Average revenue per member. This is one of my favorite topics because this number is a force multiplier in gyms. This show is Run a Profitable Gym. I'm your host, Mike Warrington . Please hit subscribe wherever you're watching or listening. Today we're talking with an a RM leader who's gonna explain how he got on two brains top 10 leaderboard for a RM, which runs from 5 0 8 to $1,203. That's not a mistake.
I didn't read that wrong. That number is actually correct in the number one spot. Everyone in our top 10 was over $500 and someone was over a thousand. So my guest today , Yoni Leviton, he runs three Seasons personal training in Toronto, Canada. yoni , welcome. How are you ?
I'm good, thanks.
I'm excited to talk to you about this one. Like I said, this is one of my favorite topics in gyms because this number, you multiply it by your members, multiply it by length of engagement, all of a sudden you start getting big numbers. So talk to me a little bit about your number. How did you get on this leader work ? Like how has your a RM number changed over time and has it always been this high ?
Well, so I , I think the first thing to note is that we just do personal training. Okay. So we've never had open gym , uh, we've never done classes. And so we've , uh, just had , uh, two services, which is one-on-one personal training, and the small group personal training with, you know, up to three or four people at a time. And , uh, at different times.
We've also offered fascial stretch therapy , um, which will I , I guess we can get into a little bit. That's one of the, the ways you can, you know, increase your, your a RM
Very specific services, right? So you're not doing a ton of things. You're doing very specific things.
Uh, I I, I , I guess that's fair to say.
Okay, I like it. A lot of people, I made the mistake of doing the other thing. I, I did a whole bunch of stuff. I tried to have every program under the sun, and I had two people in each one, and it was not a good, a good idea. But the more I talked to gym owners, the more I find that those focuses , those focuses on very specific things, seem to link up with a RM. So tell me about your number.
Has it grown over time? Is it, did it start low? Has it always been high? What have you done?
Uh , it's, it's always been relatively high. Um, I guess , uh, a couple things that have helped it go up over time. Uh, one is, I, I'm not sure when we, we made this decision, but let's say around two years ago , um, I decided we would stop offering one time a week training. Um , I've never had a client in my career reach their goals training one time a week.
Um, and even if you offer to give people homework , um, it just doesn't seem to happen. And that the pattern that was happening again and again is someone, whether it was because of time or budget, it wasn't always because of budget that people wanted to train once a week.
Um , you miss a a week because you're away, and then you get sick and then your kid gets sick, and then meanwhile you've been to the gym twice in six weeks. Um , and then you come in and maybe you tweak something or , uh, you, you know, you've been sedentary at home and then, you know, we have to like start back from square one.
So not only are you not treading water, you know, I , there inevitably reaches a point where someone actually takes a step back because they're moving their body so little. And so , um, and, and the the other thing that kind of , uh, I don't not inspired is not the right word.
The other context behind that is that the personal training studio I worked at, before I started three seasons, there is , broadly speaking two buckets of clients. And so let's say I had, so there, there wasn't, there was too many trainers, like I had maybe 80 hours a month, and but 40 of those hours would come from clients that came three times a week and were very consistent.
And 40 of those hours would come from like a rotating , uh, cast of , of clients that , uh, you know, Joe might come 10 times this month, but three times the next month and six times, and then I don't see him for two months, and then five times per month and then eight times. And, you know, same thing.
Cindy would come, you know, eight times , uh, this month, eight times the next month, and then, you know , I'd see them three times in a two month span. Um , and so those clients were at best treading water. And so it , it might have been good for the business because there was more hours, like there was more cash flow for the, the owners. But as a trainer , um, I could be making more money doing something else.
I'm doing this because I wanna help people improve their quality of life, get back to the activities that they love, avoid surgery, and be able to keep up with their kids or their grandkids. And , uh, so to me, helping someone tread water wasn't meaningful and it wasn't fun and it wasn't interesting. And so, you know, now that, you know, I'm the the boss, you know, I kind of get to decide who I wanna work with.
And , uh, I want to work with people that are not just interested in treading water, but people that are motivated enough and committed enough that they wanna make , uh, like long-term meaningful progress. And, and part of that means you might have a really busy stressful month where we hike back dramatically, right?
Like, if you can normally bench press, you know, 1 35, you know, for 10, maybe that month you're doing 1 35 for five. But that way at least you're taking a step to the side instead of taking a step back by, by doing something and at least keeping what you have. So
You provided a really great example. We've talked before about raising a RM and one of the reasons or ways you can do it is by removing your lowest membership tier. And the , the , the , someone could say, well, doesn't that just cut out a bunch of people? And the answer is, maybe, but you just said that if you do that, you're gonna end up focusing to a greater degree on the people who you can help more.
And that's the really important part because if you get clients' results, they're gonna wanna stay, they're going , going to wanna pay more, they're gonna see the value in your training. And I had the exact same problem in my gym where I had a one time a week membership and I think it was like $55 or something at the time. And I created it just in case people couldn't afford the other options.
But here's what happened, exactly like you said, every single time the one time a weekers would miss a couple of classes, they'd fall off the wagon and I would never see them again. Almost no one renewed that membership. And it was just like the kiss of death when I stopped offering it. I got better retention, I got better results, and my errand went up.
So you just giving me a great example of, if you're thinking about it out there, guys, if you have a membership option that is just not linked to results, isn't the greatest thing for your clients, consider getting rid of it and your AR will probably go up. So that's a really interesting one. Tell me a bit about your business. You talk , you mentioned a few things about what you do.
Uh, how long have you been around, how much space do you have? How many staff members gimme the 4 1 1 and what you do at your space?
Um , so we've been , uh, training people , uh, out of the facility for four years. Uh , started training people in the parking lot four years ago because of lockdown. So , uh, we help people play the sport they love at the level they desire as long as they want. There's a little bit less of, you know, like teenagers that want NCAA scholarships or, you know, pro athletes or , or anything like that and more.
Um, you know, like one of our clients who I, I use as our, our male client avatar, you know, he's in his early forties. Um , he , uh, works in finance, he works , uh, demanding stressful job, and he basically cares about three things in his life. So he cares about his wife and kids. He's very devoted to his family. He cares about his career and he loves skiing.
And even though he is in his early , uh, forties, late thirties when he started, so August will be four years since he started training here, his goal is to take his future grandchildren on a ski trip to celebrate his 80th birthday.
So , um, when I changed my mind about something, so , uh, this was maybe two and a half years ago, I was convinced from someone else that , uh, if you had certain mobility , uh, restrictions that pounding away at , uh, like barbell back squats and dead deadlifts wasn't necessarily the best idea.
And so we tried, you know, so we worked on his mobility for , uh, for a while , uh, more unilateral stuff, a ton of split squats, and then we went back to back squats. And without me even having to do anything as squat, you know, was pretty much perfect. And he felt way better, you know, his, his back felt much better.
Um , and so trying to focus on people that have , uh, kind of a , an eye towards longevity and that they have a , like a , a physical hobby that they really enjoy. Um, so usually it's like skiing or golf or tennis, but it could even be, you know, gardening or, or something like that.
Yeah. So people who wanna perform at a level, however, whatever level that is in the sport that they enjoy, but they're also family and busy people. So, like you said, not tailoring necessarily to athletes, but athletes for life. We'll call 'em something like that . That's a really cool avatar. And you've got it dialed in to the point where you can describe literally what this person does and wants to do.
And I love the idea of skiing at 80. Uh, tell me a space and staff, what have you got?
So the, the main area is 1,530 square feet. And then we also have this office in another part of the building that's 90 square feet. And we've got three, including me, three more or less full-time trainers. Um , so Daisy and myself are five days a week, carries it four days a week. And then , uh, we have two very much part-time trainers. One is only on Zoom and one is , uh, Sundays.
And , uh, kind of acts as a bench coach. And , uh, sorry, what, what else?
That was space and trainers, but I was gonna ask you. Yeah, I was gonna ask you about your small group training. So you said , uh, groups of three or four, are they doing the same workout workout or are they doing their own workout in a group?
So everybody has a custom program , uh, based off of their age injury history, training frequency training age, you know , uh, et cetera . So they're all , uh, doing something different, but they're, because it's in a small group setting, they're having to track their rest.
They're having to write everything down, you know, we're just responsible for, you know, writing the program for safety, you know, helping a little bit with like setup and putting things away. And then if you're doing something like a bench press or a barbell squat, then you'll wait for, you know, the coach to, to spot you.
Right? So this listeners, we often refer to this as semi-private training, small group training. You have people in a group and in some ways you could do a small group of three people who are all doing the same workout . If that suits them, a different option that equals probably higher. A RM is to have people doing their own programs in a small group and one coach circulates among them.
So that means one person's maybe working on deadlifts because he wants to be a power lifter, or someone else over there is working on shoulder mobility because she wants to be a better tennis player and so on and so forth.
Each person is doing their customized program, personalized program, and the coach is helping them saying, okay, great rep there, let's try and tack on, you know, two more next time and so on and so forth. Gyms that do the semi-private model are seeing dramatically higher a RM than ones that are doing the group model, which is one giant class. Everybody has the same workout . So that's an interesting one.
And then PT is also obviously a high value service. Uh, did you set your rates correctly right from the very beginning when you opened your gym in 2020? Or did you have to adjust things as you came along?
Uh , so there was two, sorry, just one thing quickly. Yeah, the other thing that's important for the coach in the small group training is calling the loads. There you go. Perfect . So telling clients, you know, that was too light , that was too heavy. Yeah . Uh , you know, you should do one more rep next time, et cetera .
But any , anyways, so there was two, not huge, but two small, small things that I had to change with pricing. The first was when we started the small group training was half the cost of one-on-one. And I was just finding that it was, especially 'cause everyone gets a custom program. It was, I've, I've raised that to to to 60% and, and now it's at two thirds the cost of one-on-one.
Um, and the other thing was, was , uh, and this is one of the reasons why the a RM is, is high, is , um, when we opened the gym , um, so I just raised the rates of the other trainers for the first time in four years, but my rate has gone up a few times since the gym opened , like as the head coach. And so initially my rate was $10 higher than the other trainers.
And not everyone, but I , you know, most people wanted to train with me. And so then I raised my rate by $20 and then most people still wanted to train with me. And then , uh, two things happened. So one was I raised my rate by $20 again, so I was $50 more than the other trainers. And there was a change, there was some turnover.
So , uh, Jackie , uh, came and joined the team and someone else that wasn't a good fit, a trainer who is very knowledgeable, but not , uh, attentive. And I , the thing I hang my hat on is that the one commonality that all the trainers on our team have is they put their phone away and they give their clients their undivided attention.
And then about a third of my clients, were happy to switch to, to Jackie and ever since and be before that, if I was away, a bunch of my clients would rather just miss their workouts. And now , uh, everybody's happy to have one of the other trainers, you know, filling in for me when, when I'm away.
Um, and so that's been, so I would've started with a bigger price difference between the , the head coach and everyone else. Um, and I would've started with , uh, you under appreciate how much more work it takes to have three or four people training at the same time, both in terms of the energy it takes from you.
Like I can knock out 10 one-on-ones in a day, and as long as I have a break in between like four or five clients, you know, one to two hour lunch , uh, and then, you know, four, four or five clients , um, max, six people in a row. I don't like to do more than four or five in a row, but if there's three or four people, it's really hard for me to do more than two or or three of those in a row.
And I, I, I could not, well, we don't have enough people anyways, but I, I couldn't do 10 of those in a day . I'd probably be capped out at, I don't know , let's say six, maybe even five.
And that makes sense. It's, it's, it's a slightly lower value service because you're not getting one-on-one attention, but you're getting a lot of one-on-one attention. You're getting a customized program and a lot of the elements of personal training, and maybe what happens is, like you do your set I to give you a form queue and I tell you your next load and then I move on to the next person.
And all we're doing is we're cutting out that banter in between sets about the weekend and we're coming back to the focus part. There's not a whole lot less attention. So semi-private training is a very, very high value service. And one-on-one is slightly higher value, but it's still, you know, semi-private still works very, very well.
You gave yourself a $50 raise, so you gave you , it took a $50 raise , uh, per hour for , uh, for you to get some clients to jump down to someone else, right?
So well , so then what happened is , uh, about half of the people that were signing up still wanted to train with me.
And so, so this is one of the, the , the things is , uh, basically whenever I got to the point that I was anxious about getting more clients, and I actually would rather not get a new client than get a new client, even though I, I kind of needed the money and that was my sign, there's probably a better way to do it. But that was my sign to raise my rates.
And so the next step that I did in October was I said, okay, I have a $50 spreads. Not enough. I just was kind . So I made my rate double the other trainers. And then from October until now, zero people signed up to have me as their lead trainer people signed up with the other trainers. So I delegated enough of the admin work that I have more , uh, more time to see clients.
And so I brought my rate down to one and a half times the other trainer. And sure enough, the , the third consult I did after doing that, someone signed up to train with me.
I gotta ask you this 'cause people are thinking it, what makes you good enough to charge that rate? What, what makes , what do you do to bring value to the client? Got any ideas? So
There's two parts to it. One part costs $0, but maybe 1% of people are are willing or able to do. And then there's the , the other part which is , uh, every spare dollar I had for the last 10 years went towards continuing education. So the first five years of my career, I was investing 15 to $20,000 a year.
Like if you include flights in hotels, because , uh, uh, Charles Quin , uh, as he used to say, people say, when are you coming to the West end of London, England? And it's, if you wanna learn from him, you have to go to , uh, Phoenix or Toronto or you know, Australia or wherever it is. You know, he's, he's teaching.
Um , and so if you wanna go learn from him or Del Portel or you know, you wanna take a kettlebell course with strong first or you wanna , you know, learn from like Powerlifters, like Ed Cohen or Matt, we , uh, or you wanna go learn from Stewart McGill, like, there's only so many people that have that level of knowledge and expertise, and they only teach so many weekends in a year. Mm-Hmm . ,
You have to go see 'em .
And so you have to be willing to get on a plane or you need to rearrange your life that when that person comes to your city or within driving distance, you make it that you don't exist to the world. You don't go on a date, you don't see your friends, you don't have a family dinner.
Uh , for those, you know, two to five days you're pretending that you're in another country and you're a hundred percent focused on, on, on the , the course that you're taking. Um , and then the , the other part of it is, is , um, there's three questions that I ask new trainers to, to ask themselves every day, or at least every week, which is, what's one thing I did really well today?
Uh, what's one thing that I made a mistake with, but I realized it myself, like I didn't need someone else to point it out. And then how am I gonna fix that so it doesn't happen again? And then what came up today that I don't know the answer to , uh, or it's like a problem that I can't solve, and , uh, like where am I gonna go find the answer? Am I gonna Google it, YouTube?
Am I gonna ask a colleague about it? Do I have a book that I think will have the answer? Do I have notes from a seminar that I've taken? Is there, you know , uh, and if , if you ask yourselves those three questions, ideally every day , but even just , uh, once a week, you would accelerate your learning , uh, to an unbelievable extent.
And I am, every six months, I am changing at least one important thing that I do with my clients, and I explain to them, so I've changed my mind about this and here's why I've changed my mind and I think that this is better. And , uh, or I'd like to, to try this. Um , we're gonna do a , you know, an experiment. And so , um, I don't see it as , uh, like a , a fault in me or my training.
Um , the body is really complex, the same way that astronomers are figuring out the universe is bigger and expanding. You know, we're figuring out that there's things happening on a, on a smaller and smaller level in the body that we're only beginning to understand.
And , uh, so , uh, I am very hard on myself and always trying to, to improve and find the, the best possible methods to, to help my clients reach their goals.
So it sounds like a relentless commitment to professional development. And it sounds like you've, they've invested financially and now you're seeing the rewards of that. You can't just charge, you know, whatever your personal training rate is because you're a pretty good trainer, you've gotta be a great trainer and you've got a huge bank of knowledge that you can use to tell people how to get the results they want.
So I love that. Tell me this, where does mentorship fit into that? You say you invest in professional development. Talk to me about business mentorship. Why did , when and why did you sign up for Two Brain and what are you getting out of it?
Um , so I signed up for Two Brain , I think it was September, we'll say fall 2022. So the, the one caveat with what I said about , uh, professional development was, so my dad passed away in August, 2022. And , uh, it was a long four year , very painful decline.
And so I was just trying any time or mental energy, anything I had to give just went to the business and my, my family and both of my siblings have, have kids, and I, I don't, so I maybe, you know, felt that I had to give a , a little bit more at , at at times because I didn't have anyone else who was I was responsible for , uh, unlike my, my brother and sister.
And , and so my dad only really wanted two things for me, which was to, to meet someone, get married and start a family and to be successful in business. And maybe if there's a third thing, like be a good sibling, be a good uncle, like take care of your, you know, help take care of your mom, like, you know, be good, your, your family.
So I, I knew that I had to do two things, which was catch up on my tax filings as a retired accountant. I , I think that was the, the , the , the thing that probably caused him the , the , the most pain that I was doing or not doing. Sure . And finding a way to, like, if I couldn't make it work without working 400 hours a week, I wasn't sure that this was something I wanted to keep doing.
And so, you know, I was probably most months working 400 hours a month, like, not of clients, but bookkeeping, cleaning the bathrooms , uh, billing clients , uh, hiring trainers. And so I knew I needed help there and I, I knew it was, it was very similar to how we help clients because clients know, like telling someone to eat less and move more is like not helpful at all.
Oh. Like, it's that simple, like, oh , right, it's like a secret to getting rich is buy low, sell high . Oh, I didn't know that. No thanks. It's like , it's not very easy to actually do that, right? People know that they need to eat more protein and drink more water and go to bed early and uh, you know, drink less alcohol and , and all of that. But it's the accountability , uh, of, of their coach, right?
They don't, they care about not disappointing me more than they care about disappointing themselves. 'cause they know that I care and we have like a good rapport with each other, and that if they don't show up, I'm gonna text them and be like, Hey, is everything okay? I thought we were on for three o'clock today. I I hope you're okay. And so it's the same thing.
I knew that I needed to not do everything myself and, and delegate and build a team and , uh, but that it's, it's the easy thing to do is to just, you know, stay on the, the path that you're on and oh, it didn't work with my first admin person, so I'm just, you know , everybody's, you know , they're , they're all useless, so I'm just gonna do it myself.
Well, no, like, maybe you had bed luck or maybe the person wasn't trained properly, or , um, you were giving them the, you weren't , you know , you were trying to give them , you were giving them the wrong responsibilities, you know , it should be like repeatable tasks versus giving 'em all of these one-off things that they don't get a chance to, to master or, or , or whatever.
So , um, so , uh, right, there's, I don't know who said it, but the two ways you can tell what your priorities are is by looking at someone's calendar and , uh, and their, you know, their checkbook, right? Like, where are they spending money and where are they spending their time? Mm-Hmm ,
. So two years. Who's your mentor right now?
Right now it's , uh, Brian b
Uh , so he, he runs Brian , uh, is one of our semi-private training experts. Has he given you some tips on that aspect of your business, or did you kind of have that figured out before you talked to Brian ?
Uh, we've, he's helped me a little bit more. We, we've talked about it a little bit, but not a ton.
Okay . That's interesting.
It's , uh, been been more, some, some other things that he is , he is been helping me with. Like, I, I find, so like one thing that's that's different about my business is, right when, when people are paying for classes, they kind of understand that if they go away for a week or two, you know, that's kind of part of the cost of the vacation.
But if you're paying 120 or 150 or $180 an hour for personal training and you go away for a week at Christmas, or you go to your friend's cottage for a week, you, you know, you don't expect to be dinged right ? For the week that you're not here. Which I think is a very fair and reasonable expectation, just to be clear.
And it's not always possible depending on how long you go away to make up all of those sessions, right? If you train three times a week and you go away for two weeks, so you know, you're not gonna come in six times the week before and six times the week after. And if, most of my clients have a lot of like, responsibility in life, like most of them are parents, they have stressful careers.
So there's kind of, for a lot of them coming to the gym more than three or four days a week wouldn't be beneficial anyways , um, because of their recovery. And so, so the billing is , has , has been, there's has been kind of a hard thing to figure out, like striking the balance between reducing the admin burden on my , on myself and the , our, our admin person and doing it in a way that's fair to clients.
And so , uh, I'm about to implement , uh, like a suggestion from Brian that I think will make things a lot more simple. Also, push press has dramatically, dramatically improved how the , the billing works in, in recent months. And , uh, I've just started digging into that. And so I think that's also gonna make it a lot easier.
Okay. So you're working on not, you've got, you know, you've got your average revenue from member super high and you've got your training plan, you've got your avatar. So Brian's helping you uncoil some of the admin stuff and get the business running better, which is great because that has a huge reward too.
And you can really make some great inroads by getting better , uh, ROI on the software that you're using, reducing your admin time, making it smoother and improving the client experience. So I love that Brian's helping you with that. Here's a huge question. You've talked about some of the rates and you have a huge a RM, you've got great clients. Where do you find these people? How do you get them? Do you advertise?
What do you do?
Pretty much all of our clients have come from , uh, two or three sources. So the first two years of the business, it was pretty much entirely referrals. Okay.
And was that active, like, did you go and make, ask the people to do it, or did you like just let it happen? What was your plan there?
A little bit of both, but it mostly just happened. Okay .
Okay. So that's good. So
The thing that I'm most proud of is if someone who is married or like living with a romantic partner starts training here, I I , I haven't actually crunched the numbers, so this isn't an exact number, but six months from when they start, it's something like five times more likely that them and their spouse will be training with us then that they'll have stopped .
Whoa, isn't that interesting? Plus
One. So , and every single married person that I've trained has ended up referring their spouse. Okay . So it's not true with all of the, the , the , the people that have trained at the gym, but every single person that I've trained that's married their spouse has ended up coming.
Wow. That's, so, that's huge. And that costs you $0.
So, and then , uh, two years in, so the last two years, pretty much every new client , uh, or no, no, there's still some referrals is , uh, from Google. So just people search for personal trainer near me or gym near me. And so we only have, I , I think it's 32 Google reviews, but every single one is like, at least one or two sentences. And most of them are like paragraphs.
And there's only, there was two clients that kind ask like, is there something specific you want me to say? Or I wanna write a review, but I don't know what to say. And I gave them like a couple bullet points. But you can tell if you look at it that these were all written from the heart that this is straight from the, you know, that like, it's their words. It's not my words.
And like one of our trainers, the gym that she used to work at has like 250 Google reviews, but like five of them, you know, are like an actual, like written review. It's like they're all either no , nothing. It's just like five stars,
Plain emoji. Yeah. ,
No, no written text. Or it's like, great Jim , or like Johnny is an awesome trainer. Whereas like , every single review we have is like, someone's like telling, you know, their, their story , um, or saying something specific that they, they like about, you know, our gym and, and our team.
Do you ask your clients to write those reviews? Like, do you say like, Hey, could you write a review sometime?
Most of them , yeah. So u usually what I do is at the three month mark, I offer to take the client for coffee this , uh, or to like sit or to sit down in the office. And this, this pre, this is one of the few things I did well before Two Brain . And I ask them , you know, what's your favorite thing about your trainer? What's your favorite thing about my gym?
If you can change one thing about being a client of three seasons or one thing about working with your trainer, what would it be? Um , I get feedback on the programming 'cause it's very much not just tailored to their goals, but their personality. So do you like maybe playing your workouts? Do you find them like, engaging? So I'll get feedback, right? Like, some people only wanna do full body workouts.
Um , some people, you know, there's, there's a few other, you know, some people don't like doing more than three sets of the same thing. They get bored. And then if, if they say they're happy, then at the end I say, would you be comfortable writing Google Review? Brilliant.
And I try to say it in a way that it's not, I'm like, I understand if you want your privacy and you don't want people to know, you know where you go. Um , so I won't be offended, but, you know, if you'd be comfortable, it , it would mean a lot if you wrote a Google Review.
Wow. So you were doing this even before two range . So it sounds like you, you know, figured out the goal review system that Chris Cooper recommends almost on your own, which is pretty cool. And he's got the same kind of questions there about asking, you know, clients, what are your greatest challenges outside the gym and things like that and solving problems for them.
And then the exact thing , the tubing recommends if you have a great happy client in a goal review, ask them, can I make you famous? And whether that's a Google review or maybe it's , uh, a testimonial on your website, maybe it's a video, maybe it's social media. I mean, listeners, that is your thing to do today.
Take this from your interview or from this interview, the next time you speak to a happy client in a goal review session. And if you're not doing those sessions, start doing them. But the next time you have a happy one, ask them to do something for you because they're fired up and they wanna support your business. Would you write a Google review Yoni's doing that?
And he's got great, these, you know, lengthy Google reviews, five star reviews, people are reading them, they're finding his gym, and he has no, you know , he's getting his clients through Google reviews and , uh, SEO and referrals, not spending a ton of money on ads. Are you spending any money on ads? I'll ask you that before I say it. Zero, $0 on ads. So guys, Y's got a huge a m in our top 10.
He's not spending any money on ads, his marketing budget is zero. He's just spending time with his clients asking 'em for Google reviews. And he's doing such a great job that he's getting every single one of their spouses to come to the gym too. That's a plus one every time. So each client that trains with you, Yoni , is a , is a two for one , essentially, right?
Uh, pre pretty much.
Wow. , that's like legendary. I wish I could have done that. , you might , you know what? He might have to be my personal trainer after this , uh, after this show ends, we'll talk . I'm gonna ask you a couple other quick questions here before I let you go. Do you have any like simple add-ons that you use to drive up a RM like, you know, renting lockers, selling t-shirts, or is it just training that you sell?
So
The , the one thing would be one of our trainers is , uh, fascial stretch therapy, or I think now it's called Frederick Stretch Therapy. And she's been really great at some of the other trainers.
So some of my clients and one of the other trainers, some of our clients have started seeing her once a week or special stretch therapy and everyone's happy 'cause the , the client is getting faster results in terms of improving their mobility, their, their posture, getting outta pain. And then the trainer doesn't have to spend as much time on, you know, mobility in , in their workout.
They can just do the kind of meat and potatoes , uh, strength training or sometimes while stretching, she'll notice something that leads to a change in the program, which allows the, the coach to write a better program and the client to get a better result. But that's really it. Like we, I was just looking at a financial statement that my accountant sent me.
I'm just starting to get better with that stuff and I actually lose money. So we give clients supplements, like we don't charge for that.
Okay, that's interesting.
I just say like, during their workout, if they wanna take something home, they pay for it. But electrolytes, essential amino acids, collagen, creatine, beef protein, whey protein, pea protein for, for after the workout. So some clients are literally taking five or $10 of supplements every time they come to the gym. I don't, I just want them, right? We're a high gross margin business.
I want them to get the best results possible. Yeah. I am giving them access to the same stuff that I use when I work out . And so some clients buy stuff to take home, some don't, but we, we haven't, it's not really something I've made an emphasis on, but we actually lose, when you factor in all the money I'm spending on the, the free supplements that clients get, we actually lose money on supplements.
It's two to 4% of revenue. So that's, that's not a , a big part of what we do,
But that's okay. You know, if you're talking about like the average personal training rate is like 70 bucks, you're charging more than 70 bucks. So you've got a little wiggle room to give someone a protein shake, right? Like that's built in and that's probably a retention tool. It's a high value service tool. It's part of your service package.
So, you know, technically losing money on supplements, but like I'd consider that almost like a training cost. Would you?
Yeah, so , uh, sorry, I'll, I'll let you , uh, I , I had some, some notes about some other things, but I, I think I should probably let you , uh, get through the questions. Yeah, no
Worries. I , I was just curious if there was anything, 'cause some, you know, sometimes I'll talk to a gym owner in , uh, Las Vegas or Hawaii or something and they'll say, you know what, dude, I sell like $8,000 in T-shirts a month, which is rare, but it does happen in certain locations. Didn't happen where I was at where no one wanted to go. But it does happen in some certain places .
So I was just curious about that. But it sounds like for you, your meat and potatoes is you sell training, you've got that one specialty service, which is really great. And helping clients solve problems and get results faster is hugely valuable. Chris Cooper's written about this, infinitely, if you do that, you can charge more and you know, your Jim Yoni is the proof of that.
Let's , uh, let's close this out here by , uh, I'm gonna steal one of your things because you've already said it and I'm just gonna reiterate it. Start doing goal res goal review sessions with your clients, and then if they're happy, ask them for a testimonial that is going to help you sell more training and more high value training.
What can you tell , uh, uh, listeners, yoni , we're I looking at things like, there are people out there that think that I can't charge more than $200, $300 a month. What are some simple things that they can do just to drive up their a RMA little bit? What are some starting points from a guy who's on our top 10 leaderboard?
So I just wanna tell a little anecdote about one of my clients at my old job, and right the day that I went from a commercial gym to a personal training studio, my rate went up by 50% even though I was the same person. And so there was a little bit of wondering if I was worth, worth the money at the beginning, you know, so at the commercial gym I was $75 an hour, and then all of a sudden I was $110 an hour.
And so I had a client that was so happy and he had been to a good life, which is the big commercial gym in Canada and didn't have a good experience.
And you, you would think this would just be table stakes, but the fact that his schedule never got like, kind of like, like he just knew that these are my days and times and you guys are super reliable and you're not going to be texting me all the time asking me to like move my time around and you're punctual and I can, I can just count on that.
And then like with , with my gym, someone knows that if they have a session at 6:00 AM that, you know , I'm usually here at like between 5 45 and five 50. And if I'm here at like 5 56, I consider that being late. Um , and that, you know, they should be ready to start their workout at six. So just being punctual and reliable , um, and keeping the bathrooms clean are, are very underrated things.
Also, if you get good at getting people out of pain, then people will be very grateful and they'll wanna tell other people. Um, and they'll, you know , uh, they'll, they'll have , uh, a lot of loyalty. One thing that's been great for me in the last year was I started taking courses with a company called Exercise Therapy Association.
And they give amazing supporting materials so that you don't have to furiously take notes and kind of wonder what you were trying to, to write after the fact. And that's been probably the, the , the biggest change in , in what I do in the last, you know, two or three years with clients.
So you've got elite standard of service before you get to the last one. You've got elite standard of service, right? Where you're doing all the stuff, even the little stuff, they clean the bathroom really well, showing up on time. That stuff is actually uncommon. There's so many people that take that stuff for granted and they don't clean their bathrooms and they just show up late, mess around with their client schedules.
You're not doing that. You have an elite status or service. Then the second thing you're talking about here is personal development and professional development, because getting people outta pain, not every trainer is qualified to do that.
So if you're working side of scope of practice, you have to have your education, you have to have your qualifications, and you have to be able to do what you say you do, you're gonna do for the clients within scope of practice. That requires, I would guess that that reflects that $200,000 investment in professional development.
So if you get the right skills, you can definitely charge more because special skills are worth way more. So listeners, professional development is a big one for you . What else is on your list? Joni ?
Just , uh, you know, if you do such a good job that you get so busy that you either can't fit more clients in your schedule or you wouldn't want more clients, then you'll be able to raise your rates as simple as that sounds that, that worked for me at least.
It's, it's a simple economic one and it feels a bit nerve wracking for people. But we do have a plan listeners to help people raise rates
And the , the , the , the not taking one time a week clients here. So I spent hours and hours and hours writing a blog post. I think it's called Free and Low Cost , health and Fitness resources.
And when someone doesn't sign up and they tell me the budget's, the reason I send them the blog post, and I tell them, if you go to the gym on your own or you work out at home and you have questions, I will answer your questions. I I'm not gonna bill you. And not a single person has ever asked me a question, I I maybe should start turning it into a Bitly so I can tell if they even open it, but not a single.
So that is, that tells you that it's not just money, it's that unless there's someone holding them accountable, they're they're not gonna do it. And so, because I am giving people the free solution, these are the best podcasts, these are the best YouTube channels, these are the best books that you can get from the library.
These are the books that you can't get from the library that you'll have to buy, but they only cost 10 to $50. It's like a very detailed, very detailed. And so you , you kind of have to ask yourself, am I gonna offer what people say they want? Or am I gonna offer what people actually need? And there's a difference between those two things.
And especially if you're offering like a human, like you're not building a software company. You can't be all things to all people.
Um , and I'd I'd rather help 50 people or a hundred people make obvious clear, amazing progress than , you know, help 200 people tread water or go backwards like, you know, age more slowly or have their body break down slightly more slowly than it like, that's not inspiring or interesting to me.
What I'm hearing here is like an overwhelming commitment to your clients and you are getting results for them and you're unwilling to offer the things that don't give results. Therefore, the things that you are offering get results and you can charge more for them. Is that accurate?
I , I guess so
, that's what I'm seeing, is that you are going to the, like you're just deciding exactly what is going to get your client's results, put it in place, drive it home, show up exactly on time, give them great service, keep making yourself a better trainer and then charge more. So guys out there, if you're listening to this, you only just gave you a list of stuff that you can do to start moving in the right direction.
And I'll give you one more that you can do as well. If you're talking about professional development work with a two brain mentor, that mentor can help you be a better business owner that will help you do all the things that you need to do to grow a great business. Yoni , I wanna thank you so much for your time. Uh , I'll let you get back to , uh, getting one client and adding a a spouse.
That's an amazing story and I love that you've been able to do that. That's incredible. Thanks. All right , my friends, thank you for listening. This is Run a Profitable Gym . I'm Mike Kin and please subscribe wherever you're watching or listening . That was Yoni Lebanon and he's one of our a RM leaders two Brainin releases leaderboards every single month.
And we then we get the best of the best on this show to tell you exactly what they're doing. So please subscribe so you don't miss any of that. And now here is two Brainin founder Chris Cooper with a final message.
Hey, it's two brainin 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.
I'd love to have you in that group. It's Gym Owners United on Facebook, or go to gym owners united.com to join. Do it today.