When gyms start making more money, their owners often don't think about paying themselves more. But your business exists to serve you, and you deserve to earn a good living from your gym. On today's episode of Two-Brain Radio, Chris Cooper offers four reasons to charge more at your gym, and then he provides five ways to give yourself a raise. Two-Brain exists to help you make more money from your business so you can change more lives. If you're struggling to pay your bills and never get home in ...
Sep 26, 2022•18 min•Season 3Ep. 392
You might think setting up an LLC for your gym is enough—but it might not be. In fact, you might be doing five things—accidentally or on purpose—that severely limit your corporation's ability to protect you. For example, if you use your corporation's bank account as your personal piggy bank, you'll find yourself personally vulnerable in the event of a lawsuit. No operating agreement? No protection. Cut corners with paperwork? You're at risk. But you can prevent the ability of litigators to "pier...
Sep 22, 2022•22 min•Season 3Ep. 391
Clients stay with your business for two main reasons: They're solving the problem that brought them to you and they're enjoying the process. So how can a business owner ensure both of those things are happening for every client in the gym? In today's episode of Two-Brain Radio, Chris Cooper shares some tips from gym owner and Certified Two-Brain Mentor Jeff Jucha. Listen and learn how to deliver a successful, personalized program that will guarantee client success and happiness. Links Delivering...
Sep 19, 2022•15 min•Season 3Ep. 390
Partnerships: They can be great. But they can also cause you to lose money and time. In this episode of Two-Brain Radio, Chris Cooper lays out the three levels of partnership that will tempt gym owners. For each level, Chris will tell you exactly what to do, and he'll provide examples of common mistakes entrepreneurs make. Listen, then use this info to ensure any partnership you make provides you with a clear investment on your money and time investment. 1:47 - Risks of partnerships 2:45 - The f...
Sep 15, 2022•19 min•Season 3Ep. 389
Are you struggling to hire at your gym? Chris Cooper has the answer. First, maybe you're trying to fill the wrong roles. Chris will tell you which hires to prioritize so you offload the right tasks while ensuring clients still get the service they want. Then, Chris has four simple steps to finding coaches: 1. Hire from within. 2. Hire the best in town. 3. Find the "future best." 4. Advertise. Listen for important details on each strategy and you'll never struggle to fill the holes at your gym. 0...
Sep 12, 2022•14 min•Season 3Ep. 388
Can a virtual assistant help a gym owner? Yes—but only if you follow the right process. Two-Brain founder Chris cooper lays out seven steps to hiring a great VA and five steps for A+ onboarding in this episode of Two-Brain Radio. A VA can take a lot of work off your plate, but only if you find the right person and train them to do things exactly the way you want. If you hire the cheapest person and then toss them into the pool, they'll sink and you'll be stuck correcting and micromanaging. To re...
Sep 08, 2022•20 min•Season 3Ep. 387
Ronan Mahon, owner of Movement Fitness in Dublin, Ireland, placed his gym on all three Two-Brain Business sales leaderboards in July. He booked a ton of appointments, had a 100 percent show rate and closed a huge number of sales. After closing three sales on the day of this interview, Ronan took a few minutes off to share his secrets with host Mike Warkentin. An experienced salesperson from his days before he was a gym owner, Ronan lays out all the tweaks he's made to his sales process. He combi...
Sep 05, 2022•36 min•Season 3Ep. 386
9Round, F45, Orangetheory, Anytime Fitness and other franchises; CrossFit affiliates; jiu-jitsu, karate and MMA facilities; bodybuilding and personal training gyms; yoga and Pilates studios—Two-Brain can help all of them. In this episode, Chris Cooper lays out exactly how Two-Brain uses one-on-one mentorship to help each gym owner grow their unique business. While the exact mentor-recommended growth tactics might differ slightly when implemented in each business, the principles behind them don't...
Sep 01, 2022•9 min•Season 3Ep. 385
A kids program is a great way to add revenue to your gym–but many gym owners don't know how to fill fitness classes for children. Chris Cooper has nine ways to do it. Just a few examples: Invite a kids team for a workout. Host a birthday party. Ask current clients to bring their kids' friends. Chris has six more doses of rocket fuel for your kids program. Listen, then take action to add or improve a key revenue stream at your gym. 1:00 - Tactics 1-9 12:55 - Recap...
Aug 29, 2022•15 min•Season 3Ep. 384
Selling supplements in your gym has changed a lot in the last few years. So how do you navigate the current market and begin selling supplements with low risk? On today's episode of Two-Brain Radio, Chris Cooper is joined by Mike Shelly from Thorne. They discuss the landscape of nutritional supplementation, the best supplements for gyms to sell, and how to get started with retailing using Thorne and Two-Brain tools and tactics. *Gut health microbiome swipe is patent pending. Link To get the guid...
Aug 25, 2022•35 min•Season 3Ep. 383
“Hey, Coop, can you tell me how your lead-nurture process works at Two-Brain?” This question prompted Chris Cooper to pull back the curtain and explain exactly how he built his business through conversations. You can use the same process to build your gym, too. Listen as Chris lays out four simple steps to using conversations to get more gym clients. Bonus: You can use a similar approach to increase your retention and re-engage departed members. Chris used content marketing to build the largest ...
Aug 22, 2022•16 min•Season 3Ep. 382
"We are in the business, you and I, of changing lives. If somebody comes into your gym and leaves a month later, they have not changed their life." Two-Brain founder and gym owner Chris Cooper said that, and if you're a coach, trainer or fitness entrepreneur, you know it's true. So how do you measure "lives changed?" And how do you make greater changes in the lives of clients? The key: increasing retention—or length of engagement (LEG). The longer you keep clients, the more their lives will be c...
Aug 18, 2022•18 min•Season 3Ep. 381
It's nice to think you could run a business without making any mistakes. But that's just not the case. Luckily, Two-Brain Business has a team of experienced mentors who share the mistakes they've made so other gym owners can avoid them. In today's episode of Two-Brain Radio, Chris Cooper shares stories and advice from a handful of mentors on the Two-Brain team. He takes you through the most common mistakes that gym owners make, then he explains how to fix them and ensure they will never happen a...
Aug 15, 2022•20 min•Season 3Ep. 380
Gym owner Chris Thacker reached over $1 million in gross revenue, but he had a problem: An expansion came with increased expenses, and Thacker was struggling to keep on top of the mounting bills. He wasn't paying himself what he was worth, either. So he called Two-Brain Business. With Two-Brain's guidance, Thacker got rid of discounts on training, shored up his service, increased his rates and ensured he was getting ROI on his expenses. Now with a longer onboarding process, and the addition of g...
Aug 11, 2022•56 min•Season 3Ep. 379
You're making good money at your gym. You have great client retention and a solid headcount. Things are going well. So what now? In today's episode of Two-Brain Radio, Chris Cooper helps you scale beyond your current gym. He discusses how to prepare your team to run your gym without you so you can tackle your next endeavor. Chris also takes you through your options as an entrepreneur. Expand your gym? Open a second location? Start another business entirely? Once your gym's success has given you ...
Aug 08, 2022•22 min•Season 3Ep. 378
Can Two-Brain Business help gyms outside the U.S. and Canada? Yes! Two-Brain is the largest gym mentorship company in the world and has helped over 2,000 gyms all over the globe. We have clients in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, France, Ireland, the U.K., Chile, Brazil, United Arab Emirates, Taiwan, Japan and many other countries. Two-Brain also has multilingual mentors in a host of different countries. The main thing Chris Cooper has learned by helping business owners around t...
Aug 04, 2022•11 min•Season 3Ep. 377
You want your business to run like a well-oiled machine—whether you’re there or not. But you can’t do that if the systems that keep the machine running are all in your head. In today’s episode of Two-Brain Radio, Chris Cooper shares a valuable lesson from 2020 Summit speaker and retired Navy SEAL Jocko Willink: Discipline equals freedom. The secret to generating more revenue in your gym isn’t raising rates or getting more clients. It’s discipline. It’s having systems and standards in place that ...
Aug 01, 2022•21 min•Season 3Ep. 376
The CrossFit Games: You're there to watch the athletes and events. But what else would the clever affiliate owner do in Madison to grow a gym business? In today's episode of Two-Brain Radio, Chris Cooper gives you some last-minute advice on tackling the Games correctly as an affiliate owner. He discusses the booths you should visit, the people you should meet, and the ways you can enhance the experience for yourself, your team and your community back home. Enjoy the 2022 Games! 00:27 - Why the G...
Jul 28, 2022•14 min•Season 3Ep. 375
How do you build an A+ staff? It's a critical question. Hire the wrong people and you'll have headaches. Put the right people in the wrong chairs and you'll have headaches. But if you get the right people in the right roles, your business will grow quickly, and you'll be surrounded with happy, talented team members who make life better for you and your clients. In this episode, Chris Cooper explains how Two-Brain hires mentors—and he'll tell you exactly how you can apply a similar process in you...
Jul 25, 2022•13 min•Season 3Ep. 374
How did gym owner Brian Bott reach $426 and earn a spot on this month's average revenue per member leaderboard? Semi-private training! Bott's impressive stats are primarily the result of personal training done in groups of no more than four. This isn't "small-group training" where each client does a variation of the same workout. Instead, a highly skilled coach delivers completely individualized programming to three or four clients at the same time. In this podcast, Bott spills the secrets and l...
Jul 21, 2022•59 min•Season 3Ep. 373
Gym owner and Two-Brain Business Mentor Lisa Palmer earned a spot on the leaderboard this month with a $341 per month average revenue per member score. In this video, she shares the three simple strategies she employed to get there: 1. Athlete check-ins. 2. Transformation packages. 3. Choice. By truly getting to know her members' needs, Lisa calibrated her program to include specialty offerings that help clients hit their goals faster. These high-touch, high-value add-ons helped boost her gym's ...
Jul 18, 2022•40 min•Season 3Ep. 372
Ashley Haun, Nyree Segui and Scott Romijn were recipients of this year's Two-Brain Awards in the Coach Education and Opportunity, Future Star and Owner Lifestyle categories. These intrepid leaders were laser focused on developing their teams, laying the groundwork for future success and enjoying the fruits of their labor. We chat with them to find out about the obstacles they met along the way, how they were able to work through them and what lies on the other side. Whether you're shifting your ...
Jul 14, 2022•15 min•Season 3Ep. 371
What sets the best gyms apart from the rest? In this episode, we talk to the recipients of this year's Two-Brain Awards for Gyms of the Year (Culture and Metrics) and Comebacks (Resilience). Kyle Cato, David Allen, Charlie Banfield and Rich Borgatti have weathered the past year with grace and fortitude, and they've come out even stronger. Cato and Allen were recognized as the top Two-Brain gym owners when it comes to culture and key performance indicators, and Banfield and Borgatti faced down hu...
Jul 11, 2022•36 min•Season 3Ep. 370
Developing your coaches won't grow your business. It can be hard to hear this, but simply investing in coach education might actually harm your gym instead. In this episode, Chris Cooper cites some examples of coach development gone wrong, but he also shows you the coach-development systems you can implement to benefit your coaches— and your gym and its members. When it comes to coach development, more knowledge is not the problem. If you want great career coaches, don't just send them away to g...
Jul 07, 2022•18 min•Season 3Ep. 369
If you want to have a successful service-based business, you have to build around the needs of your clients. In this episode of Two-Brain Radio, Chris Cooper gives you a framework to build a "client-centric business" using your mission, model and method. First you must clearly define your mission. Second, identify the strategy to achieve that mission—that's your model. Third, your method is your mechanism of delivery, which evolves over time to include new and more effective elements. Clearly ma...
Jul 04, 2022•13 min•Season 3Ep. 368
Thinking about buying a gym? While it's easy to get distracted by all the bells and whistles, you really need to ask three major questions first: 1. Is the space the gym is in leased or owned? 2. What are the assets and debts of the current business? 3. What contracts are currently in play and what exactly do they say? Gym Lawyers founder Matthew Becker takes you through these questions and explains how the answers can affect the sale of a business. Are there more legal issues that can have an i...
Jun 30, 2022•35 min•Season 3Ep. 367
Every business scales through four distinct stages. Chris Cooper talks a lot about the four phases of entrepreneurship: Founder, Farmer, Tinker and Thief. To move from one phase to the next, you need to do the following: systemize, optimize, grow and scale. If you do these things out of order, you can break your business or go bankrupt yourself. The best way to proceed is to seek guidance from someone who has done it before: a mentor. Links "Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief" 0:55 - Stage 1: System...
Jun 27, 2022•17 min•Season 3Ep. 366
As a gym owner, you'll likely face some issues when it comes to your lease. Three of the most important elements: rent (including CAM expenses), use of premises, and additional costs you're responsible for through "triple net" leases (insurance, maintenance, etc.). How do you negotiate a better lease for your gym business? Is your rent increase justified? What happens when your use of the premises—dropping plates, loud music—becomes a problem for other tenants? We pose these questions and more t...
Jun 23, 2022•36 min•Season 3Ep. 365
Every successful entrepreneur needs to master four habits in order to make $1 million, $10 million or more: discipline, respect, influence and behavior. You need to do one thing each day to grow your business before you do anything else. You need to respect others and teach everyone around you to behave the same way. You need to share your mission every single day with people inside and outside your business. You need to identify your heroes and take the actions they would take. These four habit...
Jun 20, 2022•9 min•Season 3Ep. 364
As a gym owner, your method and your model will likely evolve over time. Your method should be "client centric": It should be based on what your clients need . Your model is there to give clients your service in the way they want to buy it. At Chris Cooper's gym, Catalyst, the Prescriptive Model guides the business. The prescription changes over time to serve the exact needs of clients, and the model reflects that. Your method might be Pilates or yoga or CrossFit—but the "meta" model should alwa...
Jun 16, 2022•19 min•Season 3Ep. 363
