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What makes a good gym website? The answer to that question keeps changing. Five years ago I would've said that you need this rotating banner image. Three years ago I would've said that you have to have one splash page highlighting the benefits of your service. That's true. The problem is that the benefits of your service change by the client you're trying to target, and so you need to be able to adapt. You need to be able to add your own landing pages.
Your main cover page should reflect what your most important clients want. That's going to be different from what my most important clients want. So a website that's based on a template with the same kind of rotating image is not going to work anymore. I use For Time Design for the twobrainbusiness.com and Catalyst gym websites because those are the most important websites I own. I want responsive design that's going to work well on mobile.
About 60% of your clients are going to come through mobile and more in the future. I want a responsive designer which means I can contact them to make changes and I want to know how to change my own oil. I want to know how to get in there and add my own posts. I talk a lot about content marketing and that means I have to know the medium through which I'm delivering my content. Using For Time Design has been my choice now for about three years because Theresa and her team are super responsive.
She can answer questions for me, she can show me how to do it myself if I want to or she can do it for me if I don't have time. She's created a big series of videos for Two-Brain clients in our Incubator and Growth stages to watch so that they can do stuff like build landing pages themselves. A lot of website companies try to pull the curtain in front of their knowledge. They try to hold a lot of stuff secret so that they can charge you to do the basic things.
Just like in car maintenance, changing your oil, rotating your tires. If you want to do that stuff, awesome. If you don't have time to do that stuff, take it to the garage. Theresa at For Time Design gives you both options and she'll even teach you how to do it yourself if you want to. I use fortimedesign.com; that's what's made them an official Two-Brain partner is our firm belief in their commitment to helping first and a strong sense of service value.
All right. I'm on another episode of Two-Brain radio with Josh Martin. Welcome Josh.
Thank you Greg. It's a pleasure to be back with you.
Happy to have you always. I love our conversations that we're able to have together, so let's kind of dig into something a little new, but I know you have an amazing story behind it. Let's kind of dig into leveling up coaches and your thoughts and philosophies and kind of what has led you up to kind of talking about this and then possibly stuff in the future.
Yeah, absolutely. It's really stemmed from a passion that I have for developing coaches. You know, I was very blessed and lucky in my career to be mentored and developed by some incredible people. And so I feel very strongly about doing the same and kind of paying it forward, so to speak. So over the years, you know, we've kind of had an evolution of the way that we bring coaches on at our gym.
The first iteration, I jokingly was talking to somebody about it was, "Hey, I need somebody to cover this class." It was a buddy of mine who I think at the time he was like a cheerleading coach, but he was a coach in some regards and had been doing CrossFit for a while. So it was, you know, why don't you shadow me for a couple of classes and then jump in and start coaching.
And then, obviously over time we really kind of created a system that we could follow at the gym to kind of bring a coach from zero to coaching, you know, within a specified amount of time. I think that the reason that I've gotten to the point where I am today to really want to talk publicly about this is that I really see that there is a tremendous gap in the market for developing your coaches in a simple, streamlined way.
I think that there is a tendency to try and over-complicate things and make it seem way more challenging and robust than it probably should be. And so I started talking with a couple of very close friends, other mentors on the Two-Brain team, you know, in terms of what they did, things that they are doing that work, things that they have tried that did not work.
And so then I kind of went back to the drawing board and even talked with the coaches at my gym and said, "Okay, what if we just had to break it all down to scratch and build coaches from the ground up? What would that look like?" And so where we're at today is in my mind, there are really kind of like six levels of coaching. So the first kind of coach that we're seeing is a necessity from a mentoring perspective.
You know, when we're working with gyms, we want to have somebody hire on a new coach and we teach them a new intake process. We teach them that you need to have a one-on-one intro, the No-Sweat Intro, and then we want to have them go into the on-ramp program. Well, a lot of times we don't have, or these gym owners don't have, a coach on staff that is ready to take on a brand new on-ramp program.
So the way that I see it is the first level of coaching that you need to have at your gym is the one-on-one coach that is following a template or a script. And in this case it's going to be the on-ramp program. So somebody wants to sign up, they want to go into group classes, great. We want a coach to be able to deliver this template, this script, it's going to take 60 minutes, here is everything that you're going to talk about.
Here are the movements that you're going to teach them, points of performance that you're going to hit. You're going to deliver an excellent 10-out-of-10 service for those number of sessions, one on one, and you're not going to have to worry about the nuances of programming. So that's like the very first, most basic level that we're looking at here. Does that make sense?
Yeah, that does.
And I totally see where you're coming from on developing that role first compared to developing the role of like a group coach because you're going from one athlete to possibly 10, 15, depending on if you have a cap, even, I mean you could go up to however many that you have in a class, but you're basically saying that let's do this one on one with a very strict template of "we must show these movements, we must be able to progress through these movements, showing scaling options," that kind of
stuff. But more of that one-on-one setting compared to in a big group setting, which I know when I first started coaching it was that you just started coaching class. It wasn't, there was no on-ramp or Foundations or anything like that. So it was much more overwhelming for a coach to take on such a big opportunity by coaching a class compared to taking one one-on-one and actually being able to nurture a relationship with them.
Yeah. And you know, it's interesting, the evolution of getting to this point, I was just, I was thinking about this earlier this morning as a matter of fact and you know, way back in the day, you know, there was this idea that if you are just a excellent coach, you know, you'd be the best coach ever and everything is going to work out all right with your business. And so it was like this idea that excellence in coaching was tied to excellence in business and we know that that's not true.
And that's why Two-Brain has the Incubator and then continues people on into Growth because being excellent in coaching is in no way related whatsoever to being excellent in business. And so what we saw over the years, especially as excellence in business was pursued is the pendulum kind of swung to where, you know, maybe perhaps all of a sudden now we were focused on a lot of the business side of things and that's not a bad thing at all.
I think that that is incredibly important for the sustainability of the whole system. But what we have to remember too as owners is that our coaches are actually the ones delivering the very service that we're selling. And so if we neglect to develop them and continually develop them and make them better and better and offer them a chance at a meaningful long-term career, then all of a sudden we're delivering a product that is just not worthwhile.
And so that's really where the impetus for this having a structure surrounding this came from.
OK. No, that makes perfect sense. So we have level one being the on-ramp program, very structured for that new coach. What is the next stage after that? What is number two?
OK, so you actually just kind of hinted at this a little bit, is that the next stage is we're still going to be teaching from quote unquote a template or a script. And I hate using that term. Just because visually it's like you see somebody reading from a piece of paper, but you know, it's just to say that we're not asking the coach to freestyle and program on their own.
It's a lot more structured. That's all.
Exactly, exactly. We're going to say, "Hey, for 60 minutes you're going to spend five minutes doing this and here is what you're gonna do. You're going to spend 10 minutes doing this and here's what you're going to do." So the level two, instead of just coaching people one on one, now we're going to resource them with how to deal with a group. So we're teaching a group from a template or a script with structure. And so some of the things that we'll get into there is group management.
You know, how do you deal with a group of three versus a group of 20; how do you account for equipment considerations? How should you lay the class out? What are some safety considerations that you should look out for? Just the general check boxes that you need to have to have a fantastic client experience from a group perspective. So that would be like the second level of coaching.
OK. I do have one question that I think about now. With these different levels, and I guess—and I'm sure you will answer this later on so of course I'm jumping ahead and I don't mean to, but if you have these different levels, is there any point in time where a coach says, "Hey, I'd actually just be comfortable doing on-ramps and on-ramps only. I don't want to make it to level two.
Is that OK, or is this kind of progression to teach them if it's somebody that wants to be able to do much more within, encompass within the business? That's what this is kind of built out for?
No, I mean I think that it would all be as a business owner, and maybe you agree with this, but like as a business owner, I would love for every staff member to have complete transparency and honesty with me and say, "You know what? All I want to do is teach on-ramps.
And so I'm cool with only getting to this first level and knowing that for 60 minutes, this is exactly what I'm teaching; I only want to do one-on-ones," and them being comfortable enough around you to say that, because I think that there is definitely a place for that. But you've also, I think, got to make sure that it fits in with, you know, your values and your needs of the business.
Some gyms may want all of their coaches to have the versatility to, you know, not only teach one-on-one on-ramps but one-on-one with program design or to be able to program for an entire group or a gym. And I think that as long there is honesty and transparency on both the owner and the staff person, I think anything can really work.
Yeah, I agree with you 100%. I only want my staff to be transparent with me; if they are doing something that they don't enjoy doing or don't want to do, I would definitely not want them to continue doing it.
And so we've kind of built out a, we call it our level-up program, which is if they want to take on on-ramps, which of course I'm doing it backwards and I think I need to change how we're doing it because I agree with you; how this is structured out that it needs to be one-on-one before group, and structured in the sense of each progression they get more and more ability to kind of, like you said, freestyle.
But if they want to take on Foundations then we have a level-up program for that of what they need to accomplish with it. But I feel like the way you have it set up is much more structured and better. So, I definitely need to turn my stuff around, it looks like.
Yeah. You know, just kind of building off of that earlier question, Greg, I think really it's our duty to provide a path. And so if we are open and honest and we say, "Hey, the path to becoming a head coach or a group fitness coach is this," then we leave it open to the staff member to say, "You know what, I'm comfortable with only going to level one or level two," and that's just what our duty is.
And I like what you said there, you give them the opportunity or you build them, you give them the path, you give them the options to choose, but it doesn't mean they have to walk down that path.
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Awesome. So now that we have level one, then you have level two, which is very structured. It's in a group, more of a group setting. But then also how to encounter if you have 20 people or five people or whatever that would be. What is the next step? What is number three?
Yeah. So number three is, now we're going to, you know, level one we were strictly one-one-one. Level two, we introduced the dynamics of a group. And now we're actually going to go back to one-on-one, but we're going to introduce elements of program design. So this is where, you know, if your gym offers personal training, that, you know, this is the coach that you would grab to work with the client.
So from the very first time that they meet with this coach, they're going to go through a consultation and assessment process. They're going to learn about the client and then they're going to have the opportunity to design as well as deliver the program to the client and then refine it as time goes on. So they're really taking a lot more ownership for the development and long-term progress of the client. And so, you know, this is, I think a lot of people jump right into this stuff.
And admittedly, Greg, kind of where this stemmed from is, we would have personal-training clients come in and I would hand them off to a coach and assume that the coach had an idea of how to program. Now, I'm not trying to intentionally, you know, throw myself under the bus and run over myself a couple of times, because my coaches were resourced with some general principles of program design by that point.
But in terms of long-term development, what a proper assessment looks like, things like that. That is the depth that we want to go to with with this level three-type coach.
OK. And don't worry about throwing yourself under the bus because I can do that for you, with myself. And that's only because I definitely did that in the very beginning of hiring coaches. I would just say if they're able to work personal training with an athlete, like they know what they're doing, they've gotten a certification or they understand what they're doing when they haven't.
And luckily I have a head coach that has definitely stopped that in the very beginning when I started bringing him on, and I changed titles on him almost weekly back then, but as an operations manager, as I called him, he would, he'd be like, no, like these coaches aren't prepared to do this. They do not understand program design or understand metabolic conditioning and understanding the different energy systems.
Yes, they went through the Level 1 or they have another personal training certification, but they still don't understand the, as the military calls it, on-the-job training, the OJT working with athletes. That makes a lot of sense of being able to build out a structure where they can learn how to actually build out that program design or work with these personal-training clients, but in a more freestyle way than Foundations or even group training.
So moving forward then, what is number four, what is level four?
So number four is, you know, we're just going to continue to kind of layer on a little bit more complexity. You know, it's interesting as I talk this out with you, there's the theoretical hierarchy of the development of an athlete. And I think about this as the, you know, hierarchy of development of a coach, is that as you get up, you know, you graduate up to the next level, we're just layering on a little bit more complexity so there's a little bit more responsibility on behalf of the coach.
So we're still going to allow them to oversee elements of program design. But now we're going to take this over an entire group population. So perhaps your programming for your group CrossFit class or perhaps you are programming for a boot camp class or what we've seen a lot of affiliates do, like a CrossFit Lite class or maybe CrossFit minus barbells, whatever you want to call that.
But in essence, they are now responsible for the structured training of an entire group or population of people at that point.
So would that, like for us, we have a course, our Olympic lifting program that has kicked off. But we have something that's been on for a while and we call that our strength club, which is more of hypertrophy training with powerlifting styles of movement, plenty of accessory work. Would you say that is where this level four would come into play or is it just more of a class setting, either CrossFit or lite class or something like that?
No, I think it could be any of those, to be honest, Greg, and you just gave me a great, another idea to make sure that I jot down is that this is not specific to, you know, just CrossFit classes. It can be, you know, in Two-Brain we call them specialty classes. So like your strength club that I know that you guys run at Unknown Element. It could be, at my gym, it's really popular for us to run a gymnastics specialty course or a Olympic weightlifting course.
So that could definitely be where this person would fit in, is the group coaching and training aspect along with being responsible for the design of the program that you are then delivering,
Which kind of leads into another portion that we talk about in Two-Brain, I feel like, and this is, I love these levels because they make so much more sense than even what I feel like we're currently doing. I feel like we could always do a better job. I always want to innovate, but this kind of leads into the ability to get a coach from zero to, I mea,n taking on a full program and we call that "intrapreneurialism," especially within the gym, the micro-gym, any gym that's within Two-Brain.
We talk about how they can build their own programs, but when you do that, it doesn't mean that every coach that takes on a new program is going to be able to build that out.
So it seems like this system is going to really, or these levels are really going to allow them to not only understand one-on-one sessions, understand building out templates, being able to systemize things, but then also be able to make the revenue they want out of a program like a specialty program and understand the ins and outs of it all.
Yeah, that's exactly right. I think it's so important for a coach to be confident in what he or she is doing. And when you go through a structured educational process and you get to the point where you are putting your education to use, there really is a tremendous feeling of satisfaction and pride. And I think a big part of being a good coach is being confident in what you're doing.
So if we take somebody and we say, OK, you want to be a group coach at my gym or you want to coach the specialty class, well here is the pathway. I think that that lends itself to much more successful outcome for both the coach—well really three ways. The coach, the clients and the gym versus just saying, "Oh, you want to coach the strength club, you want to coach Olympic weightlifting.
OK, well here's the marketing for it, you know, go ahead and announce it or we'll announce it and then you go ahead and run it and put it together."
No, I agree. I like that. I like that setup a lot better. And I love the ability to slowly layer on more and more as we go. So now that we've gotten somebody, and we've talked about level four, what is level five?
So, you know, level five I think is really, you know, is what is going to create what we would term like the head coach or the director of training for an entire facility. And so this person is going to have a tremendous amount more of responsibility versus just, you know, my in-the-trenches coaches. So really the responsibilities of we'll just call it head coach. They are going to be in charge of assessing and evaluating the coaching staff.
They are going to be responsible for delivering continuing education in a very structured way. For instance, what we would provide, is we would say, "Hey, this is the lesson for, you know, this week or this month and here are the deliverables. Now you need to take it to your coaches and teach them to get them to be better coaches." They would also be responsible for on-boarding new coaches. You know, so, somebody shows interest.
Maybe somebody comes up to the owner of the gym and says, "You know what, I would really love to be a part of this. I would love to get into coaching." Instead of the owner feeling like they, that's one more thing that they need on their plate, they could just put this person in touch with the head coach and they would take it from there.
So you'd have a structured process, like we're saying now, of OK, your first step is you need to be able to teach from a template and a one-on-one setting like on-ramp. And so they would be responsible for on-boarding new coaches. And then we get into stuff that's a little bit higher level. That probably, people are gonna think that I'm kooky for saying, but I think at this point, this is really the macro level of being a coach.
So, if being in the trenches with your clients day in and day out can kind of be described as the micro level where you're, you know, delivering the class or delivering the one-on-one session, the head coach is really kind of the macro. So they are going to be responsible for gathering, and assessing data, you know, in terms of is the programming that we're doing working?
You know, checking in with coaches that have one-on-one clients and saying, "Hey, is your client meeting their goals?" If yes, what are you doing that's working? If no, what are you doing that potentially is impeding the client's progress? So really, we want to gather and assess this data so that we can use it to drive current and future processes. The other thing that I'm definitely a self-proclaimed nerd when it comes to this is like, future innovation.
So being able to, you know, guinea pigs, so to speak and try different protocols. Maybe go against the grain a little bit with principles, you know, that have been around for a long time. And then hiring and firing. This is what that person would be responsible for.
OK. So they would be responsible, I would say like, what you were talking about of continue education with the current staff. They would be on-boarding new coaches, which means they'd be hiring and firing. So they'd be doing the evaluations on the current staff as well. Making sure they're up to par as, as they see fit. But something I know that I don't think my head coach does that I really like what you said was assessing the data.
So if they have, if there's another coach that has a personal-training client, are they meeting their goals? Are they not almost like sitting down and doing like a mini goal-review session with the actual coach on their client and showing how they can help further that coach to be better to meet that client's needs sooner. Or, if they're having a sticking point, how to help that client more but not in the sense of, "Hey, we're judging you. Hey, you're not doing well." I really liked that.
That's really cool. Assessing the data.
Yeah. And to be honest, Greg, I don't know of a lot of gyms that do this in a structured way in terms of looking at their programming and is it getting results. I would venture a guess to say that we would all want to say, "Oh yeah, well, our programming is definitely getting us results.
"But you can't manage what you don't measure, and if you're not actually measuring the global success of your programming and your programs in general, it's really hard to say with certainty that, "You know what, our program is getting the results that our clients desire."
Agreed. So, I mean, and to me, that's the highest level, but that's only level five. We have one more level after that. So what is that last level?
Yeah, so this one is pretty far out there. If people didn't think I was far out enough with my last one, especially with the data piece and the future innovation.
This one is really shamelessly stolen from a couple of other places that I worked that I saw this work really, really well kind of in the beginning stages of my career where you have this just fantastic network of people across the world and you need to somehow kind of amalgamate all these different things that you're seeing and manage people in a way that makes the most sense.
So I would love to say that we would have like, one big boss or manager that would oversee all of these head coaches or directors of training or whatever you want to call them. But the way that I see it is there is a need for regional management.
And so really another place this is borne out is within Two-Brain, and I'm sure that you've ran into this, is that as a mentor, you have clients that are in the States, that are in Europe, that are in Australia and New Zealand and making sure that, you know, number one that your schedules match up with your particular mentoring client I think is super important. Making sure that you understand the nuances of their culture and the way that they do things I think is super important.
But there's only so much that we can do as individuals. You know, like, I live in Florida and you are in Colorado right now?
Correct.
Yeah. So like even though we're both in the States, like people in Colorado and people in Florida like are a little bit different and we're in different time zones. And I know that sounds kind of silly, but the way that I see it is if you could just manage, you know, have one person managing a group of coaches in a specific time zone, I think that you would be much more effective at really driving decisions for a larger company.
OK. So almost, basically, a mentor, regional mentor, for the head coaches or directors of training within a given area.
Exactly. So this person's responsibilities is really twofold. They're zooming out even further than say, the head coaches are at their affiliate levels. So they're looking at their data to kind of oversee, you know, a bunch of different regions. So they are overseeing the head coaches and then they would also be responsible for on-boarding new head coaches or directors of training.
OK. So, basically almost like a training program within a training program through these different levels.
Exactly. Yeah. And then I don't know if you would consider one more level, but I guess you could say you would have like the CEO over this whole thing.
OK. No, that would definitely make sense. So basically you have these different six levels for a coach to kind of build up their skills throughout the process, starting off with something very, very structured. Now, of course, before this, I'm guessing there would be more of like an internship process to even get to that first level. Is that correct?
Yeah. So first level is really, you know, what were what were kind of, what I'm kind of doing quietly behind the scenes is developing a service that we can deliver to people to take a prospective coach from zero to coach within four weeks.
Wow. That's quick. That is not a slow pace whatsoever.
No. And you know, it's really predicated upon, you know, how much available time do they have, can they do the requisite amount of hours, you know, within that.
But if you've got, let's just say for instance, you know, I can tell some of my story from whenever I was, you know, an up-and-coming coach when I was in college, I could spend a ton of time at the facility shadowing, learning, getting feedback, learning some more, you know, actually getting into the trenches, practicing my coaching on other coaches, then practicing it, you know, on other people that are maybe volunteering to be guinea pigs for you.
But essentially, yeah, if you've got the time and you can put in the work because you know what the outcome is going to be, it can be done in four weeks.
Wow. That's awesome. I don't think, our current process definitely does not do it that quickly, but it sounds like if somebody is, like you said, dedicated enough, has the time and willing to, and really want to do this as part of their Perfect Day, it sounds like it's definitely doable.
Yeah, it would definitely—I love that you mentioned Perfect Day because we talk about that so often. You know, if it meshes with their perfect day, they have the available time, this will get them there.
Awesome. Well, Josh, I know, it sounds like that this program is going to get eventually built into something else. I mean, I love these different levels of thinking and hopefully anybody out there that's listening, they're going to take action on, OK, "how am I actually on-boarding a new coach?" And hopefully they're starting off with a very structured sense of coaching and not just assuming that they can take on a PT client right out the gate.
Like the mistakes that I have made in the past, definitely I've done stuff like that and it's costly because that person usually doesn't stay cause the coach really doesn't know what they're doing.
So it sounds like these different levels is definitely something people need to take into account and start trying to put those into play of what their on-ramp would look like structured and a coach going through that step into the next step of group classes with a structure and then into the next step and continue moving up into that head-coach role and then possibly being able to mentor other coaches in that regional sense.
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's kind of like I hinted at earlier, it's very similar to how you would develop somebody, you know, from a client perspective. If somebody wants to come in and do their first pull-up or their first muscle-up or snatch, you know, body weight, you know, you don't just toss them right into the most complex thing. You start from the very basics. You know, you want to give them easy wins.
And so that's what we're looking at here is just over time, you know, teaching them the basics but then as they progress, layering on more complexity and offering them more responsibility.
Awesome. Well Josh, thank you so much for being able to jump on here and sharing the different levels of coaches and what each each step is and kind of giving a road map for anyone that's listening to this. So thank you so much for the time and being able to jump on and share.
You're welcome. Thanks again for having me, Greg. I always love it.
Happy to. Love having you brother. Thank you.
Hey everyone. Chris Cooper here, I'm really thrilled to see you this year in June in Chicago at the 2019 Two-Brain Summit. Every year we have two separate speaking tracks. There's one for you, the business owner, and there's one for coaches that will help them make better, longer, more meaningful careers under the umbrella of your business.
This year we've got some pretty amazing topics like the client success manager, how to change your life, organizational culture or the business owner's life cycle, how to have breaks, how to have vacations, how to help your marriage survive. Owning a business and motivation and leadership. How to convert more clients, how to create a GM position that runs your gym for you and leaves you free to grow your business, how to start a business owner's group in your community and more.
Point here is to do the right thing that will help gym owners create better businesses that will last them for the long term, get them to Tinker Phase, help them be more successful, create meaningful careers for their coaches and give their clients a meaningful path to long-term health.
We only do one big seminar every year and that's the Two-Brain Summit and the reason that we do that is because a big part of the benefit is getting the Two-Brain community together and welcoming strangers into our midst and showing them how amazing gym ownership really can be. We'll have a link to the Two-Brain Summit, including a full list of all speakers and topics on both the owners and the coaches side in the show notes. I really hope to see you there.
As always, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. We greatly appreciate you and everyone that has subscribed to us. If you haven't done that, please make sure you do. Drop a like to the episode. Share with a friend, and if you haven't already, please write us a review and rate us on what you think. If you hated it, let us know. If you loved it, even better. See you guys later.