All right . This is Run a Profitable, Jim , I'm your host Mike work , and with me today is to brain founder Chris Cooper. I'd love it if you would hit subscribe wherever you are watching or , and listening. It would really help us out and we'll keep cranking out great content for you. Hey, Cooper , remember when you told that client at your gym that her motivation was not your problem today?
Yeah. , that was brutal. How on that time you told a client, do it your way. I don't care.
Oh man, that was, I was a huge jerk and that client should have left. You wanna just take a podcast here? Let's air it out. Let's tell a few war stories and help Jim Jims avoid the mistakes that we've made.
Absolutely. Let's do it.
Today we're gonna talk about how being likable relates to running a profitable gym. It's more important than you think. In fact, I think it's actually more important than knowing anything about progressions or any of that other technical stuff that you obsess over all the time. What do you think, coop ? You agree?
Yeah. As a guy who used to draw linear periodization charts on the floor in chalk, I will promise you it is more important to be likable than knowledgeable.
Let's go. So you think, like, do you think spewing knowledge at clients comes off as likable?
No. It comes off as , um, I know more than you.
Yeah. I think there's some arrogance there. I certainly was guilty of that. I also think there's like this desire to show off and, you know, you've talked about being invested in clients and finding out what they want, not showing off what you know. And I made that mistake so many times, and I think you said you've done that a hundred times too
Easily a thousand times. Yeah. I'm sure we can like, just pop out a couple of examples here really easily.
Hit me with your first one. Line it up.
Yeah. So one thing that I see a lot is , uh, Jim owner is going on social media and just like complaining, complaining about the people who pay them, right. Ranting about like their clients. I can't believe some people come in here and they talk when I'm talking, or I can't believe people just leave there and they leave their mess behind. You know, if I was a member of your gym, I would
Be gone. You know, there's, there's like lots of good dog shaming videos on Instagram where it's like, you know, you put the sign on their chest that says, I ate the phone book or whatever. Like, stuff like that. That's funny with a dog, but it's not funny with a client. Like, have you ever seen the one where it's like, this person left these, this equipment out and it's 225 pounds and therefore you have 225 burpees. Oh ,
. Oh God . Yeah . That's
So cool. That's not a great thing to do. And like, you know, I saw one one time, and this was like, it was a seminar at a gym, and this guy, a gym member had hit a PR at his deadlift pr and right after the class there was gonna be a power lifting seminar with an outside expert. And he came in, you know, in his outside wear and he walked over to that deadlift bar and he lifted it 15 times in a row. And like, yeah , why would you shame that client like that?
Like, we get you , you're the power lifting expert, but why would you do that? You know ?
Yeah . It , it must be ego and I, I don't always understand it. Like, people wanna feel like an expert. I think sometimes they think that they're only talking to other gym owners and, but instead their clients see it and they're like shaming the people who pay the money. Yep . Fortunately , other times, you know, people are trying to do the right thing, but they still come off as jerks.
For example, when you post something political online, you immediately tell 50% of your audience that they don't wanna be anywhere near you. And we saw this over and over, it was so tempting during Covid , and, you know, let's face it, like I deal with government bureaucracies all the time and I'm so tempted to rant about it.
But, you know, going through the Covid stuff, even though I agree that entrepreneurs were right to be disgruntled and, and , uh, they wanted to fight back, a lot of them lost their business. Not because of the lockdown, but because of what they said and did online. So , um, yeah . Yeah, it's just the unfortunate truth.
Covid is a tough one. I mean, you could take any side on that and like you , you're gonna light up half the people , uh, us Republicans, Democrats pick a side there and things go pretty crazy and you know, in Canada we've got three parties, but you could, you could complain about just about anything and offend half your market. And if, if you are cool with that, you know, you know, ride the lightning and so forth.
But wow, if you, if you wanna be a really great gym owner and serve everyone, you, you might not wanna take a stand on that. And I'm not saying hide your person beliefs, but like, there's a time to pick an ugly Facebook drag 'em out argument, and there's a time to maybe just let it, let it pass by.
You know, we , uh, when I was working at the CrossFit Journal, I think we did an article , uh, on a gym in Washington that had both republicans and Democrats, like big time party employees at their gym. And the, the, the upshot of that was when we come to the gym, we leave the politics at the door, we all train, we all support each other, and we all get fitter. I love that because that's a good example of not being a jerk. But then there's other examples of people being like, huge jerks.
And like I had overtime I went to , uh, it was an open house , uh, for a different sport. And this was a couple years ago. And I went there and I was trying to engage in this and learn more about it. I felt a little nervous because it was outside my comfort zone. I didn't know anyone.
And I talked to the, the main instructor there, and she was like borderline dismissive, definitely had a bit of arrogance, definitely kinda brushed me off and then kind of just went and did her own training in the corner. And I was like, how are you trying to grow this program? Like, I don't wanna be here. I feel awkward. And that was like unlikeable to the point where I think, man, if I wanted to take this thing up, I don't wanna deal with that person.
Yeah. And, and this is something that I lean on you a lot for Mike, is like, there's a lot of times when I'm about to post something and you reign me in and you're wise to do so, because the reality is that like, you know, all these gym owners are working so hard and they're just grinding, grinding, grinding. They're investing money in Facebook ads or whatever.
And then somebody gets interested and they go on their, their Facebook page and it's like, oh, here's this thing where this gym owner is making fun of clients at Planet Fitness. I don't want this person to make fun of me. No thank you block. And , uh, so I don't wanna wanna see anybody like blowing their own leg off while they're trying really hard to grow their gym and serve other people.
You told me you have a rule that you actually employ to prevent you from doing stuff like that . Tell me your rule. What , how does it work,
? Yeah. So I think you're the only person I've ever told this rule to. I called the Triple S when I see something that me off enough that I feel like I've gotta respond to this right now. This is bs I do the Triple S. And that is, you do not respond until you've had a, a shower and a shave. Because once you've done those three , three things, number one, you know, you've probably like regulated your blood sugar a little bit.
You've had a shower, so you've, you know, you've immersed yourself in warm water and you look better and feel better about yourself. You feel more confident after you do those things. And your, your response is likely to be more professional and tempered. And sometimes you just choose not to respond at all
The truth . We're not saying you shouldn't. Yeah. And we're not saying you shouldn't fight when you need to fight. Like, yeah , you vision and values are important and it's important to stand up for those, but there is a , a consequence to some of that. And like, fighting over late membership fees on Facebook or debating the merits of a rate increase publicly in a thread that gets vicious, not probably a good investment.
You know, one of the, you know, values of your business might be, I'm not gonna engage in stuff that's below a certain level and we're just gonna , you know , rise above that.
And like, you know, two brain , definitely we have a , a charter where we look very carefully about what we engage in publicly and people have come after us on social media, see the stuff fly by, we don't wanna attack it because , uh, did you use the analogy of , uh, the , the pig wrestling a pig or fighting a pig wrestling with pig? What happens when you do it? Well,
I mean, you get dirty and the the pig likes it , you know ?
Right.
The , the thing is, like, for a lot of Jim owners , they think that when they're getting attacked, that it's not strategic that they're just gonna have this battle and, and to like win. They have to win the argument. But the reality is like, when you're a category leader, when you're the oldest or the best gym in town, when you're a two brain and you are like, the best people will attack you as a marketing strategy because they wanna gain the attention of your audience at any cost.
And so engaging with these people actually gives them what they want, you know? Yep . So you , you gotta stay away from that. Um, y you know, I , I'll give you a good example from my Jim , and I had to learn this the hard way. Like I definitely screwed this up for years, but there used to be a time when I'd have these two back-to-back training clients. And one was very conservative. He owned four McDonald's franchises and the one that came in after him was very , um, like socialists.
Like she was the head of a local union, and neither one of them had any idea what my political affiliation was because they were my clients, not my friends. If you ask my wife or my closest friends like Chris, who are you voting for? How do you feel about this law? They will know exactly, but my clients won't have any idea. And so both of these clients thought that my political beliefs totally aligned with theirs.
And to, to this day, I doubt there's anybody in my gym who could tell you like, here's what Chris votes for, you
Know? And I think that's wise. I had the same situation. I had a , a striking union member and a administrator at my gym. I loved them both dearly. I wanted them both to be fit. They both had valid concerns, but I didn't wanna get in the middle of that argument because I'm not gonna win. Right? And I wanted them to keep training at the gym and I love them all. So I have my own views. People at Jim don't know. And I think that's a great way to do it. So let's, let's, those are some examples.
There are literally thousands of them. If you go on Facebook right now, if you're watching this, click on Facebook, you'll find a gym argument. There are some forums where you'll find those things faster than, than anywhere else, but you'll see it. Let's talk about why gym owners are unlikeable. Like what are some of the reasons? For me, a big one was being stressed about money and not knowing how to run my gym and feeling just this incredible pressure. How about you?
Yeah, that's one. Uh, when you're exhausted and tired and broke and you have just had a, a fight with your spouse about money and you are distracted because the next coach hasn't shown up for class, it's very easy to be an to people. And , um, you know what , what I think you've gotta do there is like, take yourself outta the limelight. People forget that when you own a business, you're constantly on stage and , uh, social media amplifies that.
And so everything that you post is live there forever. And if you're a jerk to somebody, everybody gets to hear about it. So , um, yeah, that's one thing for me also, like I was kind of a know , know-it-all jerk to people and I really had to work on understanding like that people just didn't like me and that's why they weren't staying at my gym and then taking the steps to actually fix that,
Being threatened. I think you've written about this, like being threatened by competition makes it pretty easy to say, bash that gym down the street. Oh , they're idiots. They don't know what they're doing. But you're really, you're just threatened because you , that client doesn't , you don't want that client to go there and then all of a sudden you behave badly. And you taught me this, you know, if, if you start saying bad things about this person, what do your clients think when they leave?
You're probably saying some bad things about them, right? Like it reveals a p piece of character. And like, going back to what you just said, think about, you've talked about the icon problem many times in gyms, right? Great businesses solve the icon problem where it's not just this one person. So think about like who's, who's , who's , who's in charge of Coca-Cola or any of the massive companies. I don't really know .
I know you could fig you could figure it out, but like, you don't know that person. You probably can't spout off their political views right now, even though they certainly have them in most cases. But the brand is this thing that appeals to hopefully everyone. And that's kind of a gym owner thing where you're building, if you wanna build this great big brand, you gotta solve that icon problem in most cases. And, you know, being very political is probably not a great way to do it.
Like, have you seen examples where the icon problem can actually sink a gym because the person is so unlikable?
Oh yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, I, I can tell you , um, specific examples, but I don't want want it to be obvious about like who they are. So, you know, I have literally like 5,000 Facebook friends and probably 4,990 of them are gym owners. And unfortunately, what you'll see is they'll, they'll get on Facebook now it's 6:00 AM they're exhausted. They've been coaching 40 hours already this week. They're broke. They don't know how they're gonna make any more money.
And the final thing that them off is like a client leaves their their bag out on the floor, right? Or leaves a mess or leaves their barbell loaded and they're gonna take that to Facebook. And unfortunately what happens is that everybody who's viewed that now sees them ranting and says, that's a person I just don't wanna be around. And you know, they , they cost themselves so much business, it can, it can easily tank their gym.
Think about the last three years how stressful they've, they've been for everyone, you know , parents working from home with kids in lockdown, like all this different stuff. And then you go and see your gym owner ranting about how stressed he or she is. And , and then like, you don't wanna be around that cuz you are stressed, right? You kind of wanna be this island of calm.
You've talked about the calm model and like when we, we'll put a link to that show in the notes, because that is people, when we put those , uh, that content out during Covid and other times it , people really needed it. And we got responses saying, holy cow, this model of leadership is really, really important. It would help me because no one wants to be around the crazy person during crazy times, right? Like, it's tough. Are some people just unsuited to service businesses?
Like are there some jerks that are gym owners that just aren't suited to it?
Well, maybe this , the timing is off for them. You know, maybe they haven't learned the lessons that they need to learn before they can have a successful business. That's all . Like , I, I really, I don't like the idea that some people are just and there's nothing we can do about it.
But the reality is like if you really struggle to contain your , um, political ranting or , um, you know, your, your habit for like any polarizing thing , um, you know, maybe, maybe choose a job that's not in the service industry. Dealing with a public means that you're there to serve them. They're not there to listen to your rent , your opinion. You're not trying to win them over to your point of view.
Like, you cannot win a debate with a client or with the public on Facebook, but you can certainly lose. So I , while I don't think some people are ready for gym ownership or personal training yet , um, you know, you can certainly learn these skills. They were, they were not natural to me, you know? And
I So how do you learn 'em ? Tell, let's get into that. Like how does a gym owner out there who maybe feels these things like this pressure and tension maybe isn't behaving how he they want to , how would, how would, how did you learn these skills and how can people do that?
Well, the first one is just get yourself outta the situation. You know? And I think this happened for me by accident where , um, I blew, you know, I blew a couple of amazing client relationships and I was like, you can't keep doing this. And so , um, you know, I would, if I had a client that I was distracted while I was serving or like just I didn't like them, I would move them them to another trainer.
And I accepted that, well, if they didn't like the other trainer and quit, I , that's some risk I was willing to take because I wasn't helping them and I was destroying my own , uh, mentality. And then I also know like at 6:00 AM I'm on, but I'm distracted, you know, I, I do not wanna be coaching a class at 6:00 AM because I'm gonna be thinking about the next blog post. You know, the client who hasn't paid yet, right? Like growing my business.
And so , um, this really all hit home for me when the only person I could find who would take our 6:00 AM class was this really friendly, happy young coach named charity. And Charity was a , I think a sophomore at university at that time. So she didn't have like the decades of training knowledge that I had, but she could smile at 6:00 AM and people wanted to be around her. And that class size went from like three or four to six and eight every day because people just wanted to be around charity.
You know, it didn't matter that I knew more, it didn't matter that I had all this experience. What mattered was she was likable at 6:00 AM and I was not.
So you , you're, you're quoting paragraphs of super training by Mel ciff and she's just smiling and being happy and the clients show smiling and happy,
Literally . Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for the obscure Mel Siff call back .
Yeah , yeah. I got the book City right over there as I was like, ah , that , that , that's one that I've done too. You know, periodization, sar mirrors and all this stuff, and someone Smiley, you know, gets the motivation credit , uh, talk . So how can gym owners take some steps, like what can they do to work on this? Because these soft skills, like we talk about often as gym owners saying, well, we need our staff to work on their soft skills and be better.
But often as gym owners, we forget that. So what can gym owners do to, to like really improve themselves? Well,
The , so the first step is just self-awareness. And um, for me, two books that really helped were How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. And then , um, there was a great book by Dan Pink and I can't think of the name right now, I'll find a link . And in this book though, what he said was that most people go an entire day without a single positive thought. And when he said that, I said, that sounds ridiculous, it can't be true.
And then I just started paying attention to my thoughts and I was like, holy crap, you know, all day long I have been angry, sarcastic, pointing out flaws in other people, completely unhappy. And it was depressing, honestly. And then , and then finally I was like, well, what if I just started being intentional about doing positive things, saying positive things? And, and that was a hard road for me, two to three years of like slowly turning the giant freighter around.
But I'm a happier person now because I did that exercise and that's when my gym really started to grow was when I learned how to become more positive. I'm not talking about like fake till you make it, and there's always going to be times when you know, you need to step off the stage like a Disney World. You know, you , you , you go into the tunnels and you have a cigarette and you calm down. Like your gym should have a door that closes.
But , um, you know, you do have an amazing opportunity to practice positivity every single class, but you actively have to practice it. It, it's not like you can just read a book about the clean and be good about the clean. You have to understand what the clean is and then go get some reps . And I think, like, that's been key for me.
Earlier this week, Chris went through a whole bunch of simple tactics you can use at the gym level. So we're not gonna get into all of 'em here. You can check out that podcast again . We'll get a link in the show notes there. But he's got a list of, I think it was 10 simple tactics. One of me quoted just closing your office door. And I literally had a storage cabinet where I went in there sometimes before the morning class when only one person would roll in.
And it was maybe a difficult relationship there where that person, maybe that person was unlikable and I was unlikable at the same time. I sat there and I looked at the mops and I was just like, you can do this, you can do this. There are 10 tactics. Yeah , there are 10 things in that in there that you can do today to just be better. But then there is the broader concept of a long-term , you know, active work on self-improvement.
And you know, Chris, you've probably had to work on that as your stress has increased. You've gone from gym owner with few employees to gym me , mentorship business owner with like dozens Ofties employees. Yeah , right. So like the , the stresses there only increase as you rise through the gym business, right? Like, it's only gonna get harder if you don't put in this work. You may find yourself stressed and becoming more unlikeable. Am I right?
Yeah, so there's, there's a few different things there, Mike, but, but I work with , uh, Bonnie Skinner who owns Level Up coaching. Bonnie's a registered psychotherapist, and every second week I go into her office, she closes the door and I just vent. And yeah, this stuff seems small, but it piles up, you know? Mm-hmm .
, uh, really early on in my career , um, there was this guy named tka who was coming to my gym and he was a steel plant worker, and he and I both lived about 30 minutes out of the city. And one day I was kind of complaining about my drive. I was doing a lot of complaining about everything back then. And he says, Chris, you need that drive. And I said, tka , what are you talking about?
And he's like, you need to have a gap in your day between all of this frustration and anger you're feeling at work. And the moment when you greet your family, if you don't have that gap, it just carries right over. And man, through the lockdowns, when I was working from home, that was a challenge because something would happen at work, let's say it , and you'd be mad and you would have like five stairs between your desk and the , the dinner table, and it wasn't enough time.
And, you know , vice versa, like the, the dog would pee on something in the basement and then you gotta get on a call and, and be like, happy Smiley. Like, there wasn't enough time. So you have to buy yourself space. You have to know who it's appropriate to vent to, right? Like your spouse. Okay? But you carry a big burden as an , as an entrepreneur and like you can't always be venting to them.
However, that doesn't mean that like Instagram is your release valve , you know, don't fling your all over the walls on social media, but you have have to know who you can like vent to. You have to have that person. It's not your clients. It's certainly not somebody who works for you, right? It's , uh, if there's nobody else, like seek a counselor or a therapist,
They can be super helpful and they can actually point out distortions in your thoughts where it's like, wow , you know, you're, you're not thinking correctly here. And you can kind of , that really helps you get clarity. You've written a lot about clarity and I think some of those things come from, you know, Bonnie has presented at, at various things for us. She's incredible at pointing out, you know, and she's very direct about it.
You are not thinking right about this, you know, so there is that therapy option, but then there's another option, and this is one that personally worked for me, was using a mentor, a business mentor, the most stressed. And the , the, the worst I was as a gym owner was when I was worried about the bills and the revenue was down and members aren't there. And you just, you , you feel like you have all these things to do and client problems seem dismiss , you can just dismiss them.
The thing that helped was finding a business mentor and I started, you know, working with you and I started working with other mentors that you had on your team. I could vent to them, I could get it all clear the decks and then I could get, you know, clarity on how to fix these problems. So talk to me about that. Like what could a business mentor do for a gym owner who's struggling?
Yeah. So the analogy I like to use is they pop the balloon for you. So you , you think about like all of the stuff that's, that's going on in the course of a day, right? All the little distractions and it just kind of builds and builds and builds. And soon you're traveling around with this big like, bubble of stress and overwhelm and anxiety and fear about the future. And just like, what do I do? And then you talk to your mentor and your mentor's like, just do this one thing right now, you know?
And I had a , a session like this this morning where the person , uh, literally came in, sat on the couch in my office here and talked for 40 minutes about all these problems they couldn't solve. And I said, I want you to do this thing by four o'clock. And she said, oh, okay, thanks coop . And she like left whistling and smiling and like, really that's what a mentor does.
They maintain just enough objectivity that they can say, do this one thing right now, and you can trust that they're not gonna let any of the other balls drop. You're not gonna forget all the other crap that you've got. But the ability to have that single point of focus, it's a huge relief because gym owners can work hard, right? If we're, if they're given a direction and they can put their head down and they will do it all day long and they will be happy doing it.
Uh, it's this, you know, 5,000 different directions or 5,000 different things that really add up into this big balloon of stress.
The thing that really helped me was when I was struggling with something and like you said, anxiety building up. Yeah . I would talk to a mentor and say, here's my problem, it's freaking me out. And they're like, oh, we've solved this like 2,500 times before, just do this. Here are the steps. Yeah . And even now, like with two brain resources, it's like, here's the downloadable tactical PDF that's step by step and it's like, oh, that's how you do a rate increase.
Why was I so stressed about this? And let's be, yeah , rate increases are stressful, but now that you have all the steps, the process have been proven and it works and you have support, everything is so much easier. Right? And that's really the benefit that I found from mentorship was just getting the answer. This is not that big a problem because we have the answer. Even if you don't, you know? And have you seen that with gym owners?
Have you , like you've worked with many of them and then you've, your mentors have worked with many more. Have you seen them actually become more likable as their stress melts
Off? Yeah, I think that's fairly normal. And like, you know, you don't think about it consciously, but if you're in any of our groups, what you'll notice is that over time people start to share more, they become more open, they become more generous. And their, their posts on Friday when they give us their updates, go from very like specific, our metrics increase this much this month to I feel great. I had a date with my wife, I spent so much time with my kids.
You know, like over time you see this transition and you know, entrepreneurship, it's worthwhile. Um , but entrepreneurs also deserve to be happy doing it. And so like , that's just the coolest side effect that we see in a mentorship practice is that people grow to love their business and love their life. Again,
You owners , you're out there and you are stressed and worried and , uh, overworked and underpaid. I will wager to say that you're probably a little bit less likable than you could be
That
That's right. Like , you know, it's, it's an obvious one. And cuz I was there, Chris was there, we've all been there. If you're feeling stressed, I would recommend that you book a call. We'll put a link in the show notes there, book a call and find out how a mentor can help. And again, just give you some stuff to think about. See what you could do to get rid of some of that stress. Chris , close it out. Is there something simple beyond that call that you would give them to do today? Yep .
Just like, what can I do right now to become more
Likable? Practice putting yourself in the other person's shoes. And this was a very hard skill for me to learn. I'm not a naturally empathetic person, but if , um, somebody is gonna come in and they're gonna do a no sweat intro for me, I'm gonna spend five minutes learning everything I can about that person and then mentally putting myself in their shoes. And now I understand like why people are intimidated by the free trial and they're not intimidated by the no sweat intro.
Um, why they're like intimidated when they see me ranting about like global gyms and their discounts and, and people don't show up or like attacking competitors online. I understand why they don't wanna be around me if I'm being a negative person. And the the best thing that I can do to change their life is just be a person that they wanna be around. If you wanna do one thing every single day before anything else happens to you, just practice saying good morning.
Good morning is a greeting that everybody likes. It's friendly. And I actually seek out people who are gonna give me a really good, good morning. Like I know which coffee shop to go to at 5:00 AM where I'm gonna get the best warmest good morning because that's how I start my day. And , um, yeah, the the other thing is like talk to talk. If you can't figure out how to be nice, talk to everybody. Like you'd talk to your dog. .
That's exactly it. And one of the things , uh, you guys follow along in the blogs this week that Chris has written, he's written a bunch of great stuff there. One of the things there is use people's names. So good morning, Chris. Good morning, Mike, whatever. Remember names, there are tactics that can help you be more likable. Learn them and work on them. Chris , thanks for sharing this. Uh, we're gonna go back to being likable people , uh, at our jobs here.
Uh , but we're gonna push you more out the door with that. This is run a profitable, Jim. I'd love it if on the way out you would hit subscribe , uh, on light YouTube. Do you have a comment? Interact with us somehow and you'll see more of this stuff. We would be grateful for that. Chris, where can people get more support from you and two brain mentors right now?
Go to jim owners united.com. Make that your next stop on Facebook instead of , uh, making a post that will sabotage yourself.
That group is curated, it's positive, it's full of support, no arguments. The unlikeable people. What happens to 'em in there? Chris,
We have removed over 1800 of them by now. If, if they struggle to maintain a positive attitude and a help first ethos, they are just gone. We just filter 'em out just like your clients are filtering you , you out. If you can't do that,
Jim motor united.com , head there now and join. We'll see you in there.
Thanks Mike.