Care-Coach-Lead

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.