Critical Gym Data: How to Get It and Grow Your Business

Before we go, I have a huge ask for me and Coop . Please go to the show notes, click the link to the survey. We need your numbers. Fill it out. It takes about six minutes, it's completely anonymous, but your data and your insight is gonna help us present the clearest picture of our industry. So please click that link in the show notes. The result is gonna be the state of the industry guide.

It's coming out in mid-November. You're gonna get it for free. So without further ado, Chris Cooper, welcome to run a profitable gym. Thanks,

Um, even though like we have to invest in making it, it's, it's just such a powerful tool. And I like, my favorite thing in all of last year was the guys ripping it off, right? Like you saw the YouTube videos and they're reading it, but I'm not showing the cover. It's amazing

Uh, so this information can help gym owners and guys, again, please, if you want this guide , fill it out, fill out that survey link in the show notes, we're gonna get this guide to you and you can literally use it to just supercharge your business over the next year in 2024. So please fill that link out. So Chris, let's dig into some of these numbers. Yeah . Uh, we've got some areas of opportunity.

We've got some really cool stats. I know you have five things that you were kind of keeping your eye on among the many different numbers in there, but five things that kind of stood out that we're watching from year to year. So give me number one, what are you thinking? What are you looking at?

And so there's about 78% of the gyms in our micro gym survey. And by survey, I'm, I'm actually talking about like the whole data set . Um, you know, well over 10,000 gyms last year, sometimes 16,000 gyms participate in this last year, 78% or a high number had a nutrition program. But what's interesting is that on average, only about 5% of their revenue is coming from nutrition coaching. And that's revenue.

So when you take out, like the coaches pay outta that, the cost of certification, the cost of maybe additional insurance, it really doesn't leave much. And , and some gyms are paying, you know, for special software for the , the nutrition program and stuff like that too , right?

So to me, this is a signal like, okay, nutrition coaching is important, but let's invest our resources somewhere else in something else that's gonna grow our gym faster and just give our clients what we can, which is like a healthy habits checklist, right? And , um, coach them on habits, don't get any, any kind of legal trouble.

Um, but like, don't go way out of our way trying to get like the PN L two certification or anything like that because we're limited in what we can actually prescribe anyway.

The other option is like if, if, you know , nutrition coaching is the cornerstone of your gym, that you just go all in and you like try and double your revenue on nutrition coaching in the next year, but you know, at 5% revenue, there's easier paths to grow your gym it looks like, than nutrition coaching.

Now, Clark, his wife does it in a spare bedroom in their house, 20% of their gross revenue, and they're just using simple habits based nutrition coaching. It's not this super elite way in measure scales, macro tracking system with a custom app. It is just a very simple program.

It's very effective and it does make money, but that doesn't mean you have to go that route if it's overwhelming to you and it's not gonna if there are other places that you can invest. So this is a really interesting stack . Chris, do you think this number's gonna go up in 2023? Do you think we're gonna see more, like more than 5% of revenue? Or do you think that's gonna stay about the same?

I , you know, in a perfect world, everybody would have a nutrition coaching program because we know that's really at the base of the pyramid of fitness change.

But the reality is like if, if you've got limited funds to invest on something that's gonna grow your gym in the next year, nutrition coaching might not be your top priority as much as, I hate to say it, like, and , and I don't like selling access, but the reality, and this is why we do data instead of just what does Chris like, is that Jim's selling 24 hour key card access are making a bigger percentage of their

total revenue from doing that than they are from nutrition coaching and there's less expenses going out. It's like you buy this thing once and , and usually that's it, you know?

The programs, the gyms that are set up just for kids, they make way more money than we do in general. And it's not like, you know, they're more mature entrepreneurs or anything like that. You know, there are, there are cheer gyms doing a million dollars a year mm-hmm . And the reason is that they understand the value of activities for kids.

Most of us parents would pay three or four times as much to have our kid in an activity than we would for ourselves. And so that's why these numbers start to make sense, right? So like, this is why parkour gyms are doing really well still Ninja gyms are doing really well , uh, gymnastics and, and dance studios. They all charge more than your typical hit gym does. And it's because you're selling to kids.

And what's really interesting here too is like if you look at even like Jiujitsu, right? It's not just that the kids are signing up and paying a monthly rate to go to do this class. And it's not just that like the parents are willing to do anything to wear the kids out.

It's that the care , the parents also want to find something their kids love and the parents want mementos and the the parents want to go to like the belt ceremony or the dance recital or like the ninja competition, right? And, and then the parents want photography of those things.

Anybody that's listening to this, even if you own a gym, like you already know that if your kid loves playing basketball and the price of basketball is like $300 a month, you're gonna find a way to pay for that. And so the interesting thing is that like 39% of gyms offer kids classes and it does create, you know, up to 11% of their gross revenue. But that number should actually be a lot more.

I think there's a massive opportunity there , uh, just to like, you know, change your pricing model and maybe value the, the , uh, price at at what it should be. And so we've got this from a big data set , but also empirically like Jeff and Mickey Martin from Brand X, tell me the exact same thing . Most people undercharge their kids program. I certainly did. I charged , uh, half what I was charging for adults.

I don't know if I was like pricing my program by weight or what, but there's a massive opportunity here for gyms.

And , uh, that's immediately gonna improve like the revenue that you're getting from a service that you're already offering without inclu , without increasing your expenses. Mm-hmm . . Um, if you're not running a kids program, look for an amazing coach and then look for age group opportunities. Like, don't think you've got a rollout, three different age groups, three nights a week.

Like you just look at your best clients and say, how old are their kids? You know, how many clients have a kid in this age bracket or that age bracket? And then start with a six week group for one age bracket with an amazing coach. And that'll tell you whether you've got a viable future with kids programs. I love doing kids programs.

I, I think it's like part of our mission to, to give kids a way to find their fitness, something that they can stick with for the rest of their life. And even if they're only with me for a year, I mean, teaching a kid how to squat properly, pick up something heavy that it's safe to roll around on the floor and climb a rope, you're giving them a gift that's gonna last them 80 years.

You know, like it's amazing the impact you can have at this age, but it's also the amazing that this age can have , uh, the impact that this age can have on your business.

You know, I did the same thing where , you know , my membership was 150 bucks, which was too low, and I'm like, oh, kids' classes should be a hundred bucks, which was also too low by , you know, it should have been at least 150 and probably, well more than that, but I had no idea what I was doing when I started these programs. So guys, it's not about gouging.

Parents know that parents have money set aside for kids' activities and they expect to pay for them. And you know, Chris used the example like signing your kid up for hockey can cost up to $7,000. So a $300 kids program, not, not that much on the radar , right?

Like it's, you can definitely, you know, the value that you have there, represent that in the price and make sure that your kids have a great program with a great coach who's making a great living. Now, Chris, our next stat is, is along those lines. So talk to me about highest earning staff members. And this is a really interesting number we gotta go over.

So if you look on any like, employment, website, Glassdoor, whatever, you're gonna find, like, you know, the, the median average income for a trainer is maybe about 23,000. So micro gyms are actually paying above that line, right? But the one reason that the staff aren't making more, 'cause none of us are happy with that number. We want to create careers for our coaches.

The main reason that the staff isn't making more is that the owner isn't making enough. Like we're gonna talk about what owners make in a moment. Owners are barely making more than that, right? So the gyms have to become more profitable first, and then the staff will earn more. It's not about like taking the pie that's available and cutting the staff out a bigger piece. Like that's not sustainable.

It's about growing the entire pie for everybody. Okay ? Another reason is that the owner just has too many staff and there's always a balancing act between like full-time, part-time staff. I do think you want to have both, right? However, as you progress with your gym and your gym becomes more successful and you know your profit increases, you wanna start to transition some people into full-time staff.

Um, I don't have any full-time coaches right now. I wish I did because that that covers some gaps. But the reality is like there's a time and a place for it. Um, statistically though, if you've got a lot of part-timers, then the highest paid person at your gym is just gonna decrease because they're not there full-time.

So sometimes in some situations, you know, you've laid out some things where you've got all these different jobs and they could be coaching, admin, specialty programs, whatever it is, you can actually put them together and maybe that eliminates some part-time stuff, but it does create a full-time career, right? Like you can do these things.

And on the other side of it, there are sometimes , like for me it was super passionate, super talented firefighters who wanna do some coaching on their days off. And those guy , those people were really valuable to me. So this number, do you think this is gonna go up this year?

And so as the two brain gyms grow and actually make more profit, they're actually pulling the curve up with them . So one thing that I'd love to see is every gym across the board increase their rates by 10%. If all you did was that this year, that would increase what you take home by 10%, it would increase what your staff takes home by 10 per by, you know, that same 10%.

And so that alone would bump this number of $28,709 up over 30 grand for the first time in the history of the industry. That to me is kind of the threshold where now we're a serious career and nobody's just getting into personal training and fitness for two or three years while they're going to college for their real job.

Now, Chris, related to staff, staff are great, but you have to care for yourself first as the owner. Talk to me about what owners are taking home and what we think is gonna happen this year. Yeah.

Mm-hmm . like you , you can't make that little money and expect to have a gym that lasts you 10, 20, 30 years. Anything under 48,000 is too low. And especially, you know, considering that a lot of this data comes from urban areas where you really need a hundred thousand a year to survive, it's not enough.

So what that means is like, okay, I'm making 37 87 a month that's contributing to my family's income, but that is, that can't be my primary family's income. So either I have to have another job or my spouse does. And any little challenge, right? Like could kill the gym.

So, you know, the price of groceries just went up 30% price of gas goes up 30%, you know, now I'm asking myself these questions driving home of like, can I actually afford to own this gym anymore and should I go get at that job at the call center or that that real estate job working with my uncle? And unfortunately that's usually what kills the gym.

It's, it's not that the gym can't get any clients, you know, that's usually survivable. And it's not that the gym is like sign into this massive lease. You know, often you can get outta that. What kills the gym is when the gym owner is not making enough money and they basically have to take a job somewhere else and that kills the gym.

So what I'd love to see is this number of net owner benefit rise to at least 40 or $4,000 per month. Just make some incremental gains. What that's gonna do is it's gonna attract more people to the fitness industry. And that's actually going to help all of us because as we all get better at being the c e O and the entrepreneur, we all grow and the pie grows and we attract more people to exercise for the first time.

So, you know, these are all like , um, a balancing act, right? It's a paradox like the gym owner makes more, the gym does better, the gym does better, the gym owner makes more. But the reality is like if, if I can keep a gym owner in the game for another five years, they're gonna serve more people, save more lives, make more money, create more careers.

And so, you know, we do focus on improving net owner benefit a lot.

And then you gave me another stat the other day about how long it can take someone to start with two brainin and get to a hundred thousand dollars in annual income, which is way more than 47 $4,000 a month. So what is , how long does it take the average client to do that now?

I don't recommend starting with a mentor like we, when you're gonna bounce the first payment, like we're gonna give you enough free stuff that you can use that to, to build up a little bit. Um, but the reality is like we know how to get owners to a hundred thousand dollars a year net owner benefit better than anybody else. We've done it hundreds of times. And what we're studying now is how to do it faster.

And we call this virtuosity, which is basically like, if I can get people there in an average of two years, one month, nine days, how do I do that in less than two years? How do I do it in 16 months? And so , um, that's really like the focus of our internal study right now.

Chris has seminars in there, all sorts of great resources, including guides that tell you literally how to get to a hundred thousand dollars per year in income. You can get those guides in that group, and of course, if you want even more help and more speed work with us and we'll help you do that. Now Chris, going on, this is a really interesting one for me.

The median price for group training, and the reason why this is super interesting for me is it's almost exactly what I charged at my gym, which was too low. Let's go over this one.

So if you're a CrossFit gym or a bootcamp or a hit gym or whatever , um, that's like, you know what the average gym is charging for their unlimited class option. Okay? Um, that's too low. Yep . You need to get to an average revenue per member of about 2 0 5. Now you can do that a few ways. You can raise the rates , um, you can , uh, add personal training or add like another service.

Like we talked about nutrition coaching is one option. Kids is maybe a better, you know, even access is on the table to bring that a r m up above 2 0 5. If you can get your a R M at 2 0 5, you can make a hundred thousand dollars a year with like 150 clients.

And if you're in a big urban setting like Atlanta and New York City, San Francisco, you should be charging way more than that anyway because the cost of living is higher and your price should go up proportionally with that. Unfortunately, the opposite kind of happens. You know, years ago somebody in Atlanta told me you can't charge more than 79 bucks a month for CrossFit, right? And , and that's how they were thinking.

And of course, you know, people like Miles Davis, Rick Thompson, like , uh, Andy McCann, they just did, they just, they charged 200 bucks a month for CrossFit and made it worth it. Mm-hmm . . And that's how they brought their a r m up. So this median rate for group training is, it's too low.

There's other, there's another perspective here too, which is that if a client comes into your gym and , um, they want like general group programming, the same programming that like everybody else is getting the same workout, the same level of coaching, which is, you know, like corrective, right?

Um, I wouldn't call it an industrial model, but it's not like you're getting your own personalized program, your own personalized appointment time, your own one-on-one attention from a coach when you're in a group setting. When you frame it that way, group setting actually becomes like your lowest priced option. And so the way that a lot of gyms approach this now is a client comes in and they'll say, what's your goal?

And then they'll measure the client and then they'll say, okay, well based on your goals, if you wanna get to your goals as fastest, I recommend one-on-one training with us . You know, and they'll , they'll call that like their high ticket option or whatever. And then if the client says like, well, I can't really afford it, then the next best option for that client is semi-private.

And if the client is like, I can't really afford that, no problem. You're still gonna get there with our group training, it might take a little bit longer, but some people actually like group training because it's a lot of fun. How's that sound? And Mike , I did my first n s I in like five years yesterday and she's like, sounds great. Sign me up for group training.

And it , it was like a higher price point than I've sold in the last 20 years, but she was eager to sign up for it because it's what she could afford. It will get her to her goals, but it's not as personalized, not as flexible on, you know, scheduling time. And it might not get our two goals fast enough as like, as fast as one-on-one coaching and nutrition coaching would , that's all

And we can all agree that like, that's not that great because your group classes , while they are your discount option, they're not worth 75 or $80 for personal training, but they are worth more than $6. And I didn't realize that and I , I didn't understand this until you had me do the math, divide that up, figure it out, and like, whoa, this is, I am delivering way more value than six bucks.

And I think a lot of gyms are doing the same thing. Yeah.

Those people on average are paying six bucks per class. Like you're losing $7, you're losing money by opening the gym that early and forcing that coach to get outta bed, right? Um, so it doesn't, you know, it , it just, it doesn't make sense. And a lot of gyms are chasing this losing model unfortunately. And now they're realizing more and more like, oh my goodness, I'm time is not on my side.

Like the longer I follow this model, the worse things are going to get. And so that's where they come to two brand for mentorship and , and turning the ship around

And then you can use that and say, if I'm only getting two people to my morning class and no one's, you know, no one's showing up and I'm only charging, you know, an average of six bucks a head , I'm losing money and I'm paying my coach $25. That's the average. Also in the guide, all these stats are in this guide. You could literally use them to compare your numbers to and say, do I need to change something?

How can I get to this great number? What do I need to do? You can make smart business decisions. None of this was available when Chris and I started our gyms. We had just, you know, it was basically Chris and me talking to the bleachers at fitness events and saying, what are you doing? And trying to, you know, figure it out. Literally what happened.

Now you can get this guide for free, all the info's in it, you can use it to make great decisions in your gym. And then in the gym owners United Group, you could talk to seven , 700 other gym owners including two brain mentors and get some real help to grow your business. And then on the other end of that is mentorship, working with Two Brain .

But take the first step, go to the link in the show notes, please fill out that survey. Six, six minutes, seven minutes maybe at the max. Chris has got the guide there. You're gonna get that guide for free in mid-November and it's going to help you grow your business. So please, with our compliments or with our thanks, please go and fill out that survey for us. It would really help us.

Chris, how fired up are you to see the numbers that come in from that survey?

And , um, you see that online people are, they actually think they are doing great and they're not doing that great. It , it's kind of impossible to filter out like what's actually great, what does great even mean? And now, I mean, you can do that on your toilet. You don't have to find Mike and Chris and, and somebody that you trust to be honest and transparent with you.

I mean, honestly like if you, if you got this guy and you put it on the back of your toilet, you got five minutes every day to make your gym better. And so what you do is you, like, you look at, oh, okay, geez , the cost of gym space average. Is this, okay, well I'm overpaying for gym space, maybe that's something I should think about.

Or you , you flip it here and it's like, okay, well the average revenue is 15,900 a month. The average two brain revenue is 21,309 a month. Um , you know, group training price is 160 bucks. Like, hey, what would happen if I went up five bucks for the a hundred members at my gym? Well that's another $500 to drop straight to my bottom line. I mean, you've just had like the best poop of your life.

You've made $500 on the toilet, right? It's great.

You know, and you're asking for those delicate financial numbers and sometimes you would get honest people who would tell you and you'd be like, oh, okay. And you'd put your whole life in perspective and then you could get some ideas and you could make some changes. Again, those conversations were super awkward. They were hard to get because you had to find people. This guide gives you all of that stuff.

So please fill out the link in or hit the link in the show notes, fill out that survey. We will send you this guide and it will help you improve your business group . Thanks so much for being here today. Yeah

Um, I think honestly, like all of us gym owners, we've been two separate for too long. We're a bunch of islands out there. I think we owe it to ourselves and to one another to participate in global movements like this. Uh, gym owners united.com is a great example. You know, you go to gym owners united.com, you join a free Facebook group, there's like 7,600 gym owners in there, transparency, support.

Nobody is making fun of other people. There's no like Michael Jackson eating the popcorn memes 'cause there's no battles. It's just people helping people. And this is the kind of movement that we need to create if we want to elevate the entire industry. The second thing the industry actually needs is data. And I think it's really all of us are responsible to share what's actually happening.

Now, I don't need you to go out and be like , uh, we lost 50 members last year. It's anonymous, but we still need your input because we have to know where we're starting from and we have to see what the greatest opportunities are. You know, you can count on two Brain to publish 95% of the stuff that you and I build is free. We're gonna publish stuff to help you as long as we know where people actually need help.

And for, for way too long. Like we hear from these organizations, right? Like, our franchisor, this gym has 800 members or from CrossFit, this gym must be successful. They have 400 members. We hear that. But the reality is like, that's, that's not helpful information and it can even be misleading.

And so I think it's up to gym owners, especially independents to come together , uh, outside of our parent companies and say like, what is actually working here? Right? We need people who have like no bias, no dog in that fight to say like, here's what the actual data says. And data doesn't lie. It's proof. We do this in a way to be as objective as possible.

You know, while I did give you some personal opinions on this stuff, the reality is like we hire an independent analyst so that my biases can't even enter into that. And then we produce it free because I think this is how we improve the entire movement.

It's Gym Owners United on Facebook, or go to gym owners united.com to join. Do it today.