Run a Profitable Gym

Today’s guest, Joleen Bingham, has developed an ascension model to help you retain staff by creating careers for them. Since implementing the model, Joleen’s staff retention has improved, and she has multiple team members earning over $100,000 a year.

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host Mike Warkentin sits down with Joleen, a multi-gym owner and the leader of Two-Brain’s Tinker program for upper-level gym owners.

Joleen’s model begins with a consistent, structured hiring process that eliminates many staffing problems before they appear.

The onboarding stage features a clear checklist and standard operating procedures (SOPs) that document expectations, and the owner's values and vision for the gym are communicated.

Once a staff member has been onboarded, the model focuses on development, moving from basic to more complex skills. Owners also mentor team members to help them work in areas of passion.

The next step is growth and retention. Career Roadmaps are a huge focus here: They help staff members become leaders and stick around long term.

The final component is the exit: ensuring you have a strategy for when staff members eventually leave.

Tune in to hear Joleen’s full staff ascension plan and to get an exclusive look into Two-Brain’s resources for clients.

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Mentorship: Tinker/Stage 3

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1:55 - Mistakes and how to fix them

4:44 - Staff ascension template

19:16 - Growth and retention

25:51 - Decrease your turnover

31:41 - Take action with staffing

A link is missing between credentials and careers in the fitness industry—and it’s costing gym owners a lot of great people.

Common story: A trainer starts making $20 per class and works up to coaching 40 sessions a week. But the trainer isn’t making enough money and can’t see a way to make more without burning out. So the coach leaves the fitness industry to “get a real job.” The gym owner shrugs and tosses another coach into the cycle.

Sound familiar? If so, this episode of "Run a Profitable Gym" is for you.

Host Mike Warkentin and gym-owning mentor Karl Solberg discuss the detailed coach ascension program used at CrossFit Medis and CrossFit Sickla in Sweden.

The model allows trainers to level up as they develop and add the skills that bring more value. Clients get better results and pay more, the gym earns more, and the coach earns more and creates a career. Everyone wins.

The first step: Create an evaluation for your coaches and then review their performance regularly to ensure they’re improving.

To go further, review Karl’s system and consider building something similar to create careers for coaches at your gym.

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1:43 - Ascension plans increase value

3:35 - Levels increase value

6:48 - The coach ascension plan

10:48 - A detailed look at the plan

32:53 - Creating and implementing

It’s Worst-Case Scenario Week on “Run a Profitable Gym.”

Today, host Mike Warkentin is joined by Matthew Becker, owner of GymLaywers.com, who shares stories of partnerships from hell and explains how to avoid them.

Partnerships in gyms can go wrong fast and create living nightmares for entrepreneurs. Partners might have very different views on topics such as dating members, day-to-day operations and finances, and sometimes a partner might even be involved in illegal activities. Or maybe one partner just isn't pulling their weight.

Without solid agreements in place, these situations can spiral quickly.

For example, gym owners in need of money might sell paid-in-full memberships, then have a disagreement and close the gym abruptly, leaving members out of pocket. In the worst cases, the money is long gone, and the owners can find themselves facing criminal charges.

Matthew, former gym owner, shares tips for avoiding these situations and getting out of them as quickly as possible if you run into partner trouble. It boils down to proper business setup, management and documentation.

To ensure your business will protect you legally and financially, get a lawyer to create or review a partnership agreement. You can reach Matthew at Gymlaywers.com.

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"Your LLC Isn't Protecting You if You Do These 5 Things"

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1:41 - Potential legal problems with partners

10:24 - Preparing for the snowball

19:32 - Partners leaving and presales

29:26 - It keeps getting worse?

38:39 - Stopping the daisy chain from hell

Although fitness training is incredibly safe, injuries and emergency situations are unavoidable.

The best plan: Be prepared.

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host Mike Warkentin sits down with Erik Zeyher, owner of Warlock Athletics in New York.

In mid-August, one of Erik’s clients had a heart attack at the gym. Coaches and other members quickly worked together to administer CPR and resuscitate the member using the gym’s AED.

At the hospital, the member's wife said that if her husband had been anywhere other than the gym, he wouldn’t have survived.

Erik and his team have a full emergency plan in place and undergo regular AED training, and their preparation allowed them to save a life.

In the aftermath, Erik had to make critical leadership decisions, such whether to continue with classes, how to comfort clients who witnessed the event, how to communicate with his larger community, and how to ensure his staff members recovered from the stressful situation.

Tune in to get the full story and Erik’s tips for emergency preparedness so you can form your own action plan.

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Chris Cooper on the CALM model

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1:15 - Medical emergency at Erik’s gym

8:39 - What about the staff and other clients?

15:11 - Following procedure after a crisis

24:29 - Things to think about post-event

28:49 - What is on Erik’s list?

Most gym owners experience a revenue slump during the summer months. But today’s guest posted his greatest monthly revenue total of the year in June.

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host Mike Warkentin digs into summer revenue with Stan Skolfield of Skolfield Sports Performance in Maine.

Stan’s gym focuses on youth sports performance, and his summer programs—perfect for kids who are out of school—generate front-end revenue and downstream revenue for rest of the year.

In summer, Stan runs camps and events that target under-serviced demographics. These outdoor camps don’t take up any space in his gym, and they funnel kids into his core programs that run during the school year.

To ensure he’s always got a steady stream of leads, Stan employs a consistent social media posting schedule to connect with youths who are attached to their screens. He pairs great content with sell-by-chat marketing to get more people in his gym.

If your gym focuses on adults, adding a kids program is a fantastic way to boost summer revenue. Stan even shares an exact template for running a summer sports camp so you can avoid a summer revenue dip in 2025.

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Bill Parisi’s episode

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2:59 - How did Stan hit his June revenue?

6:07 - Skolfield Sports Performance

11:40 - Breadcrumbs into main program

16:54 - Progress over the last 5 years

23:10 - Add $2,000 to next June’s revenue

For many gym owners, revenue drops off a cliff in summer. For others, it soars higher than ever.

How can you make sure your gym is crushing it instead of crashing in summer?

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder and CEO Chris Cooper presents the Top 10 revenue leaderboard for June 2024 and shares the leaders’ tactics.

The top gym in June posted its best month of revenue thanks to a very successful kids summer program that’s a feeder for its main offerings. Your takeaway: Kids programs thrive in the summer months if you build them properly, and they’re a great option for gym owners looking for additional revenue.

Outside specialty programs, the Top 10 gym owners all employed similar strategies to generate revenue: They prioritized consistent growth, they focused hard on their clients, they used targeted ads, and they relied on mentorship.

Tune in to hear more and then use the tactics you learn about to hit your personal best month for revenue.

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1:49 - June 2024 Revenue Leaderboard

5:18 - Consistency, not beginner’s luck

6:58 - Lessons from the Top 10

7:37 - Camp revenue breakdown

11:23 - The common theme for the leaderboard

What are the best gyms in the world doing?

Two-Brain Business’ annual "State of the Industry" report has the answers. It’s the most robust dataset on microgyms anywhere in the world, and it helps gyms grow by enabling their owners to make decisions based on science instead of guesswork.

You can be part of the 2024 report and get access to 16 special resources for gym owners by submitting your survey response before Sept. 4, 2024, via the link below.

In this special episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder and CEO Chris Cooper joins Sevan Matossian and Matthew Souza on “The Sevan Podcast” to discuss the state of the fitness industry, including the state of the CrossFit community.

They talk about some of the issues facing CrossFit in recent years, touching on everything from the evolution of CrossFit HQ after Greg Glassman’s departure to the best way to help CrossFit affiliates.

Gym owners face lots of challenges in 2024, but they can avoid mistakes and grow their businesses faster by making decisions based on data. Two-Brain’s “State of the Industry” report will be published in late November, and gym owners who contribute their numbers will get the guide before anyone else.

To be part of this year’s data set and get access to a special Resource Hub for gym owners, fill out the survey here.

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0:01 - The "State of the Industry" report

12:39 - CrossFit and its affiliates

29:39 - The CrossFit Games

53:35 - Getting help when opening a gym

59:17 - CrossFit and the fitness industry

1:06:20 - CrossFit ownership

1:13:57 - Fill out the survey!

Why did you become a gym owner? The simple answer is probably to help others, but the more complicated answer is that many of us have had our own health and fitness transformations.

Many of us have seen depression, obesity and sickness reversed by the pursuit of fitness and health, and we want nothing more than to share that knowledge, joy and wellbeing with others.

But the fitness business is far too fragile. A new law or rent increase might be all it takes for a host of gym owners to run out of money and go out of business.

To protect our businesses and grow with stability, we need to know what works and what doesn’t work. And that info needs to come with proof, not opinions and anecdotes.

To give you the info you need, Two-Brain Business surveys gym owners around the world and publishes our “State of the Industry” guide for free every year. We do this so you can make decisions based on science and avoid wasting time and money on experimentation.

We hope you’ll take a few minutes to participate in this year’s State of the Industry Survey. In exchange, we’ll give you priority access to the guide this fall—and to sweeten the deal, we’ll give you a bonus package of exclusive Two-Brain materials that will help you right now.

But your greatest reward is in pushing the fitness industry forward. If we can build stable, profitable businesses that last for decades, we can help more people improve their health.

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State of the Industry Survey

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0:22 - Lifespan is going backward

3:08 - The fragility of the fitness industry

4:40 - The effect of change in your business

8:34 - Here’s where gym owners go wrong

10:57 - State of the Industry Survey

An undeniable truth in the fitness industry: If your athletes aren’t getting results, they’re going to go somewhere else.

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host Mike Warkentin sits down with two of the minds behind NCFIT, a programming and coaching development provider for CrossFit affiliates. Jason Khalipa, a CrossFit Games champion, is NCFIT’s founder and owner. Matt DellaValle, aka “MDV,” is the company’s chief fitness officer.

The trio discuss the evolution of gym programming over the last 15+ years and explain how you can ensure your programming generates results.

Many gym owners get great results for clients and reclaim their time by outsourcing programming to a trusted provider, such as NCFIT.

All NCFIT workouts come with a detailed class plan that includes a description, a teaching outline, suggested substitutions and a coaching video that highlights one or two major aspects of the workout.

Each workout is presented with two variations: one for the high-intensity Performance track and the other for the more moderate Fitness track. Aside from the standard NCFIT workouts, they also offer streams for strength and bodybuilding, competition and on-the-go training. 

Listen to the full episode to learn key strategies for improving the programming in your gym—whether you choose to outsource it or not.

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5:06 - Reaching potential with a great experience

11:18 - Do your own programming or outsource?

18:08 - Hard for the sake of being hard

29:12 - The essentials of good programming

38:38 - 2025 programming calendar

In 2024, workouts shouldn’t be hard for the sake of being hard.

You must ask, “What outcome is this workout designed to produce?” and “What are my clients’ goals?”

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Mike Warkentin sits down with Chris Cooper, Two-Brain founder and owner of Catalyst Fitness, to talk about what good programming looks like.

One way to ensure you’ve got strong programming is by outsourcing it to an expert provider like NCFIT, Mayhem or CompTrain.

But whether you outsource your programming or create it yourself, the key is being intentional.

Goal reviews play a crucial role in that. Do your clients want to get stronger? Do they want to lose weight? Do they want to compete at the CrossFit Games?

Good programming produces the results the clients want and increases retention.

Tune in to hear why “spicier” workouts aren’t the answer and find out what you can do to improve your programming today. 

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1:57 - The programming story

5:49 - Should you do your own programming?

12:04 - Why did Chris go back to programming?

17:08 - How does programming help coaches?

22:47 - Pressure to over-program