Most fitness businesses suck, but most coaches are pretty good. I know this because I lived it. My business systems were a two outta 10. My coaching was about a seven. After I improved my business systems to an eight, I needed to improve my coaching, but I didn't know how. This is a common problem in gyms all over the world. How do you systematically improve your product? And the answer isn't. Just get more credentials.
Today I've got Oscar Joe Head here, and he's gonna give us the real answer. My name, Mike Kinin . This is Run a Profitable Gym . Please hit subscribe so you don't miss a single episode. Now, Oscar owns CrossFit medicine, CrossFit SLA in Sweden. He's also on CrossFit's level one seminar staff Coaching is one of his passions.
His gym has more CrossFit level three trainers than any other in Sweden and maybe even in the world at this point. His gym does over a million dollars in revenue just by focusing on basics and delivering amazing service. So Oscar's gonna help us systematically improve coaching. Welcome Oscar from Sweden. How are you ?
I'm good. Thank you , Mike for that introduction. Yeah,
You're very welcome. It's always a pleasure to talk to you, especially about something that you are very passionate about. So I'm gonna dig in here and let's help some people fix their coaches. So talk to me about a gym's product. What is the main thing that we are selling?
Coaching, like results. Like it's, we can talk about, you know, self-actualization and, and , uh, stress and pain relief and, and , uh, dream fulfillment and all this stuff. But at the end of the day, we sell results. Like, it's, it's, it's , that's what we deliver and that mostly is linked to like aesthetics and maybe some performance and, and weight loss.
But it's, you know, we sell coaching to improve people's fitness and then we know there are cascading effects of that that can be , uh, psychological and emotional and spiritual for that matter. But at the end of the day, I think we, we, we sell coaching and some people might talk about , you know, the care and empathy and compassion, you know, sure.
But it honestly, I think if someone's yelling at me, but, and , and called me weird names, but still got me really close to my results, I'd probably take that. So I think coaching is about giving people results.
You sell as a gym owner. Results that are generated through coaching. You don't sell community. You don't sell clean bathrooms. You don't sell reverse hypers and cool air bikes and all that stuff. That stuff can be in your gym, but you don't sell it. You are selling results through coaching. So think about that. Some people, I made this mistake, I thought I was selling community. I'm not, I'm selling results.
So Oscar, when is a time to focus on a gym's product? Like I focused it on the wrong, at the wrong time when I was losing $5,000 a month and I'm like, I'll improve my coaching and everything will get better. That didn't happen. So when should a gym focus on coaching?
Well, like , I think it kind of depends. See , two things come to my mind. One is obviously if you are a, the , the , you know, the owner that runs the gym by yourself, and now you're gonna start, you know, offloading some of the , the tasks to your team, then probably you should start focusing on coaching before you fully step away from the dance floor.
Because there's gotta be a pretty big discrepancy be between the , the care and , and the quality of coaching from the owner. And when you start filling in part-time trainers or even , uh, full-time trainers.
So in order to make sure that that transition is as smooth as possible, you probably have to start doing that before there's like, Hey, you , you know, the owner coaches, you know, the , the Friday evening class and then Monday comes a complete newbie and it's gonna be huge discrepancy of , of , of the product. That's, it's gonna be unfortunate. It's gonna be, you know, a necessary hole to dig yourself.
But from a more general perspective, I, I think that it is the product that we sell, but you should probably focus more on that, like right before it is no longer your strongest spinning plate. You know, you obviously want to make your coaching better, your product better be also better at sales. You need to be better at marketing, better at, you know, average staff development.
You need to be better at managing your time. You need to be better at, you know, building relationships, taking care of yourself, like retention, you know what I mean ? All that stuff, right? So there's so many things that we, that we could potentially focus on, but since it is the number one product, it's the one thing we sell.
So when that, when you think that you , your , you know, your sales is better, like objectively, then probably you need to focus on that. 'cause at the end of the day, at least according to me and what I've seen over the years is it is the product. Like you , you , you coach people to get results and it doesn't really matter how nice the bathrooms are. People will not sign up if the bathrooms are dirty.
You know, we know that for sure and all the other things, but at the end of the day, people want results. So when something gets better, when something gets notably, gets notably better, then I think that it's time to like maybe start focusing on that.
And, and to your point, like if we go back 10 years or so, coaching was pretty decent around 'cause a lot of, at least the spice , semi CrossFit space, people were, the owners were pretty excited about coaching. They got really good maybe, you know, seven, maybe eight, maybe even nine out of 10. But they didn't really focus on, on the business.
And you know, when the heyday of CrossFit were kind of over in a sense, you have to focus the business stuff. And now a lot of people fix the business stuff with , you know, from the resources and what we can provide in two brain . So the , the operations of the business, you know, the , the behind the scenes so to say might be, you know, six, seven, and eight, but now the product is not there anymore.
And then it doesn't really matter how good your sales if, if you're losing people, because once again, results are gonna give retention. That's gonna bring a thriving community. 'cause people are fit, people are happy, people get results, but the product is really important. So I'd say make sure like right before something gets better is probably when you should focus on the product.
Yeah. And I can name maybe off the top of my head a dozen amazing coaches. These were top level coaches who don't coach anymore because they, their businesses were bad just like mine was, mine was bad. They're gone. So the , the coaching space has lost these like leading lights and these were great, great trainers because they didn't were able to run a business.
So what Chris Cooper's talked about is that passionate coaches, you know, we wanna coach people and we kind of end up opening gyms on the side often. So the coaching's pretty good, but the business aspect is horrific. Once you get the business plate that's wobbling to spin really nicely, then you start looking over at your coaching, you're like, I haven't addressed that in a while. Now it's time to get it.
So I'd say in agreement with you, Oscar, when your business is stable and things are going pretty well on the other side, meaning your operations are good, your staffing's good, your coach , or sorry, your uh, uh, systems, business, sales, marketing, retention, all that stuff is going pretty well. Start looking at your product again, then you can really focus on that.
Because if your product is great and your business system suck, you can go outta business that will happen. So let's talk about this now. What is like you're looking to improve your product? What are the first steps to doing? So like how do you ensure that this process is simple, you know, focused and effective?
Because a lot of people are just like , uh, we need to make our coaching better, try harder and maybe get another credential. Like that's not the answer. What is,
Get a awesome business partner that takes care , care of a lot of the hiring. 'cause I think like you can avoid a lot of problems by hiring the right people, right? And in my case, Carl , you know, we've been doing this together now for 10 years and he's, at least for the last three years, it's been really hard on like, in , in hiring coaches.
That's been his side of, of , of the business and it's been doing a really good job there and like making sure we hire the right people.
This is , it's, it's gotta be very hard to eventually get people to really wanna outperform themselves every single time to step on a dance floor, be compassionate, ask that another question, make sure that pick up the trash, maybe spend two more minutes at looking up a, a progression for the class for someone who has an injured leg or something.
And that's so much easier if you have the right people you can mold from the start. So to say. So hiring is obviously something we should be better at.
I'm gonna ask you this, Coupa said this hire for personality and train for skill. Do you do that?
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Like , like all our trainers , we got, currently we have nine, nine individuals that has passed a level three. We can talk about that separately about credentials and all that stuff if , if needed. But three of us have made it to CrossFit seminar stuff .
And I, and I think one, like one of us maybe have a, like , some kind of degree in like, like no one has a university degree in, in strength and conditioning. We are all just, you know, oh you're
A banker,
You're right bankers and , and you know, average people like that got pretty good at one thing here 'cause we cared about it. So that is something I wholeheartedly agree with.
Now it's very hard, like, you know that in the beginning you get any , if anyone can alleviate the pressure of you having coach every morning, every lunch and every evening, you can take anyone that can just like not mess it up worse than no one, right? Yeah.
You're awake and breathing,
Right? And, and , and if they can smile, that's even better, right? So in the beginning you obviously take whatever so you can spend some time with your family that you know, or take care of yourself. So you , you kind of have, you know, some people in your organization to have to deal with. But going forward, I think number one thing is to make sure you hire right people , uh, for what you're looking, looking for.
We can talk about credentials again, but whatever you're looking for in your organization, that's what you should hire for right? Now when you have people there , you know, you should obviously focus under the lowest hanging fruits 'cause we've talked about previously like there's gonna be spinning plates everywhere. There are gonna be fires burning and you have to let some fires burn.
And then they have the whole like, hey, what's important, what's urgent? But if you look at like, how can you get some quick wins? And I think if I just look at like if you have, you know, a, I talked about this on, on the summit, like if you have like a , a newer coach and intermediate and like a, a more season coach, like three avatars or so, we actually have more steps.
But if you have like a junior mid and then experienced if you were a newbie, just make it fun. 'cause if , if someone just gave you the keys like, hey, here's the shirt going coach your class now you're gonna be yeah, deer in headlights, you're gonna be super like intimidated and you're gonna be quiet, right?
And so you need confidence and confidence is gonna come with experience, but if you like genuinely believe in what you're doing as an organization, you are gotta be more confident. So if you're a new, new coach, if you just make it fun, I think that's gonna improve the , the product short term pretty quickly.
Uh , if, if you are a a , uh, like a more seasoned coach or senior coach, experienced coach, like they've been doing it for a while , if you just decide to focus on one thing this af after you listen to this podcast and you're like, you know what, today we're gonna be doing the power cleans. I'm gonna teach one thing in the power clean . I'm gonna look for one thing.
And again, I'll try to correct it or, you know, acknowledge improvements here. Like you , you know, we can look at 20 different things in every single movement, which is quite a lot. And then different individuals respond differently. But if you decide, hey, today I'm just gonna focus on this one thing, I'm gonna address this, I'm gonna be looking for that one.
I, and that's the one thing I'm gonna have you cues for so I can correct them . That's gonna make me, 'cause I know what to look for and I know what to say. If I don't see it, and if I see it, I'm gonna say, good job. Because at the end of the day, as a trainer, my job is to honestly be able to say, Hey Mike, that's better.
Like that , that's better in terms of like reducing the risk of injury or improving your performance or in effort. Hey, I know even if I looked at recording that one did not look any better than the previous one, but I can sure tell that you're trying. So, hey, good job on trying, right? Finding wins. Yeah. 'cause then you go, dude, I'm going to the Olympics or across the games pretty soon, right?
Because that's what we're looking for. You then objectively made the product better. 'cause you feel, or we can see noticeability change in your performance. So just focus on one thing and co consistently do that. And then you can start adding two things maybe per movement and three and four and five and all of a sudden everything's better.
And then like as a group, what you could do that we do now , you know, we're not doing like this month focus on one thing. Hey team, just make sure that the whiteboard reef is no longer than four minutes. Like no one came for this into lecture. So hey, let's just, and Carl did this in maybe let's say , uh, March or April. Hey, he recorded a 10 out of 10 like whiteboard brief. Like this is the workout.
Like this is, this is what, this is the how and this is the why. And then like, you know, check for injuries and demo the movements done in two minutes and 20 seconds, right? And if you're a complete newbie, you can just say we're doing five by five back squat . This is a back squat, it looks like this and we're doing it .
Get stronger and more season training can talk about like energy systems or like how you're gonna have maybe some like you improving weight and then you're gonna like, are we gonna do straight sets or undulate or whatever. But just like this is what we focus on everyone, right?
In this month, next month you might be focused on, hey team, just make sure that no one stands around and listening for more than one minute after the workout has started or the , the session has started. Or let's just focus on, make it fun. So hey , prepare a few ridiculous jokes or have like a, a question you ask everyone. Run , run , whiteboard. Hey, what , who's your favorite superhero?
Or like, something that we can all agree on so we do something consistently to bring up the consistency in the product. Does that make sense?
Yeah. And I'm, I'm gonna point this out for listeners in case you missed it. Oscar is focused, he's recommending you improve one thing, make sure it's better, then hit the next thing. You can't just say, I'm gonna improve every single aspect of coaching all at once. I'm gonna make you see correct whiteboard, brief, everything, you know, remember people's names . Uh , it's frazzled, it doesn't work.
You need to focus on small aspects of improvement and incrementally improve things over time with focus. So Oscar gave a great example this month we're working on better whiteboard briefs and there are different levels within his system for beginner and expert coaches. But the point is we're doing a short brief. We're explaining why we're doing the workout, we're demoing the movement and then we're getting moving.
Something like that, right? An area of focus. The other thing you said that I'll reiterate, hire the right people. It's tough to do this sometimes because you're frazzled and frantic and you can't figure out how am I gonna see my kids today? You hire anyone, you put them in place, not maybe the best plan you might have to do at the beginning, but the better plan is to find the right person and its personality first.
Does this person wanna learn? Is this person passionate? Is this person likable? That's a huge one. But because if you hire a really skilled jerk, your product is not gonna improve. Hire a likable, passionate, teachable person that you can mentor to success. Integrate them in your business. Let them know your vision and so on and so forth. And then you're gonna have focus on improving them.
So Oscar, I gotta ask you this now. 'cause you, you've laid out the focus for these things. You've talked about hiring the right people, you hire a person. Now how do you ensure, like what is your system for ensuring that these people regularly get points of performance and improvement? Like, do you evaluate them regularly? What do you do to make sure they're moving from here to there?
Yeah , so we've laid out a , a pretty extensive , uh, culture journey that starts well before someone becomes say . So before you put on your coach's shirt, you have gone through our internal training, which is, you know, we coach it call course like , uh, coach basic training where you look in our case it some material from the level one, some level two stuff.
Some , uh, it's , it's an advanced version of the advanced theory course that most people run into Brent . So it's a , we kind of mix a bit of, of , uh, we actually made an online course. So we have like modules so they can just log in and they can answer some questions about like, what we do . Yeah. So because we car did all of this by hand in the beginning, that was great, but right.
Think right now we , we might have like 30 people in our system and it's cool thing now is that we have, it's just an open funnel. So Mike, if you wanna become a coach at our gym in the past we had to sit down and interview you. What Carlos's done brilliantly is that he will send you a link first. It's actually gonna ask you like, record a session of like three to five minute video.
On , on, these are our values. We fundamentally wanna improve the health and quality of life our , of our, our members and their families. How does that resonate to you? Why do you wanna be a coach? Send us a video. And if that one is not like a eight or nine out of 10, we're just gonna say bye. That's
Personality right there. You're screening for personality.
Yeah, and everyone , obviously everyone could make something up, but that's perfectly fine. But then we send you a link and you start going through some modules on , on what we believe is fundamental basic understanding of CrossFit. If you are a strengths and conditioning coach, you don't have CrossFit.
Or if you're a member that coming up through ranks, you might know the application of CrossFit because you've been a member of ours, but you don't really understand the , the, the, the theory behind it. So we created modules where we go through what we are like a very, very, very condensed slim down version of the L one in like 15 minute chunks, like super small, right ?
Take some quizzes and then after they've completed that, they again , then uh , we sit in.
So if you might be coaching and I, and uh , I have a newbie coach, we'll sit in and watching you run in class and I will take, I will explain to that person what you're doing and what you're doing well and maybe what you aren't doing so well, what you should be doing 'cause and then you to maybe one or two times we then make sure that you know that the newbie coach might be doing the general warmup and then
they're walking right by you. So we gradually increased if they're doing well, gradually increased the responsibility they can take. So then a more season trainer, they used to be Carl and he was just not burned out, but he was all over the place doing this.
So if you're a season trainer, our gym , you can then mentor someone here and then they might be start doing, you know, the general warmup a few times and that's when that's good enough based on our criteria, your criteria that we've written out and you giving feedback after each session. Hey, you know, you were moving well you gotta be louder. Like you need to make it fun, use more names.
But the thing you got feedback on the last time, that was a huge improvement. Now you need to make sure you mention it by name and you can't be quiet. So, and then if I coach that person next time I know that feedback. So, hey, I heard you, you aced the first part, but you today you're gonna focus on names and be louder. Do you have a strategy for that? I'm like , uh, yes, cool.
And then I if give feedback on that and when they pass it , the , you know, the , the basics, they maybe get to next step, which means by specific thing and then the full workout and then they do the entire session. And then when that is good enough, they then have the right to become a coach. In our case they have to have the L level one as well and then we can put them out on the dance floor.
What we saw in the spring, 'cause we onboarded quite a few new client or coaches, is that it's very important for us to start in time and finish in time, right? Because our , our members are very, very , uh, they're busy. So for us, that's, that's a , that's a promise we've made. Like I know Jim's that it was , that's more fluent so to say in in , in ,
I can't stand it.
No . Hey , and I understand, but that's our promise. And some, some coaches, that's fine chip , but for us we said, you know what, we're gonna start and finish on time because we know your life is very busy. So in the beginning we thought that they were, yeah, they were really adamant of making sure that, so they lost that, that, you know , the fun . So, and they, they spent so much time focusing on the clock.
So they kind of, they did some of the coaching and teaching part, but forgot the coaching, which is more about the seeing and correcting and that . So what we do now is that your first 10 sessions, you're gonna be an assistant coach. So all you do is just walk around and make sure you pretty much on one thing. Like in the power clean today I'm gonna look at hip extension.
I'm gonna be looking at, if I see something that's auto , you know, ridiculous or unsafe, of course you're gonna fix it and you are free to fix something else, but you're gonna fix one thing per movement that you've talked with this more senior coach about that runs the class and you're just gonna run around as an assistant coach and see and correct .
So you get really comfortable walking up to someone, Hey Mike, shoulders back. Good job. Thank you. No, no , that , that's not the shoulders that your knees shoulders are it , right? So they got , so for about 10 sessions you just want them to run around and get comfortable to, in someone's face and say, good job, I genuinely mean it. Or Hey, you need to work harder or do x, y, z .
And then maybe after 10 sessions they then can run the class by themself . Then that's when they're like, now starts. The fun part now is we are probably gonna do weekly evaluations with them.
Wait, so you don't just cut your new coaches loose in the gym and never evaluate them ever again? 'cause I did that.
Well I, that, that would've never have had. Yeah , that would've never happened in the past ever at our gym , which did , right.
It's so common though. It's so common. You just, you're desperate. So you put these people in place and you're like, Godspeed, my friend, coach the snatch, I'm out. And then all of a sudden everything goes wrong. So you've, you've documented, you have a progression for getting people into the gym.
You have an elite level progression where you've got everything documented in online modules, but then you're actually gonna evaluate and mentor these people after they become coaches.
Oh yeah. So yes. You know, you know, 'cause with our product right now, our coaching is, it's, it's, I can confidently say to the clientele that we have, our coaching is almost too good. So when we have newer coaches that come in, they've been going through maybe six months of training before they get to step foot on the tennis floor as a responsible trainer for that session.
So most of these trainers are far more experienced and, and, and better at the craft than a lot of the trainers that I see on the L two. But because of the standard that we have of really senior good trainers, there's pretty still a huge discrepancy. Our members are very patient, but if they're not proving quick enough, we will hear about it. So we've made our product almost too good, but we, we wanna continue that.
So what we do is we've written down like expectations per level. So we have seven levels from let's say six from when you're like a, a coach, high five , you, you , you just hatched, you coach your first session. We only expect you pretty much to by yourself. It's gonna be like, hey, start on time, finish on time. Make it fun, have fun, make it as safe as possible, right? That's the only thing we ask for.
When you run your first five or so sessions when you've done that, maybe by sessions five or six to 10 start using names. Like when you teach something, you're gonna name it and show it. Like you don't have to do anything more than that. We don't expect you to have a, you know, find eye on what you're looking for. If you just go, Hey, this is a power clean it looks like this. Now do it. That's fine.
For maybe a few sessions, maybe two more weeks, then we might evaluate you again. Okay, now, now you taught the power clean . What would be one thing you want them to focus on today? Well , hip extension, cool. Focus on hip extension. So if you focus on hip extension and you teach it, maybe you should have a strategy to correct that and you know what it looks for. Yes. Okay, so then you look for that.
So, and that's for teaching and seeing and correcting. And then you have the same, like if you look at something like presence and attitude, like we might just expect them to make it fun and have fun for the first few sessions, then you start layering the, the complexity by adding names.
But eventually, when you're super elite level ninja, we want you to make deep profound meaning you should , should build meaningful relationships in class without stopping people and sitting down and drinking coffee, right?
So even though you might only have a 22nd conversation with someone while you're correcting their, their, you know, their, their paper extension, you should still be cognizant enough to ask about how , how their day want . Maybe how's their kids doing in school? 'cause last time we spoke they were struggling somewhat and, and how's the new job going without taking away from the product?
So obviously that's far more that we can expect than , than a complete beginner. But there's natural progression here that we have written out for, for everything. So Carl has made a gargan job of like, these are the bare minimum stuff and this is what is what you have to do before you get to be on the dance floor. And now cool, awesome high five , but now we want to get you here within like two and a half years.
Now you should be a CrossFit level three trainer. These are the steps you gotta take. So when we hire people, now we can say that this is like you are here now we want all of this from you in the future. If you're not willing to invest the time and be mentored by us, that is perfectly fine.
But we expect you to do this because that's what we genuinely believe is important to keep the product or the quality of it , uh, to the standard that we have made a promise to our clients about. So it's very detailed that that , and Carl has made an enormous job in the last, I'd say like probably 24 7 in the last, you know, three months or so.
So listeners, what you just heard here is an elite level plan to improve your product at your gym. I'm gonna boil it down for you in case you are not quite at this level. You may not have a Carl at your gym who can do all this stuff for you. Here's how you do it. And Carl's very rare and this is a very top level plan. What you need is regular evaluations.
You cannot just set people loose and assume everything is gonna improve on their own. You must evaluate your coaches regularly. Chris Cooper has recommended three every three or four months, six months, twice a year is better than no times a year, right? Do put a regular evaluation system in place. Okay? So that's your first thing. The second thing you need to be able to evaluate. You need an evaluation .
Evaluation system. Chris has recommended writing down 10 different things that are essential for a great coach. Ranking your coaches out of 10 and starting there. The next thing you can assign, Oscar was big on this focus, you can't improve everything. Give them an area of focus. We want to improve. This is your worst metric. It's seeing and correcting or whatever it might be.
We're going to improve this and we're going to improve this at the next thing. Here are some resources for you. The next evaluation, we're gonna talk about it. If you do this stuff, you are going to get your coaches, they're going to start improving. But you have to have these elements. You can't cut them loose. You have to evaluate them methodically and systematically.
That means you can't just sit in your office and be like, ah , pretty good. No, you are a seven out of 10 in personality. You need to work on that and start being more engaging using members' names. Give them some numbers, document your starting point scientifically, and then give them resources, mentor them to get to the next level. Then check in with them. That process is exactly what Oscar's doing.
But you can do it at a very, very simple level. You might just have five things on your checklist to start. And like Oscar said, for you it might be show up on time, start the class on time, keep the whiteboard brief under four minutes, give the reason for the workout, use some people's names and improve one technical thing. Whatever system you have, make sure it's there.
Evaluate people regularly, mentor them to success. If you do that, you're going to have much, a much better product. I'm gonna ask you this, Oscar, do credentials matter
Like in some context? I think they do like in like I know CrossFit space well, so in order to coach at a CrossFit gym, you do need a level one or higher to to be on the dance floor. So that's because of, of the licensing agreement that you've signed. And there might be other franchise models or, or or um, uh, what's like compliance, the the compliance side of it, you might need it.
There are some insurance requirements. Sure,
Sure. Yeah. That aside credentials might not matter, but the pursuit of it does. I think.
So that's an important distinction. Yeah, I get you
Because I'm intimately familiar with the level three exam . It's, it's an exam that's 160 questions. You sit down in front of a computer for four hours and then I think it's like A, B, C, and D. So theoretically you could go in there and just go ababa A , B , B and then you might pass it, right? And then you have the credential on the wall. Would that make you a better CrossFit trainer?
Of course not that , that of every can I wanna extent understand that. Uh, so, but what I've seen if I look at our trainers and when I went through that in 2017 is that I, I did it not because I wanted the credential on the wall, I just knew that someone said, Hey, you should know all of this.
If you know all of this then can apply it in the context that I'm in that would earn you the right to call yourself this. Okay, sweet. And someone's laid out what I need to know, let's get after it. And personally it would not make any sense to spend like six months, you know, four hours a day to pass an exam. And they're like, you know what? I have all these knowledge now and I'm not gonna apply it.
That would just be ridiculous to me . You could technically do that. So I can just look at, we had a coach that passed 11 three weeks exam a few weeks back.
And so we had like, we have like weekly like study groups for our coaches that we could sit down and we review a, a, you know, a a video or or a , you know, an article or so, or talk look at videos of people you know moving and I could see the shift week to week . We said, hey, let's look at in our, you know , in CrossFit, the eight common movement themes . Look at, let's look at midline stabilization.
Now we talked about that for an hour. Looked at some videos and then we said, hey, go out and apply that specifically. Look for that when you coach for the next few hours in the next few sessions and see if you can identify your eye and be better looking for midline stabilization. Oddly enough, they get better at that and then they keep doing that for every single thing.
Like, you know , they read about the zone 'cause that's a part of the test. So they want on the zone diet for three days just to fin their eye and calibrate this stuff to apply it, right?
So like you would be a complete idiot if you did not apply the knowledge that someone is handing you if you take the time to go through a certification regardless of that's a weightlifting, gymnastics or, or nutrition or mindset or whatever.
So no , the diploma doesn't make any sense, but the pursuit of getting there, as long as there's some kind of practical part to it, then I guarantee as a residual consequence of you earning that paper on the wall, you should be a better trainer.
Yeah. So my position is, is very similar to yours. I think you need a bare minimum qualification that gets you, that may allows you to be insured, right? And you have to have some technical knowledge of some stuff. Like you can't just be a fitness coach and have no clue about anything. You need to understand something. And in addition to that, you need to have a desire to improve your craft.
Now, whatever that might be, because here's the thing, if I get another credential, let's say I decide I wanna do a Cs, CS and I'm gonna invest all this time in studying for this exam and blah blah blah blah, but I'm still kind of a jerk and not very likable in front of my clients, it's not gonna make me a better coach because my clients are all gonna leave because I'm an, right?
So here's the thing, I would evaluate more credentials, but like this, will this credential allow me to produce better results faster for my clients? If the answer is yes, get that credential. If the answer is no you don't need it because it's just another thing on your business card co written about this. He had this business card with all these alphabet soup on it.
It didn't make him a better coach and he was very knowledgeable, maybe the best, most knowledgeable trainer in his entire town, but he said he was going broke, right? So the idea is get the credentials that allow you to work, pursue improvement at all times. But that improvement may re may require credentials.
Like if you wanna take an Olympic weightlifting course for it to be a specialty coach to help your clients qualify for the, you know, the totals they want. Yes. But you don't have to get every single credential because you might be able to work within your gym system like Oscar you said Carl has set up .
Working through that system will also allow you to become an excellent coach even without an additional letter after your name. So that's I think a really, really key one. I wanna ask you this Oscar, as we close this out, we talked about focus. So focus this for our listeners. What can a gym owner right now do to start improving a coaching product? And let's keep it super simple.
Help them figure out one thing that they could actionably to do today at whatever level they're at to start making their product better.
Oh , one thing it's gonna be,
I'll give you a couple,
I'm , yeah, trying to be as concise as possible. Like the number one thing, the number one rule I have is to never walk by someone without saying something. So like the worst thing you can do is just ghost someone. Just not even acknowledging them. Good lift slightly not, no , not even that. Slightly better , slightly better is just like, hey , good.
At least you're , and then like slightly better than that is still like, good job Mike.
With the name. Yeah the name, right? Pretty
Still pretty bad, right? Then slightly better would be, Hey Mike, you're rounding your back. Like at least I'm acknowledging that you're doing something wrong that's still pretty low . They would not even meet the high bar. But then like, okay, maybe my chest up, right? And then acknowledge high five , better job .
So like, make sure you never walk by someone and if, like, if you move systematically, if you coach more than one person, if you just make sure you move systematically. Like if you walk, you know, you start from the whiteboard and you , you keep walking clockwise in the room. Like, and if you allow yourself to never walk by someone, as a rule of thumb, never walk by someone without saying honestly say good job.
Once again, only good job in terms of good effort. I see no improvement but good effort. Or actually that is an improvement in your mechanics then that everyone at the end of the class would have like the total number of like good jobs would be equal, right? So never walk by someone without actually acknowledging something. And if you're gonna say something, at least make it productive.
So that's a really good one. That could be something in your coaching progression at your gym. So now Oscar, talk to me like I'm a gym owner and I've just reached the level where my systems are acceptable now the gym is running pretty well, there's no raging fires burning and we've determined you are my mentor and I'm the gym owner. We've determined that like it's time to look at your product right now.
Your sales are good, your retention is great, your length of engagement, your average revenue per member, all these numbers are really good, but your coaching maybe could get a little better as a gym owner, I'm your mentee. What would you tell me? What is the focus starting point for me to start making my product better now that my business is pretty good?
Number one is obvious . I think one of the, one of the pieces obviously define the process. Like at some point you need to, you know, write out your coach journey. You have something you can show for people.
It's gonna , you also need to like have your expectations or your SOP like this is, you know, this , these are the minimum requirements, maybe just minimum requirements total or just like, hey, by , you know, experience level , start writing out your, your standards or, or your, your expectations. You gotta make it easier because then you say, Hey Mike, you're a newbie coach, you're here right now.
Don't worry about all the other stuff. Focus on A, B and C period. Now we're gonna start moving you towards DEF and these are the things, but don't worry about that eventually. So that thing obviously is very important. I thing that that something that's also very, very fact goes fast is record your sessions.
We do that, we mic ourselves up with a, with a, you know, wireless mic 'cause it's great if you are a trainer or head coach can evaluate all your stuff , but you can't 'cause they're in the weekends where you're spending time with your family. Just mic yourself up with a wireless mic, have a, you know, put up your cell phone in corner room and then watch it afterwards. And it is gonna be huge.
So if you as a coach or the head coach or the owner would do that and just put that 'cause you're still probably the best, one of the best trainers in your gym. And then you can evaluate yourself. Like , team, here are three things that I think I did pretty well. Here are I think pretty bad things. These are things that I probably should improve on.
'cause then you show that you're pretty open and vulnerable to your staff, but they're still gonna think you're amazing. And then that is a , a very effective way to get your coaches to level up, to watch yourself. 'cause it's, it's very uncomfortable to watch yourself. And then after that you start getting feedback from someone who's better than you are.
It could be in this case that you get your more junior coaches to record themselves coaches session, they evaluate themselves and you say, I agree, keep working on A, B and C. You can also watch you but get, you know, outside help.
Like I've, I've offered help to, I , I can confidence to say that I, I've , I've offered to like review people's coaching like recorded session and email to me and I will give you feedback in, in a week. And I probably said that for seven years and I've had eh 10 or so people take me up on the offer. So I expect and hope that this one might be the one where people go, you know, what
A wasted chance.
Yes. So do it and I and I'll do it. And it , that's a very fast tactical way to improve your things. To your point, you know , I'm not gonna belabor this, but like everybody needs to get better at everything and everybody needs to improve everything in their business. But if you just focus on one thing, your clients are gonna be noticeably changed in in the quality product.
You're gonna tell , dude, that was awesome, thank you very much. And that, that brings that even that that smile that you just gave me is enough for , I'm gonna go, dude, that was pretty fun that I spent two minutes before the session started about figuring out a progression for the double unders or something and it worked.
Dude, think about all the other things that I can improve the product by just spending a tiny, tiny time, tiny amount of time to, to improve it. So you record your sessions, focus on one thing and try to get feedback from, from , uh, from someone else. And uh, one , you know, if I attend , if I'm our gym, if I, if you coach a class, am I , I am a not a coach.
I have to give you three things you did well and one to two things that I think you should do better. So feedback rich environment. And it's, it's hard to say it's uncomfortable but it's very important.
So if you have a structure at your gym right now for coaching, a thing that you could take from this podcast and start doing is record or have your coaches record a session and evaluate it. Even send it to Oscar if you want. That's a really cool thing that you could do if you have that structure.
If you are just at that early stage that I said where I'm at, oh, my gym is finally running well and I wanna start looking at coach development and improving my product, what you're gonna do is you need to set up an evaluation system. What is good and what is better and how are we tracking it, right? It's gotta be meticulous and it doesn't have to be like an endless thing.
Chris Cooper, 10 things essential for a coach. Rate them out of 10. The second thing that I would recommend you do, set up that career journey, exactly what Oscar said. What is the progression of a coach through your gym? And that doesn't have to be a million items either. It's like apprentice , uh, you know, intern program, whatever it is.
And then low level , intermediate expert level , whatever those things are, if you do that, you're gonna be well on your way. And the final thing I'll say, every stage you're at, regular evaluations are essential. If you just set it and forget it, it's gonna burn down in the background while you're doing other stuff. You must do this regularly. You, the owner, the CEO do not have to do this yourself.
Someone has to do it. You could certainly delegate this role to a general manager or a head coach at some point that is very acceptable. But someone needs to be ensuring that your coaches and your product are great. You as the CEO can assign that Oscar, does that make sense to you?
Yeah. So , and and finally one thing that I'm just gonna end on the way we do our evaluations now is that like if you are the coach and I'm evaluating you and I could be to your point the head coach, I could just be slightly more senior than you, honestly, I could actually be less senior than you because it's written down what I should look for because we agreed that's the system .
Yes. And I'm just gonna hold you accountable to what we agreed on you should focus on. So what we do is you coach a class, I'm walking almost right by you. We call it like the bandaid approach.
Yes , I like this one.
I'm walking by you. It's kind of awkward the first few times, but you get around to it. 'cause then if you say you newbie coach, hey, start time, finish on time. Use names, right? If I walk by you every time you say name Mike, good job. You said Sarah's name. Awesome pat and shoulders instant feedback. Yeah. If you walk by someone and like say good job, I'm like, good job. Oh , good job Steven .
Good job, right Mike . So then we can speed up that feedback loop so much faster, right? And then you can instant feedback and then it might be only for the , the warmup. And then after five minutes I alleviate the pressure by walking away 'cause I've already made that session better. And next time we do slightly more, maybe we extend my stay where I'm like close to you for, for slightly longer.
And now like if you're experienced, I will walk by you every single, like I will walk right by you and give you instant feedback all the time. 'cause I can talk in one ear and you can apply that right away in your sessions. It takes some time. But that's something that's extremely powerful.
And if someone wants to begin to that or send me a recording of, of your coaching, hit me up and I can link you up with myself or Carl and we'd be more than willing to share how we do things.
Where would they send that?
So Oscar with a K, let's do a two . Brainin business.com is gonna be the easiest one. So Oscar with a k@twobraininbusiness.com. I do think, I don't know if card send it to me. And I, I don't know if his card or call that . So I don't really know him to send it to me. And I will, I will forward it to him if needed. That
Is a huge bonus for podcast listers. If you want Oscar to take a look at your coaching. Oscar interrupted his vacation to talk to me this morning and uh, his afternoon. So I wanna thank you for doing that. Oscar, this has been super great. You've given people a ton of stuff where they can, you they can use to improve their product at their business. Thank you.
Thank you my friend
Oscar Joe Head. My name is Mike Warkin and this is Run A Profitable. Jim , thank you so much for watching or listening. Please hit subscribe wherever you are. And now here's Chris Cooper with a final message.
Hey, it's two Brain founder Chris Cooper. With a quick note , we created the Gym Owners United Facebook group to help you run a profitable gym. Thousands of gym owners, just like you have already joined in the group. We share sound advice about the business of fitness. Every day I answer questions, I run free webinars and I give away all kinds of great resources to help you grow your gym.
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