athletes.
Yet, as business owners, we many times ignore the fundamentals in favor of the shiny new marketing tactic or the urgent issue that's staring us in the face today.
Tell us to create a progression to help someone achieve their first ring muscle up, and you'll likely get a detailed plan of drills and progressions that we feel confident will deliver the result.
Yet, if you ask most gym owners how they are going to get to 200 members or $50,000 per month in revenue, they can't outline a clear action plan.
The problem is, the fundamentals that make up a great business aren't as clear to us as the fundamentals that make up something like the snatch or the handstand push up.
We just aren't as well versed in business as we are in movement. Or more correctly said, we haven't invested the hours or attention on the business side, that we've invested into coaching and studying movement.
In this episode, I talk about how we've had to take a step back at CrossFit Palm Beach to revisit the fundamentals of our business. I share my favorite new resource for doing this yourself - which is the book, "Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief" By Chris Cooper.
Lastly, I share with you an amazing free gift, which is a copy of our recently completed staff playbook for CrossFit Palm Beach. This playbook is an 80+ page blueprint for how we run everything at CFPB.
To get your FREE copy of the playbook, head to sevenfigurebox.com/staffplaybook.
This is part 2 of an interview I did with Chris Thorndike of LIV Athletic (CrossFit Gainesville) and Factory Forged. In this episode, we dive into what it was like for Chris to build his gym remotely while he was living in a different part of Florida. We talk about how to effectively run a business with family, as Chris has co-owned his gym with his brother and his wife at separate times. Chris provides some valuable insights on when and how to work through your partnership, versus cut ties and go your separate ways. We also dive into the value of mentoring and some of Chris' favorites resources. Enjoy!
Starting a podcast is one of the best ways to build your brand, improve member retention, and scale your time as a coach so you can reach more people.
But most people don’t launch a podcast because they think it’s way harder or more expensive than it actually is.
In this episode, I show you how to launch a podcast for free through Anchor, and the only thing you need to buy is a good quality microphone. (I give you the exact microphone I use)
I also break down some of the surprising benefits of having a podcast, like how having a gym podcast for CrossFit Palm Beach has enabled us to hire better quality coaches from around the country.
In this week's episode, I sit down with Chris Thorndike of Factory Forged and LIV Athletic. Chris and I have known each other for over 2 decades, dating back to our days playing travel soccer together when we were 10 years old.
Chris started CrossFit Gainesville back in 2008, has been working with gym owners since 2011, and is one of the most knowledgeable and helpful people in the micro gym industry.
In this first part of our 2-part interview, we talk about why you should rebrand your gym, how to hire and surround yourself with complementary pieces, and how he attacks his week to be as productive as possible.
While visiting Portland for the Iron and Mortar experience, we dropped in to a local CrossFit gym to hop in on one of their class workouts. All in all we had a great time and enjoyed the gym and the workout, but we kept noticing little and big things throughout the class that was preventing this gym from being more successful.
We decided that this would be a great opportunity to break down a class experience in detail, and show you guys how we look at a class from start to finish. And while our commentary might sound harsh at times, just know that this is the same level of scrutiny we bring to our own classes and coaches each day at CrossFit Palm Beach.
In this week’s episode, I’m excited to interview Markus Gerszi, the owner of Gymwright. Markus coaches gym owners on how to run a better business, and he has been one of the most influential people in the growth of CrossFit Palm Beach over the last 3 years.
In fact, when we started working with Markus and Gymwright starting in the back half of 2017, it led to the fastest growing 6-month period that we have ever experienced at CFPB.
Markus has a unique perspective on the industry as a former affiliate owner, and now as a business coach, as well as someone who is leading a team of business coaches. We break down the current state of the gym industry, including which trends you should jump on, and which trends you need to ignore.
We also talk a lot about marketing, how he defines being a coach, and what success really looks like in our industry.
Over the last 3 months we've effectively tripled our monthly personal training revenue at CrossFit Palm Beach, and are finally growing an area of our gym that we neglected for most of the first 6+ years we've been in business. The turning point for us, was working with Active Life, and having all of our coaches go through their coaches' workshop this past March.
While this likely won't be a magic bullet for your business (and it wasn't for us either), no other seminar or certification has had a faster ROI on our business, which is why I feel so compelled to share our experience with you guys.
Active Life gave us a set of tools that we never had before as coaches, they taught us how to communicate and sell that new value to our potential clients, and they helped us standardize our rates and stop undercharging for our services.
This episode covers why and how this was so impactful for our business, and what steps you can take to dramatically grow this area of your gym.
In sports, the defining characteristic of all hall of fame players is consistency. Lots of people can have a great day, a great season, or even a great couple years, but it’s the ability to do it over and over again for decades that makes someone truly great.
As a CrossFit coach, consistency is just as important. The best coaches may not be a 10 out of 10 on many days, but rarely, if ever, will you see a great coach fall below a 7 out of 10, even on their worst days.
As gym owners, we should be building our teams and our business around these reliable and dependable 7/10 coaches.
All it takes is one really negative experience for someone to quit your gym for good, and members are much more likely to be turned off from a really bad experience, then they are to stick around because they had a few great experiences.
This episode covers how we should be thinking about showing up each day as coaches, so we can facilitate the best possible class experience, and be a valuable part of our coaching teams. It was inspired by Ep 133 of the Active Life Podcast, which I highly recommend listening to as well.
With the rise of 6 week challenges and social media advertising, It seems like the big focus in our industry right now is how can we create more leads and drive new faces in the door. One of the most successful ways we have done that over the last few years, is by running the Golden Ticket promotion.
But with any marketing initiative, we need to be intentional about how we set up and position that offer, or we could just be creating more work for ourselves without a lot of upside on the back end.
This episode breaks down how we ran our golden ticket promotion in detail, as well as all the things we consider when starting any new marketing initiative.
Stu Brauer is the owner of Urbn Mvmnt in Charlotte, NC, the WTF Gym Talk podcast and brand, and is a content machine. He also has a youtube channel and Vlog as well as a brand new online university for gym owners, Microgym University.
Stu is known for keeping it real with his content, and telling gym owners and coaches the things that they need to hear, but may not always want to hear. His passion and willingness to put himself out there, was the thing that put me over the edge when I decided to start my own business podcast last year.
In this episode, we discuss why Stu broke his perfectly good CrossFit gym, CrossFit SouthEnd, in order to re-brand as Urbn Mvmnt. We discuss his role as a business coach and how he built his consulting business from scratch. We also touch on some of his favorite resources and the difference between being inspired by something and stealing.
Even though CrossFit has seen tremendous growth and success over the last 10+ years, true career opportunities for coaches in our industry still seems to be few and far between. Most gyms don't have the systems or funds in order to compensate coaches in a professional way, and most coaches aren't willing to put in the work, if there's no guarantee of a long term future.
At CrossFit Palm Beach, one of our primary goals is to offer career opportunities for our coaches, and to professionalize what it means to be a CrossFit coach. We've learned that it requires a mutual effort from both owners and coaches to put themselves out there, and to work together to forge a new path.
From the coaches standpoint, we need to decide to turn pro, long before the career opportunity gets thrown in our lap. Otherwise, we won't have the mindset, skill set, and habits in place to take advantage of those opportunities when they show up.
This episode covers some of the key ways you can turn pro as a coach, so you can create a long-term career for yourself in this industry, and make a living doing what you love.
A boot-camp style class can be a great way to get more people to try your gym, increase revenue and profits, and allow you to help people earlier in their fitness journey.
But many gym owners are adding boot-camp style programs with no strategic plan, and the program ends up looking like a watered-down version of their CrossFit classes.
We made this mistake the first time we launched this type of program at CrossFit Palm Beach, and we ended up having to shut it down after a few months.
If you want to make this new program successful, you have to treat it as its own brand and culture. You need to aim to create a different experience from start to finish, not just remove the barbell and some technical gymnastics movements, and hope people won't notice that it's actually CrossFit.
This episode covers some of the key ways to launch and run a successful bootcamp program, including branding, programming, and how long these classes should be.
Most gym owners realize that if they want to get more members at their facility, it probably helps to have a low-barrier to entry offer where people can try it before they buy. But deciding to offer a free class isn't as straightforward as it sounds, and we need to be strategic about when and how we offer that free class. Is a free class something you want to offer for all of your classes at any time? Once a week? Once a month? Or Never? We've tried it all and have found that all of these different variations have their pros and cons. In this episode, we dive into the benefits and pitfalls of offering a free class, and ways to maximize conversions on your free class if it's something you already offer.
In order for someone to buy from you, there are 4 areas they need to trust prior to them handing over their credit card. If their level of trust is below an 8/10 in any one of these categories, they likely won’t be purchasing anything that day.
The 4 areas that they need to trust are:
1) The Business – Do they trust your gym, the businesses' track record, and that have their best interests in mind?
2) The Process – Do they trust the plan will work for them or has worked for others like them in the past?
3) You – Do they trust you as the person who can execute that plan and deliver them results?
4) Themselves – Do they believe they have what it takes to actually follow through with what’s being asked?
This episode covers everything you need to know in order to build trust with prospects and potential clients, and a simple exercise that you and your team can do to become better at selling.
The Power List is something that I have mentioned before briefly on other podcasts, but prior to today's episode, had never covered it in detail. It's a concept that I first heard about from Episode 107 of the MFCEO podcast with Andy Frisella.
The Power List is essentially a to-do list, but unlike the traditional to-do list, you have to write down exactly 5 priorities for each day, no more, no less. These priorities need to be things that will drive you closer to your long-term goals, not just urgent or miscellaneous tasks that need to get done.
I have become a huge fan of the Power List, because it forces me to do more prioritization and planning, and it allows me to measure whether I am successful each day. It also gives me peace of mind when I have had a productive day, to celebrate that, and not just keep working for the sake of staying busy.
This episode covers everything you need to know to start implementing the power list in your own life.
Head over to sevenfigurebox.com/powerlist to download a custom Power List and yearly tracker.
A little over a year ago, we stopped using a private coaches Facebook group, and exclusively started using the Slack app for our internal communication amongst our CrossFit Palm Beach team.
Not only did this allow our team members to spend less time on social media, but it created more communication amongst our team, and allowed us to organize our communication in a consistent and searchable format.
I now recommend Slack to every gym owner (and business owner) that I speak to. The best part is, 99% of gyms out there should be able to function with the free version of the app.
This episode covers in detail why you should use Slack, and also breaks down the exact way we use it at CFPB on a daily basis.
In today's episode, I sit down with Brenden and Ashley Loyer of the Iron and Mortar Summit and the Iron and Mortar Gym. In our first episode together (Ep 37), we discussed the Iron and Mortar Summit and how they created a premier event for CrossFit coaches and affiliate owners in just a few months.
This episode focuses primarily on how they utilized the knowledged gained in the Iron and Mortar Summit to open up their own gym, and their ups and downs along the way.
We cover:
Why they start every member with personal training first, and the benefits of doing this straight from Day 1.
Why you have to wholeheartedly believe in what you’re doing in order to be successful.
What unexpected obstacles they faced despite having so much knowledge prior to opening their doors.
Why sales is one of the most important skills you need to have as a coach or affiliate owner.
One of the best investments I have ever made in myself and our gym is paying for a business coach.
Recently I started working with another business coach (I have 2 now) to help me dial in my schedule and continue to build the Seven Figure Box brand and podcast, without taking away from the goals we've set for CrossFit Palm Beach.
In just our first week working together, I already feel like I've accomplished more than I have in the last couple months, and I've paved the way to live a happier, healthier, and more productive life in the coming months and years.
This episode breaks down everything I am working on with my coach, so you as the listener can take advantage of all the things I am learning and implementing.
There’s a universal saying in business that we should hire SLOW and fire FAST. Yet, most CrossFit gyms (including us for many years) do the opposite, hiring FAST and firing SLOW.
We are quick to bring people on board to assist with a couple classes, and many times it’s simply the first person to raise their hands and show interest in joining our team. One day we wake up and this person is all of a sudden a part of our team, and we never made an intentional decision to hire them or not.
This episode covers how we have learned to slow down our hiring process over the years, and the exact step-by-step process we use to hire and on-board coaches today.
Dr. Sean and his company Active Life RX, have helped thousands of people get out of pain without going to the doctor or missing the gym. He was also a CrossFit affiliate owner for over 7 years, and sold his gym a couple years ago to focus on scaling his online business, and help more people.
The premise of this episode, was to hear what Sean would do differently if he was to reopen a brick and mortar fitness facility in today's market. We talk about his biggest mistakes (his answer: taking on investors), whether or not he would use the CrossFit name, and who he would hire first.
We also discuss many topics related to his online business like how he tackles new projects, how to be better at social media, and how he is constantly working on, and reinvesting in himself.
We had an interesting conversation on our CrossFit Palm Beach Facebook page the other day, where a potential drop in was upset that we wanted to charge him to workout at our Friday Night Bar Fights event this evening. He felt like because he had already paid CrossFit to do the Open, that we shouldn’t also be charging him again to do the Open.
Our response was that we always charge for drop ins, whether that’s for a normal class or for a special event, and we keep it consistent across the board.
Long story short, he decided he doesn’t want to pay the drop-in fee and will be doing the Open at another local gym.
This encounter got me thinking about all the places where affiliate owners and coaches allow themselves to be taken advantage of, and don’t charge what they’re worth. We allow the vocal minority to convince us to devalue ourselves and our services, making us believe that we are being unfair or greedy.
We think by doing something for free that we are putting the best interest of our clients first, but really those are the people that lose out the most. By not charging for drop ins or Friday Night Lights, we aren’t able to provide the level of service or event that we know we are capable of. By not charging for skill sessions or extra programming, our clients don’t perform the work and don’t see the results. By not charging for nutrition services, people don’t follow through.
This episode covers why you need to charge what you’re worth, and when its right to listen to feedback and when to ignore it.
One of the things that has helped me level up as a coach and gym owner, is performing a time audit on my current schedule. By evaluating where I am spending my time and how valuable that time is being spent, I can make sure that I continue to progress personally and professionally with each week, month, and year that passes.
But valuing your time can't always be done from a purely financial perspective, you need to look at the impact of those hours on your productivity, energy, happiness and fulfillment.
3 Questions that I love to ask myself when doing a time audit are:
1) Based on what I am currently spending my time on, what is an hour of my time worth? (Compute this as $$$$/hr)
2) With X activity, how many people can I positively impact with an hour of my time? (Compute this as people/hr)
3) How does this hour spent, positively or negatively impact the other 23 hours of my day or 160+ hours of my week? (This is more of a subjective measure of happiness, energy, productivity)
In our latest podcast episode, I dive into how I've applied this time audit into our business to become more productive and have a greater impact over the years.
Imagine risking thousands of dollars to start a summit for other affiliate owners, prior to having any confirmed speakers or attendees. With only a venue locked in, you have 6 months to convince others to speak at and pay to attend your event, and your starting at ground zero.
Back in 2017, that's exactly what my guests on today's podcast did, when they started the Iron and Mortar summit for box owners.
In this episode, I interview Ashley Loyer and Layci Nelson, to learn more about what it takes to build a successful event from scratch.
We discuss the value of patience, how to build credibility with others when you have none, and why you should stop waiting for permission from others to take on your next big project.
To join me and others who will be attending the Iron and Mortar Summit June 24th + 25th, 2019 in Portland, Oregon, head over to theironandmortarsummit.com to find out more and sign up.
For many coaches and owners, sales is the missing link between where they are today and the level of success they know is possible. So many of us are adverse to selling ourselves and our gyms, because we think its slimy, or we think our results should speak for themselves.
We see sales as a win-lose situation, where more money in our pockets means less money in our clients' pockets.
But selling is serving, and when you have something as life-changing as most of us do in our gyms, we are doing a disservice to others by not getting as many people as possible to pay for our services.
In this episode, Tony and Andrew discuss how to rethink sales, so you can be more comfortable selling, and ultimately help more people.
Learning, remembering, and using names is one of the simplest and most effective ways to becoming a better coach.
Whether you want to retain more members for your business, or you just want to help your athletes PR their snatch, no amount of technical knowledge will ever replace your ability to connect with people. You need both to succeed.
Learning someone's name is step 1 to being able to connect with your athletes on a deeper level.
This episode covers some of our favorite tips for remembering names, and discusses why some of the best coaches in the world, like Ben Bergeron, prioritize learning names above everything else.
If you want to create a gym that fuels you long-term, and allows you to push through when times get tough, then I believe your gym needs to be built for yourself first and foremost.
If you love taking classes at your gym, hanging out before and after class, and taking part in your community events, then there’s a high likelihood that others will feel the same way about your business.
Rather than building your gym around some imaginary avatar, why not create a product that you love first. You guarantee that there’s at least one customer that loves your product, and you can evolve your services and experience over time because you have such a deep connection to what your members experience every day.
This episode covers how to align more of your passions with your gym, while still creating a product that other people who aren’t like you can enjoy and appreciate.
When I attended Ben Bergeron's Business of Excellence Seminar back in 2013, I was shocked to hear that his affiliate was bringing in over 7 figures in annual revenue in a small town in Massachusetts.
At the time, we hadn't even celebrated our first anniversary at CrossFit Palm Beach, and barely surpassed $200,000 in revenue that first year.
I felt like we were so far away from the success they were having at CrossFit New England, but it was extremely inspiring to me, and forced me to think differently about our business moving forward.
What I didn't realize at the time, was the power of the compound effect.
When we repeat positive actions day after day in our personal and professional life, it's almost impossible for us to fathom the level of success and fulfillment we can achieve over the course of 5 or 10 years.
This episode covers how we have benefitted from the compound effect at CrossFit Palm Beach (including our annual revenue numbers from the last 6 years), and how I use the compound effect as a guiding principle with new ventures that I take on, like the Seven Figure Box podcast and the Rockstar Coaching Course.
This is one of my favorite episodes to date and one that I hope you get a lot of value out of!
The Open has always been a huge community event for us the last 6 years at CrossFit Palm Beach. Last year, we had over 130 athletes sign up for the CrossFit Games Open and participate in our intramural CFPB Open.
This year, we are making a few key changes to our in-house Open. One of the biggest changes is we are only counting the first attempt of each Open workout towards the intramural team score, and are encouraging all of our athletes to do “one and done” this year. This will bring even more fun and excitement to our Friday classes and Friday Night Bar Fights event, and improve the class experience on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday when athletes would normally be retesting the workout.
This episode covers everything you need to know to run a successful 2019 Open, including sponsors, prizes, skill seminars, and how to leverage the Open for improving retention and signing up new members.
One of the most foundational pieces of becoming a great group class coach, is trying to individualize the group class experience.
Many coaches use the group class as an excuse to become complacent, and end up spending all their time on group management. Instead, we should be trying to maximizing our touch points with each of the individuals of the group.
In every class that we coach, our goal is to get 3-5 or more individual touchpoints with each of the individuals of that group.
This episode shares some tactical ways to hit those touch points so you can maximize every minute that you are on the coaching floor.
One of the ways that we can offer more value to our clients, and position ourselves as a premium service, is by having 2 coaches in our classes.
But most new gyms (us included) overcommit themselves to the 2 coach system too early in their business lifecycle, and end up paying the price with little to no profit margin.
Wanting to offer excellent coaching and an incredible class experience is a goal we all need to have, but ultimately the numbers need to support the decision to add a 2nd coach.
If you are adding a 2nd coach to your classes just because you want to be better than the gym down the street, then you could end up in a race to the bottom.
This episode dives into why we recommend being more patient and strategic before adding a 2nd coach to your classes, and how this can translate into better career opportunities for your coaches over the long haul.
We've spent the last month interviewing and hiring a new full-time coach for CrossFit Palm Beach, and have spent countless hours on the phone and in-person interviewing candidates for the position.
One of the most integral parts of the hiring process is asking the right questions.
In this episode we share our favorite questions to ask in an interview, to help you better connect with coaching candidates, and learn about them on a deeper level.
When it comes to yearly planning, most affiliate owners are playing defense, when they should be playing offense. We allow outside influences, or the urgency of the day-to-day, to determine how we spend our time, money, and attention throughout the year, instead of defining in advance what our priorities are going to be.
This episode covers some of the things we will be doing at CrossFit Palm Beach over the next couple weeks to prepare for 2019, like reviewing our 2018 numbers, automating our savings for big one-time expenses, and setting our calendar of events for 2019.
We hope this podcast helps you make 2019 your best year yet!
One of our six core values at CrossFit Palm Beach, is the class comes first.
While most core values at a lot of companies are generic words like honesty, integrity, or commitment, we've specifically tried to create core values that are more tangible, actionable, and help differentiate us from other businesses.
The class comes first is a reminder for us to constantly reinvest our time, money, and energy into the class experience, since it makes up more than 80% of our business.
We use this core value daily to address potential distractions, guide equipment purchases, make hiring decisions, and shape new product offerings.
This episode dives into the why behind the class comes first, and how we use it constantly to guide our day-to-day decisions.
Last week, I was asked on the Gymwright podcast for one piece of advice that I would give to all gym owners out there. My response..."get outside your own four walls".
Getting outside our own four walls can be the necessary mental and physical break we need as affiliate owners to find inspiration, gain clarity, and make better decisions. It can also help to renew our love for the business when we aren't constantly immersed in the stress of the day-to-day.
But I'm not talking about traveling to the CrossFit Games or attending another Olympic weightlifting seminar.
This episode elaborates further on what I mean by getting outside your own four walls and the ways I have found it to be the most beneficial over the last 4 years.
Whenever we hire a new coach or employee, we always put more value on the character and personality of a person, more than their experience or technical knowledge. While expertise is a nice bonus, it can sometimes distract us from the most important thing, which is whether or not this person is a cultural fit for our team and our community.
We're currently in the midst of hiring a new coach at CrossFit Palm Beach, and I created a short list of questions to help me prioritize the right things when evaluating new applicants.
This podcast episode is sharing those exact 6 questions I am using to narrow down our coaching search, and make sure we add the right people to our team.
Do you ever find yourself getting bored or complacent as a coach on days where there is lots of running, rowing, biking, or skiing. Do you find it difficult to coach your athletes when there isn't a complex barbell movement or technical gymnastics movement?
Technical coaching is only a small part of the coaching craft, and we will be severely limited as coaches, if that is the only tool in our coaching tool box.
Coaching intensity, otherwise thought of as coaching effort or pacing, is a great way to add value to our athletes and the class experience, when athletes are already moving well. It's especially valuable with things like rowing, biking, and skiing, where we have the benefit of a monitor to show speed and power output in real time.
This episode covers some ways to coach intensity in your athletes, and why it's necessary to do this if you want to create smarter and fitter athletes.
We believe that the primary role of programming is to create a great class experience. Yes, we want to get people fitter and help them reach their goals, but fitness is usually a bi-product of creating a great class experience that people want to show up to day after day.
This episode covers some of our favorite programming formats, and talks about why we love triplets, intervals, and EMOMs. We also provide you with plenty of workout examples to get your programming juices flowing.
When's the last time you did an audit of your business expenses?
Are there monthly subscriptions that you're paying for that you could easily cancel?
Are you losing a ton of money to credit card processing and monthly customer service issues?
Are you buying equipment you don't need just because it's cheap or on sale?
It's easy to justify certain costs within your business as important or necessary until you look at the opportunity cost of what you could be spending that money on instead.
This episode covers 3 ways that we've saved ourselves thousands of dollars over the last couple months, that you can implement with a couple hours of your time this weekend.
Most of the growth that we have experienced over the last year at CrossFit Palm Beach is due to the exponential growth of our BeachFit program.
Creating your own non-barbell class can you help you create a lower barrier to entry to your gym, have class options for people who are intimidated or uninterested in CrossFit, and help you to appeal more to the masses.
In this episode, Tony and I discuss the many benefits CFPB has experienced from having a boot-camp style class, and some tips for implementing this into your own gym.
To turn coaching into a true career opportunity, we need to provide both compensation and fulfillment to our employees.
Compensation could include pay for group classes, personal training, nutrition coaching, social media roles, administrative tasks, cleaning, or any roles other roles outside of coaching.
It can also include miscellaneous things like vacation days, health care, free memberships, continuing education, retirement plans, retail products, and raises that may happen in the future.
Fulfillment usually comes from a combination of opportunities for growth, feeling like there's a purpose behind what you do, and having strong relationships with those you work with and interact with each day. It's less tangible and harder to measure, but may be even more important than the compensation piece.
This episode covers how we think about compensation and fulfillment at CrossFit Palm Beach, and how we try to create more of it for our coaches.
“There's a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don't, and the secret is this: It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write.” -Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
Going pro is a concept that I was first introduced to in the book "The War of Art" which has since become one of my favorite books of all time. This episode covers a few ways that I have learned to "go pro" as a gym owner over the last few years, and hopefully it inspires you to do the same.
Want to know our top 3 tips for new gym owners? Want to know the things we would do differently if we opened CrossFit Palm Beach today? This episode covers our top 3 tips for new gym owners and elaborates on why I chose those 3. I also cover some additional tips that we would implement if we had to start from scratch and rebuild CrossFit Palm Beach today.
Is “simple math” screwing up your business?
Have you ever found yourself saying “I only need to add or retain 3 members per month in order to pay for this new software, piece of equipment, or marketing service”?
When you started your gym, did you do it because “you only needed 25 members per month in order to break even”?
This episode breaks down the flawed math and faulty logic some of us have used to start and run our businesses, and how we can rethink some of these areas to make better long term decisions for ourselves and the business.
It took me having a son to realize that a lot of the time I was spending on learning, personal growth, and personal development, was actually a form of laziness and procrastination.
So many of us are constantly looking for that next piece of knowledge that's going to put us over the edge, instead of taking massive action on the things we already know.
As we continue to have access to more and better knowledge than we ever have in our lives, knowledge is no longer as powerful as it once was; focus, discipline, and action are the real keys to success.
This episode covers the pros and cons of learning and accumulating knowledge, and important questions and frameworks you should be asking yourself before you pick up that next article or podcast.
I end the podcast with a recent productivity tool that I've implemented over the last couple weeks, that has led to 2 of the most productive weeks I have had in a really long time.
This episode covers how we do our programming and lesson plans at CrossFit Palm Beach. We cover how we evolve the programming throughout the year to keep it fresh and fun for the members, and how we look at programming from both a macro and micro view. We cover the step-by-step process we take on a weekly basis, and why its important to have deadlines and accountability built in to the programming process. And lastly we show you how to take programming and make it into a great lesson plan, which is ultimately the most valuable part of a consistent and great class experience.
In order to grow as a coach, we need to be able to self-evaluate our performance on a daily basis. We should be able to come away from every class that we coach or take, and think of multiple ways we could've made that class better.
If you're bored coaching, or feel like you've got this coaching thing figured out, it likely means you're the "sucker at the table", and you've stopped pursuing excellence in your craft.
Sundays have long been a sacred day in the affiliate community, and there are still lots of gyms that never offer Sunday classes. We followed a similar path at CrossFit Palm Beach for the first 5 years we were in business, opting to offer Sunday open gym instead of Sunday classes. In many ways, taking Sundays off can be a much needed break for our coaches, our programming, and most importantly, ourselves. But once we begin to grow our teams and delegate some coaching hours, offering classes 7 days-week should be one of the first things we consider. This episode covers why and how to run Sunday classes, and how our Sunday attendance exponentially grew at CFPB, when we switched from open gym to classes.
If you love coaching classes (like I do), giving up coaching hours can be one of the most difficult decisions we make as an affiliate owner. We know we need to delegate coaching hours to avoid burn out, grow our team, and work "on" our business, but how do we do know when its the right time to do so? This podcast covers some of the different frameworks that should help you figure out if delegating hours is the right call for you.
Most of us don't start thinking about how we should stage our gyms until it becomes a necessity to create space in our largest classes. In this episode, I cover how our views on staging have evolved over the years, what I've learned from other gyms that are great at staging. I also share some very specific and tactical staging and organization tips you can implement immediately to enhance your class experience.
Most programming is not overrated because it's bad or not effective, it's that we're optimizing for the wrong things. Too many of us who do programming are focused on the competitive side of CrossFit and getting our members fitter in the short term, instead of fueling our members lives outside the gym, and pushing off the nursing home as long as possible. This episode reveals the top 3 things we focus on when doing our programming at CrossFit Palm Beach, and why a great lesson plan is far more valuable than "great" programming ever could be.
Rarely does success happen from the day we open our doors. In many cases, it can take years or even decades before we ever achieve the level of success we know we are capable of. And even after we've "made it", there's always work to be done to sustain and grow that success. This podcast is a reminder to enjoy the journey and stay patient as you pursue excellence in building your gym and your career each day.
One of the biggest mistakes gym owners make is constantly looking for the next tactic or "shiny object" that is going to radically change their business. On the flip side, many of us make the mistake of always focusing on higher level strategies, and end up getting paralysis by analysis, or spin our wheels with the wrong tactics. This podcast covers why you need both, and how you can think about strategy and tactics in a way that will allow you to scale your business and save time as your business grows.
In this episode, I talk about why I take classes every day at CrossFit Palm Beach, and why I feel that it is one of the most productive hours that I spend improving our business. As a gym owner, the benefits of taking classes extend far beyond improving your own fitness and personal stress relief, although those two things can't be overlooked. Taking classes is a chance to connect with our members, improve our programming, develop our coaches, lead by example as an athlete, and help to create an in-class experience that the members and I look forward to each day.
Most of us have a general understanding of what makes a great coach, but very few of us have defined it in a clear, meaningful, and actionable way. The 5 levels of a Rockstar Coach will help open your eyes to where you excel and where you need work when on the coaching floor.
We also explain why being a great technician is essential to becoming a great coach, buy why most people overvalue this skill in a typical group class setting.
The 5 levels we cover in detail are: 1) The cheerleader 2) The director 3) The technician 4) The programmer 5) The coach
When hiring coaches for our affiliates, we are no longer limited to the local relationships we have, or the members who are currently a part of our gym. We truly have access to a global market of coaches and owners that we can hire from, or find career opportunities with.
This podcast covers how and why we went about hiring our last 2 coaches at CrossFit Palm Beach from across the country, and how there are advantages to hiring from the outside.
We started a committed club at CrossFit Palm Beach in 2017 as a fun way of increasing member engagement, setting clearer expectations of our clients, and increasing retention. Since instituting the committed club, we couldn't be happier with the results. This episode dives into the specifics of how we run our committed club at CFPB, and all the benefits we have seen since starting it.
The most effective and least time consuming exercise for developing your coaches. Simple and easy to incorporate right into your existing weekly coach's meeting.
Why we finally pulled the trigger on a front desk staff after years of putting it off. How a front desk staff will pay for itself immediately and on an ongoing basis. How to set up a front desk initially to minimize the investment and maximize the return.
There are too many coaches and owners out there that are still in their first few years of coaching or being in business, that are wondering why they aren't making what they feel like they deserve. This is a reminder that all of us are still just getting started, and we haven't come close to reaching our potential yet.