The Cheer Biz Podcast

Filling your cheer gym doesn't have to feel like guessing. In this episode, Dan breaks down the exact framework he uses to turn strangers into lifelong members — and why most gyms are leaking people out the bottom of their funnel without ever noticing. He walks through the three stages — Attract, Convert, and Ascend — including why posting "we're hosting an open house" once on Facebook isn't actua...

Picking a uniform vendor feels like it should be simple, until you're the one holding a surprise shipping bill and a prototype that didn't survive the wash. In this episode, Dan Cotton breaks down the exact framework he uses to evaluate a uniform vendor before committing a season's budget to them. Dan walks through the real story behind a dye-sub uniform that tested solid black and turned almost w...

Ty went from a football and baseball kid who'd never set foot in a cheer gym to a 4x World Champion at Top Gun Miami — and now he's making history on Miami Medal, the first-ever Pro Cheer League roster. Dan sits down with Ty to talk about his unlikely start at a D2 gym in Starke, FL, the injury that nearly derailed his college cheer career at Weber right before trials, and what it's actually like...

Dan's own ad performance has taken a hit this year, so instead of pretending marketing is easy right now, he's breaking down the three real reasons leads have dried up — for his own gyms and for the Next Gen clients he coaches. He covers why AI-written ad copy reads exactly the same as everyone else's and quietly kills performance, why your best ad creative is probably already sitting in your orga...

Dan's been obsessed with pricing for four years — obsessed enough to write the book on it — and this episode is him answering the three questions he gets asked more than anything else by gym owners. He walks through his actual formula for pricing classes and all-star teams (payroll, expenses, enrollment minimums, profit margin — building to a real $625-per-class example), how to know when you can...

Every cheer gym owner hits the wall at some point — the moment you look at your spouse or your business partner and ask, "Is this actually worth it?" Dan's been there more times than he can count, and this episode is a look at exactly what he does when he gets there. Dan walks through the early years with his wife Tori, when enrollments were slow, revenue was tight, and teams weren't competing the...

You've heard it everywhere — as a busy gym owner, you need to delegate. So you think it's time to hire a manager. But according to Dan, it might not be. In this episode, Dan breaks down what a manager actually is (versus just a fancy title), the five things a real manager needs — supervision, delegation authority, communication, administration, and hiring authority — and why promoting your best in...

If Dan wanted to guarantee his gym stopped growing — or put it out of business entirely — these are the five things he'd do. Unfortunately, he sees gym owners doing all five on a regular basis across the industry. In this episode, Dan breaks down the real growth killers: airing your "dirty laundry" online, refusing to embrace social media and AI, marketing without a strong product to back it up, t...

Dan's a self-described AI super fan — but this episode is him making the case for why the average cheer gym owner should not be spending their time building a custom app with AI, no matter how easy tools like Replit make it look. He walks through his own experience building an app for Dream Camps: the first version broke mid-camp after 100+ hours of work, and even the full rebuild this year still...

A bad hire made in a moment of desperation doesn't just cost you today — it costs you all season, and sometimes for years after. Dan shares the story of the worst hiring year he ever had at Oregon Dream Teams, and breaks down exactly why "desperation hires" almost always backfire. In this episode, Dan walks through the trickle-down disaster that started with one panicked hire after a business part...

When Dan Cotton and his wife Tori took over their gym back in 2011, they didn't know the first thing about running a business — they just knew how to coach. In this episode, Dan breaks down the five things he'd change if he were opening his gym today, and why getting these wrong cost him years of growth he could've had sooner. He covers why a great front desk hire matters more than your next coach...

Brooke’s cheerleading career started because some friends at recess told her she couldn’t do a back walkover. Years later, she would go on to compete at Worlds, spend three years at Trinity Valley, transfer to Weber State, and experience some of the highest levels of competitive college cheer. In this episode of The Cheer Biz Podcast, Dan Cotton sits down with Brooke, a member of the Dream Camps s...

Dan calls himself an AI super fan — he uses it every single day, in multiple parts of his business, at the same time he's recording this episode. But he's also telling you flat out: AI is not your business coach, and treating it like one is going to cost you. He walks through exactly why, using two real examples. First, when a frustrated parent kept sending him emails, he fed the situation to AI a...

There's a real difference between a good routine and a great one — and Dan's spent years figuring out why some gyms consistently get the second and most don't. In this episode, he breaks down the six things that quietly sabotage a choreography session before the choreographer even shows up. Dan gets specific, including calling out his own World's team as an example: his large coed program is headi...

Dan breaks down a conversation he had with Danielle about a pattern they keep seeing in gym-owner partnerships: the cheer-focused partner overrules the business-focused partner, and it usually goes badly. He walks through the four mistakes cheer-obsessed owners make over and over — overpaying for choreographers and custom music without budgeting for the cleanups that follow, letting coaches schedu...

The economy, Gen Z, the president - Dan says none of these are why your gym is struggling. In this direct, no-punches-pulled episode, he breaks down the six real reasons some gyms are thriving while others are stuck, and why almost none of it comes down to bad luck. He covers outdated marketing (straight-line funnels stopped working back in 2024), weak offers that don't tell a story, underpricing...

“I’m too busy.” “My gym is different.” “No one can do it better than me.” They might feel true in the moment, but Dan believes these are three of the biggest lies cheer gym owners tell themselves — and they could be keeping your business from growing. In this episode, Dan breaks down why being busy doesn’t always mean you’re spending your time on the right things, why waiting for things to “slow d...

For 11 years, Dan was everything at DreamCamps — CEO, COO, sales, marketing, camp director, and just about every role in between. This year, he finally realized that the thing holding the company back from its next level of growth was him. In this episode, Dan shares why he made the decision to build out a management team and start handing off responsibilities he had personally owned for more than...

Dan is back in the studio after three months on the road, and he has some hot takes about what he's been seeing across the cheer industry. In this episode, Dan works through 10 topics that have been on his mind this summer, starting with why he believes coaching private lessons is easier than teaching classes and why the days of spending $100 on Facebook ads and expecting a flood of new members ar...

Originally recorded in October 2023, we're re-releasing this conversation because it's still just as relevant today. Dan sits down with Jason Larkins, host of the Let's Talk Cheer podcast, to work through a list of real questions submitted by NextGen Academy gym owners - and it turns into one of the most practical, wide-ranging conversations on the show. They dig into how to fix choreography mid-s...

The cheer industry is huge, but the network behind it is small — and your reputation travels fast. In this episode, Dan Cotton breaks down why how you treat independent providers (choreographers, camp companies) and your own staff can make or break your gym's reputation — and what to do if you're already struggling with it. Dan shares a real story from this summer: a longtime program canceled 60 c...

Winning Worlds is an incredible accomplishment—but sometimes the biggest lessons in cheer come from the moments that don't end with a trophy. In this episode of the Cheer Biz Podcast, Dan Cotton sits down with Kaden Snyder, World Champion with MACS Senior Starz and Weber State Cheer athlete, for an honest conversation about resilience, leadership, elite tumbling, and what it really takes to grow a...

In this episode of the Cheer Biz Podcast, Dan Cotton explains why the biggest mistake cheer gym owners make with artificial intelligence is treating it like a chatbot instead of an employee. Dan shares how he's using AI every day to automate repetitive tasks, manage communications, build software, organize information, and save hours of work each week. More importantly, he explains the mindset shi...

Too many cheer gym owners make pricing, staffing, marketing, and growth decisions based on gut feelings instead of real business data. In this episode of the Cheer Biz Podcast, Dan Cotton breaks down the essential numbers every cheer gym owner should track to make smarter, more profitable decisions. He explains why knowing your total revenue is only the beginning—and why you also need to understan...

In this episode of the Cheer Biz Podcast, Dan Cotton breaks down what cheer coaches and gym owners often get wrong when studying the routines that win major end-of-season events. Too many coaches watch a winning routine and immediately focus on the hardest stunt, the biggest tumbling pass, or the most creative transition. Dan explains why copying isolated skills is rarely the answer—and why diffic...