I get into real gym owners every week on this show, so be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any tips. I want you to run a profitable gym as well. Now, Jake Fields runs CrossFit Devotion that is in Kent City, Washington. It's near Seattle. He has a lot of clients at his micro gym , and we're here to find out how he did it. Jake, welcome. I can't thank you enough for being here today. Warning, we are going to talk about a Jim's client count today.
Now, this can be a trap because you could have 10,000 clients and no profit whatsoever. So let's get this outta the way first. Jake, do you run a profitable gym ? Yes. Now that's the most important thing. Next, we can go onto the question two. Did you earn a spot on two brains top 10 leaderboard for total clients in October?
Yes, sure did.
All right . Will you share your secrets and tell other gym owners how you got and kept your clients?
Definitely, yes .
All right . I appreciate that. This is Run a Profitable, Jim. I'm your host, Mike Warton . Now Jake Fields runs CrossFit devotion that is in Kent City, Washington. It's near Seattle. He has a lot of clients. That is Mike Jim, and we're here to find out how he did it. Jake, welcome. I can't thank you enough for being here today.
Thanks, Mike. Glad to be here.
Right . We're gonna talk about two things. First, retention and acquisition, but we're gonna put the most important thing first because I know you've got a really cool thing going on for Jim Retention. You can't grow your client base if everyone is leaving and a lot of people think about adding new clients, you gotta hold onto them. That's more important. So what are the key features of the retention plant ? CrossFit, devotion. Bring us up to speed.
I would say for us it's been our coaches for one, we have excellent long term coaches. That doesn't mean full time , so don't get that confused. But they , uh, are amazing humans. We definitely hire the human burst and then train them. So I've made that mistake in the past going the other way. Um, so we have an amazing staff, so that really helps to keep members along. And then so
Personal engagement, right? So you've got like coaches who actually connect with members, not just tacticians who can spot, you know , early on pulling a clean
Exactly. Like our members actually come to see the coach, you know, so like that's a big thing. Like they want to come see that person because they're friends and they have interest in them . And so that's been huge. That's been, that's been a huge game changer. And then the other side is we just keep refining our 90 day journey and we keep adding little pieces. Um, the CSM has been probably one of the biggest things that's kept people the longest, just to get that feedback from the members.
Um, like, Hey, what's working? What's not? We actually had a team meeting last night and we're gonna redo our intro process because of the feedback that our CSM is getting from the new members. And so just always refining that is really important. And if we didn't have that feedback there , we would never refine it. We would just, we would just think it's working. So,
So listener CSM as a client, success manager, customer success manager, whatever you wanna call it, that person's job is to make sure current clients are super happy. Retention is the job of that person, making sure no one is leaving the business. Tell me a little bit more about that role. Cause I understand you have some interesting wrinkles in the CSM role at your gym, and I want hear about that.
Yeah, so we do it . We do it , uh, interesting, not really by choice, just how our staff is laid out. We have two, and actually we're bringing on a third one on Monday. Okay . And so we have, and they're , all three of them are part-time. So they work five, maybe 10 hours a week in this particular job, maybe like that's top end .
And uh , one of them is in charge of kind of the new people coming in, like from the marketing , um, getting them in for a consultation , um, uh, and then getting them set up and making sure that process is warm and welcoming and flawless. And then, so that's kinda like the new client success manager. And then we have another one that is , that does our intros. And she also is the 90 Day Journey csm. And so she focuses on making sure they have everything they need and want in that first 90 days.
And she also follows up on the people that haven't checked in in like a week. So she's kind of that , um, ghosted members person. So she has a real tight , um, hold on what the members are feeling, what they're thinking , um, uh, in and out of the intros. And then in that first 90 days,
I love it . Split . I'm gonna ask you some specific questions, but I'm gonna ask you first , uh, the third person, what is that one Gonna do? A mix of both or something, or what
We wanted her to be. She, she's kinda , I don't know what to call it, but she's like the operational client success manager. So she's gonna make sure that , um, from start to finish and beyond in the years, clients continue to feel like they're being appreciative and being counted on. So she's gonna run more of like the, like the , um, are we , are we communicating by all social platforms, email and texts for Thanksgiving? Um, you know, schedule. Does everyone know the events coming up?
Does every client know , um, the workouts that are coming? Um, do the , do the coaches know , um, everything about new members coming in and out? And so she's kinda like gonna be the sticky glue that connects us all together. And so, and of course, like maybe in a perfect world that'd be like maybe all the same person, but we've just been so blessed with multiple awesome people that could do it part-time.
So if anyone's thinking they need to hire, like, you know, pay someone's salary to do this job, you just, again, just find some really awesome people with five hours that are really good at this particular thing. And , uh, you can, you can run it that way. And we're doing it really successfully.
So you've, what this all relates though to is your client journey, which you mentioned you've got a clear idea in your head of how you want clients to come into your business from their first interaction, whether they see your sign or your ad or whatever to the very end, which is hopefully five or 10 years down the road.
But you know everything about the client journey and you know that in the 90 days, the first 90 days, everything you do to make that experience better is going to increase your retention stats. Bear that out. Like we have that data, we know that the first 90 days are critical to success. So you see in this path roles for three different people. Like it's that important to you to make sure that these clients are happy.
Wow. Right. Yeah. I mean the long , the , the third person we're bringing on for the long term , I mean 300 members, you know, is a lot of members are getting close to there . And so it's a lot of people to take care of. So having someone on the front end and then having someone in that, in that beginning 90 days and then making sure the people that have hit a thousand classes or five years or 10 years are still being appreciative, that's hard to do for one person.
So we've kind of broken it up into , uh, you know, those three different sections of not knowing us, barely knowing us for the first 90 days, hoping to capture them for life. And then what about those people that have been there for life? How do we still continue to appreciate them? So
There's an interesting thing here. Chris Cooper has often talked about 150 members as a real sticking point for a gym . And it , it goes back to even like human social groups or 150 is kind of that number where it's like, I know about 150 people and a 200, you don't really know anyone . Right ? Jim's often fracturing, I found it very difficult when I got to 150 members to know everyone and connect with everyone.
So if you kind of break it down, you've got just about 300 members, you got two CSMs, you're creeping over 300 members, you got a third csm kind of an interesting number that maybe didn't plan on, but it kind of syncs up with some of the thoughts. What do you think about that? A
A hundred percent ? Yeah. Like it, yeah, exactly. That's where we were talking like, well, we , we don't, we never said we wanted to get to 300 . That was never a number in our head or really , um, we were more just like, like the , uh, making sure that we're profitable so we could keep good people and good coaches. But ever since we started implementing these new CSMs, like less people are leaving, you know, more referrals. And so we're just growing a lot more that way.
So yeah, I definitely think now we add another person, we could easily get to three 50 and still not have the wheels fall off.
So you mentioned a couple of important things. You've added these, these people, but you are seeing a return on investment through referrals and increased length of engagement. Correct?
Correct. Yeah.
Yeah. Was it pretty obvious when you added this stuff in? Like when you put these rules , responsibilities and people in place, did you see numbers changing quickly?
Uh, I would say yes. Like quickly as in six months to a a year quickly. So yeah, definitely. And it really, it's the feedback. Um, uh, Zan , our , our gal that does , uh, Zan and a , they do the intros and she does the client follow up . She's so good at getting feedback and then you , you know, we just have to be humble enough to be like, yeah, we need to change that and then make that change. And so when people see you doing that, I think that that goes a long way.
And , um, she's really good about bringing that feedback to us. And so just trying to adapt, you know, people are in a different spot than they were five years ago. They're coming in differently. So it's good to have that feedback. And if one person was doing that, I don't know if they would have the capacity to do that with bringing in new people, doing the intros, making sure the new people are good, and making sure that eight year members are getting a cool t-shirt . Like, that's a lot.
That's just too many for one person.
And let's be real, how many of us make this mistake? I am guilty of this, of having your long-term members, who are your most valuable members, who have given you tens of thousands of dollars and taking them for, granted. It sounds horrible to say, but you sometimes do it right.
Uh, all the time. Literally,
Because they become like, they're like the furniture in the sense that like, they're always there, they're always working out. They always supported you and you're just like, oh , Tim will always be here. But if you won't, if you don't show your appreciation and why give a new toaster to the first who opens a bank account when the existing customer doesn't get one,
You know ? Exactly. Yeah. And we've learned that lesson the hard way. Uh, and so that's why I'm so excited about this new person because I want to just really surprise and delight our old members that really, they're not, they're not really expecting it, you know, like , um, I mean, I've been with Two Brain for a lot of years and I'll get random things in the mail. I , and I'm just like, wow, five years later I got this cool shirt, cup, backpack. It's like they still like really care about us.
So definitely just that surprise and delight to the old members is gonna go a long way.
And listeners, I'll give you one thing to do right now. If , uh, you have five minutes, you should send five texts to five clients and tell 'em why you appreciate them. Pick any five and just do that right now and it will increase your retention . Guaranteed. Do that. Now we're gonna talk about a couple of , retention is so important you can't bypass on this one . Why , why I wanted to put it first, but the other side of it is acquiring clients.
So you, you hinted at some referrals and some stuff. Where are you getting all these clients from? And then you've got your sticky trap where they stay in the bit gym , but where do they come from?
Yeah, we , um, we have an excellent marketing guy. Like he loves Google ads and Facebook ads, so he loves it. Like, he loves the follow up process, he loves the making the ads and stuff like that. So, and he shines at it. He loves sales. Um, he loves to make sales friendly and non slimy. He's just really good at that connection piece. And so , uh, mostly Facebook and Google ads. And then every quarter we do a bring a friend a week , uh, and so they can come the whole week for free.
And we get a lot of referrals that way, especially when it's scheduled like that. We get a lot of referrals. Um, but yeah, mostly , um, Facebook, Google, and then , um, with our, with like transformation challenges and stuff like that. But , um, and then, and then of course those four , four times a year we do that bring a friend week that's really popular.
So you've obviously got a clear marketing plan that involves some paid advertising, but it doesn't just involve paid advertising because your best source of clients in most gyms is going to be your current clients because they know, like, and trust you. They have kids, friends, family members, coworkers, hobby hobbyists, all the other stuff. So I wanna dig, get into the, bring a friend week a little bit.
Yeah. I'm guessing that's not just a , Hey, bring a friend, we'll make them vomit and then , uh, hope they join. I bet there's some structure around that.
Yes, definitely. The programming is always like super fun. Mm-hmm . not complicated. We still, we used to do Bring a Friend week where we'd really bring it down a notch and do like body weight stuff all week, but then we weren't really that, that wasn't the actual product people would be getting. Sure. So we just , so we kept the lifting and kept all the CrossFit in. We just kind of brought, brought it down a notch.
And so , um, they , they still knew that we lifted weights and went heavy and went , um, fast. And so , um, yeah, we basically do a week at the end of the quarter and they can come for a full, they can come all seven days for , uh, free, and then if they sign up during that week, we give them a little bit of a first month , uh, bonus, like with a , with a welcome box and like t-shirts and things like that.
So we , we don't wanna discount our price, but we wanna upgrade them through different things. Um, and then , uh, get them into our intro classes.
That's a big deal. Discounts can kill gyms, but bonuses don't cost gyms a ton of money, but they have a huge effect on clients. So if you're thinking about discounting, you might wanna look at what can I give a client to add value that doesn't equal a discount that will bite you later on. Chris Cooper has written about this on the two Brainin blog, and I'm going to put in the show notes a link to an article that talks about selling with bonuses.
Uh , how do you, so what kinda conversations happen around happen around those bring of fend weeks? Like do you make a point of like connecting with these people, you know, making sure you get their email addresses and then, you know, like sales pitches. So I'll use that slimy term, but that's not what I actually mean. Do you do consultation stuff with them ? Yeah.
Um, Jared does our sales guy, we have everyone check in and then we have them , uh, sign up through a specific, bring a friend week sign up on our crm. Yeah . And so we can just kind of go through there and like, welcome them and thank them for coming in and uh, you know, tell them how appreciative we are of their friend and how awesome it's been to have their friend here for so many years and then try and schedule a consultation with them the week after for intros from there .
So , um, it's, it's, you know, if their friends doing it, it's pretty easy to get them back in, you know , uh, that's, yeah, that's probably the warmest lead you can get. Um, mostly we get the spouse, you know, if the , if the wife's been coming a year or two and they've had great success and to bring a friend, we usually get a lot of spouses that way. Um, so yeah, that's worked well for us.
I , I asked you that question for a specific reason. Do you know what I added to my , uh, free trial package to get people in the gym? What's that ? Nothing , nothing. I just had people come in and try it and then I let them walk out and I didn't have a conversation. I didn't engage them, I didn't follow up . This was back in the early days where I was just like, you're gonna love it and you're gonna sign up. And it was a huge mistake. And now I know so much better.
If I were to do it again, I would do it just like you. If I was gonna do a free trial, I would make sure that I have a process to talk to the people, get their information, connect with them, interview them, find out about their goals, and tell them about other stuff that I can use to solve or that I can provide to solve those goals. But I didn't do that, you know , how dumb was that ?
Yeah. And to your point, we, we do like try and get 'em signed up by the end of the week and just add those bonuses so you know, if they come and do a class and they love it. Like, well if you sign up today or by the end of the week you get all these bonuses, some supplements, t-shirt , this and that. So we kind of incentivize it through, through there and keep the whole price thing not even in the picture. Yeah,
That's beautiful. Does the average client come into your gym? Uh , you know , if they're acquired from a Facebook or Google ad or something and they come , do they do a free consultation with you guys first ?
Yes. Yeah, they always do a consultation .
How important do you think that is to your acquisition or retention process ?
Everything . We , yeah, I mean ev like, we've just started doing , uh, so when they call, when they book a appointment , uh, Jared gives them a call actually and he , he sends them , um, a little template thing that is , um, their five reasons why. And he said, before you come in, I need this filled out. And that's, that's a , that's a good precursor. If they don't fill that out, they're not coming in, they're not serious.
And when they fill out, gimme your five , gimme your five why's, and they bring that in, it's over. Like , we're gonna change . Like , so one it like , it , it , it , it makes that, that show rate sky skyrocket. Cause if they're not gonna fill that out, then they're not gonna come in. But if they fill that out, they're definitely coming in. You definitely know where they're struggling and you can definitely change their life right from that point. So it makes that process good .
Well , can you and I get , and I'm gonna , I have a question I when ask you there, but I'm gonna say that like I guarantee now that you've got those reasons why you now have a powerful retention tool for your CSM because you can eventually show these people, you came because of this and look what you've done, right?
Yeah , yeah. And also gives Jared a direction, like are they looking for a total life transformation or are they looking for just, are they transferring from another gym and they just wanna work out ? Cause like you don't wanna sit down in the office, spend an hour and they're like, oh yeah, no, I just am like transferring from the other city. I just want a place to work out . It's like, oh, okay , well we could have done that over the , you know , over the phone almost .
So it's so it's really nice to get those five reasons why. Um, cuz you get the haven't worked out in 10 years or moving from Texas just looking for a new awesome gym . Yeah . It's like, oh perfect. Well that intro, that that , that knows what intro goes a lot better that way.
Oh , that's, that's interest you . Now what are some of the things that you might hear or Jared might hear on the five reasons why, what , what kinda stuff comes up regularly?
Uh, , well mostly , um, you know, if they're not talking to you directly, they usually get a little more personal. Uh , I don't know what forever reason, like when you give them space to think they can get a little bit more personal. So it has a lot to do with just , uh, not putting themselves first. Um, they're , you know, obviously covid hit a lot. They've been sitting at home for a couple years and then they need to do something else. Um, their , their kids are grown.
Um, but usually it's just, I haven't put myself first in a long time and I need something that's gonna kick my to gear.
Holy Fran. Right? Like that's, that is some leverage in a sales meeting,
Right? Oh my gosh. Yeah . It's game changer .
Yeah. Cause like all of a sudden, rather than saying you should sign up for this thing, you can say if you sign up for this thing, you are going to accomplish this powerful emotional thing that you wanna accomplish. Right? Like, it must give Jared , just like all the tools in the , in the , in the toolbox,
Everything, he knows exactly where to talk to exactly what program might fit best for them. There's no wasted time or space into different things. Most people are coming in pretty deconditioned from the last couple years. And so personal training is obviously through the roof right now. Um, just cuz they don't feel comfortable going into a large class.
And so yeah, it just gives him everything he needs to know in that consultation to give uh , them the best ability to , uh, pick the right plan so they'll stay around a long time.
I , I'm gonna hammer this point because I do, every successful gym owner that I speak to has systems and procedures. You clearly have a retention system, you know, your client journey, you have a sales procedure, you know, did you ever run this gym without that stuff? Like back in the day? Were you kind of doing it by the seat of your pants
, like for the first 10 years?
,
Whatever ?
Yeah . Yeah ,
People stayed . I don't know why people stayed . Maybe we we're the only cross red box in town. I don't know . But yeah, no processes or procedures really.
What year is this for you now ?
This is , uh, 13.
Okay . So three years ago you kind of started formalizing stuff. What happened when you did that?
That Yeah , it was really just because we were growing quite a bit and uh, well sorry we weren't growing but we were getting lots of people in.
Ah-huh
. So it was like , this is weird . Like what's
anyone out ?
Yeah . There was no , yeah , like two years in a row we were basically exactly the same. And I was like, that's weird cuz we do a lot of onboarding , so like something's not right. Yeah. So yeah, just uh , just uh , getting that CSM there , uh, having people reach out, making sure everyone's good. Um , that has been just a huge, huge game changer . And then just, yeah, making sure, you know, people that do it did need a full transformation.
Maybe they were just being put into class and we didn't really know because cuz they didn't know, they didn't know what we offered. So sitting down and just showing them the menu like, hey, from what , from what your answers are, I think this is your best bet. Uh, that was, that was just huge, huge for them .
Huge for the gym too. Like huge for them. They get exactly what they need. You get increased revenue, it's a big deal. Yeah . Do you remember what that number was three years ago that you were stuck at when it was kind of that one in , one out ? Not , you know , just putting along ,
It was around two 20 , we couldn't get past . It was like 2 20, 2 40, 2 15, 2 35 , just like over and over. And , uh, we always had our core group, but we couldn't get past that core group it seemed like. Um, and then yeah, slowly implementing what the CSM would do and , um, having them go from that intro 90 days and past has been definitely a big, big, big game changer .
So three years ago stuck at a number and obviously, you know, kind of leaving revenue on the table. If people are leaving all the time, you're doing all this onboarding, but they're not staying or someone else is leaving while they're not , while you're doing that. But three years ago you put structures, systems and procedures in place and all of a sudden look what happens. Have I got that right? Yeah,
Yeah. I mean it's all about giving the member or client the best experience possible. And we weren't. So we've just been slowly 1% trying to be like, okay , how can we dial that in a little bit more for the member? Not , not even to make our job easy, even though it did. How can we make their life easy? How can we make it more digestible for them to come in, get through their 90 days, feel comfortable? And so yeah. And it and , and it in turn it's made our life so much easier.
Yeah. And the reason I hammer this is that no successful gym owner from our leader board who has come on this show has yet said to me, I did it without systems and procedures and policies. No one said that. Yeah , it's always comes down to that. Whatever they are, it's always that, you know,
Always. Yeah, for sure. I wish I would've done that a long time
Ago. Oh , me too. Back in , uh, 2010 , I think I'd be, I'd be retired by now if I had .
Oh , for sure. Oh , I can only imagine the amount of members we lost for really no good reason. Like literally it no good reason. Just like, well you never called me .
Add the members times the months , times the years and , and times your average revenue per , you know, the monthly rate or whatever and you start looking at some six figure numbers pretty fast and it's horrifying. Yeah ,
I don't wanna do that .
I did it. It was not a pleasant experience. My friend , we got into six figures and I just put my head in my hands and, you know, drove my 2008 Honda Civic to , you know , buy a bottle of beer, . But anyways, that's why we're here. Run a profitable gym is the name of the show. And we're trying to help people avoid the mistakes that we made. And so I'm telling you guys, retention sales systems, put them in place . Let's , uh, let's close this out. You've got a great member total .
Now what's your focus at this point? Are you looking for even more people? Are you looking for higher a m like average revenue per member , increased length of engagement? Like what is , what are your metrics goals right now?
Our metrics would definitely bem
Average revenue per member drive that up.
Um, yes. And, but yeah , yeah, I guess it's kind of a tie. We definitely wanna keep these people a long time. We don't really have any growth goals because we, we think that taking care of the first two, you know, the arm and the uh, the leg will kind of take care of the membership count. So we don't really have any specific growth goals as of right now, but definitely length, length of engagement would be high for us right now. And , um, getting our CSMs just so dialed in.
So every member, whether you're day one or year 10, you feel like special and the same and , uh, make sure no one's left out. And that's pretty easy at a hundred, really hard at 300. So that's definitely gonna be the next hurdle. Um, coming up is as we grow, it's just gonna be tougher and tougher to make sure everyone feels good and special and part of the team at the gym. So that's definitely where our, our heads are at .
But you've got staff people in place who have specific roles and tasks and duties to do that, so you're gonna be further ahead than someone who's like, wow, I've got 300 members and no people who know what to do here.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Listeners, the secret to a high client total is retention and acquisition, but mostly retention, right? If they leave, it doesn't matter. You have to keep your clients, you would do really well right now if you're looking, listening to the show, looking to add clients, what can you do to keep your current clients look at that first after that, strike out those marketing sales systems and so forth.
Cause those are important too, but they're not important if you're pouring people into a leaky bucket and they're coming out the bottom. Jake, thank you so much for sharing all this info. I love talking to successful gym owners who are happy and willing to share their knowledge with other people. Thank you.
Yeah, Mike, no problem. Anytime .
That was Jake Fields. This is Run a Profitable Gym. I'm your host, Mike Warkin , and I'll help you do exactly that, run a profitable gym every week. Please subscribe for more episodes, and if you're on YouTube, please hit that like button as well. Now, here's two brain founder Chris Cooper with a final word.
Hey, it's two Brain founder Chris Cooper with a quick note. The Gym Owners United Facebook group has more than 5,600 members and it's growing daily. If you aren't benefiting from the free tips and tactics and resources that I post daily in that group, what are you waiting for? Get in there and grow your business. That's Jim Owners United on Facebook, or www jim owners united.com. Join today.