The median gym owner brings home $61,000 per year, but the owners on Two-Brain’s latest leaderboard earn between $189,000 and $357,000 annually. What’s the difference?

In this episode, Mike Warkentin sits down with top earner Ryan McStockard to find out exactly how he secured his spot on the leaderboard.

In 2020, Ryan took zero income in some months just to keep the gym alive. Then, in 2021, he invested in Two-Brain mentorship and rebuilt everything.

Now he consistently earns over $16,000 per month from his gym.

His biggest wins came from adding high-value services, such as personal training, and focusing on improving the client journey: Personal training makes up 34% of his revenue, and his clients stick around for a whopping 42 months on average.

As a Two-Brain mentor, Ryan now helps other gym owners replicate his success.

He’s also in the Tinker Mastermind, where he’s focused on maximizing his income and his lifestyle. His primary goal today is simply “to not miss family dinners.”

Interested in becoming a Tinker? Email Joleen Bingham (leader of Tinker North America) or Lisa Palmer (leader of Tinker Europe) to learn more: [email protected] or [email protected]

Links

Gym Owners United

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1:07 - Gym overview & low point

5:02 - Revenue breakdown

7:24 - Finding Two-Brain

20:52 - Additions to Ryan’s NOB

31:13 - Retention secret

The top gym owner on Two-Brain’s leaderboard takes home $29,767 per month. That’s $357,204 per year from a single gym location.

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Chris Cooper reveals the Top 10 net owner benefit (NOB) leaderboard—showing exactly what elite gym owners actually take home each month.

What sets these owners apart? Chris shares their top tactics, such as nurturing leads, selling high-value coaching services and focusing relentlessly on doing the basics better.

Other common tips include using Two-Brain's Prescriptive Model and knowing your data.

One owner said: “Increasing my NOB has been a goal for the last three years. Every month I've been finding small ways to do that—adding semi-private training, training staff to take on lower value tasks and talking to other similar owners in Two-Brain.”

Tune in to hear exactly how these gym owners earn consistent, sustainable incomes so they  can make an impact, make a profit and make it home for dinner.

Ready to start your path to the leaderboard? Use the link below to book a call!

Links

Gym Owners United

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1:29 - Why NOB matters

3:21 - The leaderboard revealed

5:33 - Annual projections

6:13 - What they actually do

8:21 - The boring secret

When your gym is stable and the fires are out, what's next?

Two-Brain’s Tinker Mastermind provides an elite level of mentorship for gym owners who are ready to build wealth, scale their businesses, learn to lead and create lasting legacies.

This is the fun part of entrepreneurship—the part where you have choices: build investment portfolios, acquire real estate, franchise your concept, create new businesses or simply pick your kids up from school every day. The possibilities are endless.

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Mike Warkentin sits down with Tinker leaders Joleen Bingham and Lisa Palmer to find out exactly what the program is and who it’s for.

Tinker-level gym owners have reliable cash flow, available time and a growth mindset. They focus on four main pillars to build their Perfect Day: lifestyle, wealth, scaling and leadership.

Tinkers join weekly breakout calls with elite entrepreneurs from around the world and attend quarterly in-person meetups in places such as Florida, Arizona, Portugal and Ireland.

The results speak for themselves: Two-Brain has certified over 70 millionaire gym owners through Tinker, with 17 certified in the last year alone.

One Canadian Tinker took home $300,000 in net owner benefit, became a certified millionaire, invested in three syndications and opened a second gym that's hitting $30,000-$35,000 months. A U.K. Tinker spent three months in South Africa with his family while his gym ran without him.

Are you Tinker ready? Email Joleen (North America) or Lisa (Europe) to find out: [email protected] or [email protected]

Links

Gym Owners United

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0:44 - Who is Tinker for?

5:10 - Problems Tinker solves

11:59 - Tinker program structure

21:40 - Tinker Toolkit preview

23:47 - 70+ millionaire gym owners

Stop trying to clone yourself when you hire coaches.

Today on “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper explains why hiring for personality and training for skill is the smartest path to building a team that lasts.

Most gym owners hire based on certifications and technical knowledge. Then they micromanage every rep, correct every cue and watch their coaches burn out within two years.

But clients don’t care about perfect squat mechanics; they care about how they feel when they walk through the door.

Coop explains where to find coaches with great personalities and also provides a 10-question personality assessment you can use on potential hires.

Before you start looking for coaches, take the assessment yourself. If your score reveals you’re burned out, use the strategies from this episode to deal with that first.

The key takeaway: Hire people who light up when they’re around others. Then teach them the technical stuff.

DM Coop through Gym Owners United to get his free Energy and Attitude Assessment—link below.

Links

Gym Owners United

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0:01 - Intro

2:52 - Where to find potential coaches

8:06 - The personality assessment

12:02 - Dealing with burnout

17:08 - The problem with bad personalities

Feb. 13, 2026, is Two-Brain’s 10th anniversary—a full decade of solving every problem in the gym business.

In this special episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper tells the complete story of how Two-Brain Business became the biggest mentorship practice in the fitness industry.

The journey started long before 2016. In 2005, Chris opened his first gym, and by 2008, he was broke, running two struggling locations and looking for part-time jobs in the newspaper. He couldn’t find a single example of someone making a real living as a gym owner.

Then he found a mentor outside the fitness industry and started translating business lessons into gym-specific tactics. He published his first blog post on June 9, 2009, as a “love letter to future Chris”—sharing exactly what worked and what didn’t.

By 2012, gym owners were flying him to Fort Lauderdale to speak. He self-published his first book, “Two-Brain Business,” which went on to sell 26,000 copies, becoming the bestselling fitness business book of all time.

On Feb. 13, 2016, Chris officially launched Two-Brain Business with 52 gym owners who believed in the vision: make a difference, make a profit and make it home for dinner.

Today, Two-Brain works with thousands of gyms worldwide, publishes the industry’s largest data set every year and runs the biggest gym business summit in the world.

Tune in to hear the full origin story—and find out what’s ahead.

Join Coop at the 10th annual Two-Brain Summit, June 6-7, 2026, in Chicago; get your tickets with the link below.

Links

Two-Brain Summit Tickets

Gym Owners United

Book a Call

1:05 - 2005-2015: Prehistory

1:12 - Opening a gym

6:28 - Hiring a mentor

18:09 - Publishing book No. 1

20:24 - Becoming a mentor

28:32 - 2016-2018: Early days

29:23 - The first Two-Brain Summit

35:57 - Building the “State of the Industry” report

39:43 - 2019-2021: Growth & lockdowns

43:39 - Certifying professional mentors

44:41 - 2022-2025: Additions and refinements

49:18 - 2026: 10th anniversary

49:33 - Leaving the CEO role

53:11 - The 10th annual Two-Brain Summit

Different gym owners need different leadership books.

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper shares a simple plan to help you use the contents of any book to improve yourself and your business, and then he recommends specific books in each realm of leadership.

Self-Leadership (to go fast, go alone):

• “Think Like a Monk” by Jay Shetty
• “The Creative Act” by Rick Rubin
• “Courage Is Calling” by Ryan Holiday
• “Dare to Lead” by Brené Brown 
• “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield
• “Drive” by Daniel Pink

Team Leadership (to go far, go together):

• “Be the Unicorn” by William Vanderbloemen 
• “Good to Great” by Jim Collins
• “Vivid Vision” by Cameron Herold
• “Leadershift” by John Maxwell 

Peer Leadership (share the mission beyond your gym):

• “Influence” by Robert Cialdini 
• “Building a StoryBrand” by Donald Miller
• “The Go-Giver” by Bob Burg and John David Mann 
• “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie

Tribe Leadership (influence your community at scale): 

• “The Wisdom of Joseph Campbell” by Michael Toms 
• “The Dichotomy of Leadership” by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin 
• “Enchantment” by Guy Kawasaki 
• “Resilience” by Eric Greitens 
• “Tribes” by Seth Godin 

Plus, from Feb. 9 to 13, 2026, only, Coop is giving away free digital copies of his 10 books for gym owners.

Go to Gym Owners United (linked below), DM him with your biggest challenge, and he'll send you the right book to start with.

Links

Gym Owners United

Book a Call

1:56 - Your leadership diagnostic

6:31 - Self-leadership books

8:44 - Team leadership books

10:57 - Peer leadership books

11:58 - Tribe leadership books

Could your gym use an extra $5,000 in revenue this month?

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper shares three proven tactics gym owners can use to generate more revenue from clients they already have:

🏁 Tactic 1: Run a Hyrox simulation or similar fitness race event.
🏋️‍♀️ Tactic 2: Launch a specialty program, such as weightlifting or running.
⬆️ Tactic 3: Sell upgrades to hybrid memberships with group and personal training.

These three strategies combined can generate over $5,000 in additional gym revenue—with zero ad spend.

Chris walks you through step-by-step execution plans for each tactic, including their exact pricing formulas. He's even got marketing checklists that will keep you on track and ensure success.

Follow the steps and the revenue is yours.

To get a free copy of the “How to Generate $5K Without Paid Ads” guide, DM Chris in Gym Owners United, linked below.

Links

Gym Owners United

Book a Call

0:01 - Intro

1:19 - Hyrox simulation or event

10:56 - Run a speciality program

24:56 - Sell upgrades to memberships

35:34 - Get a copy of the guide

In the last year, three marketing agencies have asked Chris Cooper to buy them out—and dozens of others have disappeared.

The average lifespan of a gym marketing agency is 18 months: They churn through gym owners, only to vanish, rebrand and repeat the cycle.

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Coop pulls back the curtain on why agencies keep failing, and then he lays out a better marketing plan for gym owners.

He explains how agencies exploit gym owners who don’t understand marketing and often provide low-quality leads or clients who are attracted by unsustainable offers.

The solution? Stop renting your marketing and build systems you own.

Chris describes four battle-tested marketing funnels that have been refined across thousands of gyms worldwide: referrals, organic social media, content and paid ads.

These funnels feed each other, and once they’re running, they’re yours forever. You'll have a world-class structure that will outlast any agency.

Dive deeper into your marketing systems with Two-Brain’s free resources for gym owners, linked below.

Links

Book a Call

Referral Funnel Guide

Organic Social Media Guide

Content Marketing Guide

Paid Ads Guide

State of the Industry Report

More Free Tools

Gym Owners United 

0:00 - Intro

3:35 - Do you need more leads?

7:15 - Problems with agency results

10:24 - What works? The four funnels

15:06 - Build your funnels with a mentor

The 10th annual Two-Brain Summit happens June 6-7, 2026, in Chicago, and this year’s theme will change how you think about scaling your gym.

Today, Chris Cooper reveals the event’s headlining speaker—bestselling author Mike Michalowicz—and the “Power of 10” theme that will guide every session.

The Power of 10 framework covers:

• How to take your 10 best clients and replicate them.
• The 10 weekly actions that guarantee business growth.
• The 10 core leadership skills every gym owner must acquire.

Coop also explains that scaling isn’t linear. The systems that get you to 10 clients won’t get you to 100, and the business that serves 100 won’t work for 1,000.

At the summit, you’ll work on the systems you need to grow at each stage of entrepreneurship so you can build the biz you want and earn your Perfect Day.

The summit isn't some motivational conference where you sit in the dark and try to stay awake. It's is a workshop: Attendees have created hiring plans, booked sales calls and posted content as speakers directed them during live sessions. You're going to take action in Chicago.

What does your gym need to reach the next level? Come work it out at the Two-Brain Summit, surrounded by expert speakers and 1,000 other gym owners.

Get your ticket via the link below!

Links

Two-Brain Summit Tickets

Gym Owners United

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0:20 - Summit background

3:04 - This year’s headliner

4:33 - Your best client x10

7:11 - The work you’ll do

9:19 - Your invitation to summit

Tickets to the Two-Brain Summit are $200 off until Feb. 1. Get yours via the link below!

This year's headliner: Mike Michalowicz, entrepreneur and author of multiple bestsellers, including “The Pumpkin Plan,” “Profit First,” “Clockwork” and “Get Different.”

Today on “Run a Profitable Gym,” Mike joins Two-Brain CEO John Franklin to explain why most gyms are swimming in a sea of sameness, invisible to potential clients. And of course Mike has a clear plan to make a fitness business stand out and force people do a "double neck turn" when they see it.

You’ll learn the psychology behind what grabs people’s attention versus what our brains filter out and ignore.

Mike shows gym owners how to look for new ideas outside the fitness industry and shares a real-world example of a microgym that differentiated its marketing and quadrupled foot traffic overnight.

He also reveals the “magical, Jedi-mind-trick question” you can ask ideal members to learn what truly sets your gym apart. Then you amplify your advantage to attract more "perfect clients."

The key? Stop trying to be “better” and start being different. 

Don’t miss out on your chance to hear from Mike Michalowicz at the 10th annual Two-Brain Summit this June in Chicago. Save $200 on your ticket now through Feb. 1—link below!

Links

Two-Brain Summit Tickets

Gym Owners United

Book a Call

0:56 - “The sea of sameness”

3:36 - Example & where to find ideas

8:20 - What do your clients notice?

17:11 - Framework for effective marketing

21:25 - Why define a specific audience?