Run a Profitable Gym

Check out these monthly marketing stats from today’s guest: About 60 leads, 25 appointments, 23 shows and 18 closes. These are great numbers, and gym owner Kieran O’Dwyer isn’t breaking the bank to post them. In this episode, host John Franklin sits down with Kieran to learn how he’s built such a successful marketing funnel on a small budget at Bathurst Strength and Conditioning and Orange City St...

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host John Franklin is joined by Two-Brain founder and CEO Chris Cooper. They provide a glimpse into the upcoming Two-Brain Summit, happening June 8 and 9 in Chicago. Some of the incredible speakers for this year’s event include Jonathan Goodman, Jason Khalipa, Brian Chontosh and coaches from Mayhem Nation. Attendees will also get to grill a panel of exper...

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Chris Cooper and Mike Warkentin run through the jaw-dropping speaker lineup for the 2024 Two-Brain Summit, which goes down June 8 and 9 in Chicago. At the Summit, gym owners will hear about everything from building $1-million net worth to leveraging the four different personality types found in a business. Coaches will upgrade their skills and learn how t...

Have you ever heard of a gym with a waiting list? CrossFit Leiden in the Netherlands has capped its membership at 400 clients. Instead of adding more people, the gym is focused on retention, increasing value for clients and raising average revenue per member (ARM). In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host Mike Warkentin chats with gym co-owner Jeroen van Duijn to learn how CrossFit Leiden o...

Focusing on retention can improve just about every metric in your gym, from average revenue per member to length of engagement. In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host Mike Warkentin talks with Chris Cooper, Two-Brain founder and CEO, about all things retention. They dial in on the five pillars of retention: results, fame, compatibility, consistency and referrals. Chris explains what each...

Could you acquire over 400 members for your gym? And if you hit that total, could you hold onto them? Today on “Run a Profitable Gym,” host Mike Warkentin chats with Rune Laursen, owner of BoxLife/CrossFit 5512 in Denmark. Rune made our December 2023 Top 10 leaderboard for client count, which ran from 324 to 1,034 members. Rune’s already improved on his late-2023 stats: His gym now has 512 members...

Gym owners often think they have a marketing problem when they actually have a retention problem: It doesn’t matter how many new clients you bring in each month if they aren’t sticking around! In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Chris Cooper presents Two-Brain’s Top 10 leaderboard for client headcount in December 2023. Each gym on the leaderboard has over 300 members and is super profitable...

Many paths lead to millionaire net worth as a gym owner, and one of them involves buying your gym’s building. In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host John Franklin sits down with Brian Strump, a chiropractor and the owner of Live Active Charlotte, who recently bought his gym’s building for $1.8 million. The pair get into the details of the huge purchase and discuss the benefits of owning y...

Here are two big staff-related threats to a microgym: Coaches say “I can’t make enough money doing this” and leave the fitness industry. Or they say “I can’t make enough money here” and leave to start their own gyms. What’s a gym owner to do? You can start by showing your coaches how they can create great careers at your gym—and bringing them with you to the Two-Brain Summit this June is a fantast...

Do you have a business model for your gym? In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host Mike Warkentin and Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper lay out five gym business models that have been proven to be successful—and that’s based on data from thousands of gyms around the world. The models are: 1. Group only. 2. Group plus personal training. 3. Group plus high-ticket offers. 4. Semi-private trainin...

With just 1,700 square feet of usable space, Daniel Purington’s gym averages around $50,000 in revenue per month, allowing him to earn over $100,000 in net owner benefit, provide careers for four full-time staff members and pay two part-timers. In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host John Franklin sits down with Daniel, owner of Woodslawn Fitness in Portland, Oregon, to uncover the secrets...

This episode of “Run a Profitable Gym” was recorded live in Dallas, Texas, during a meetup of the world’s best gym owners—some of whom are featured in Chris Cooper’s latest book, “Millionaire Gym Owner." Host John Franklin sits down with Taryn Dubreuil of CrossFit Function and Joleen Bingham of 13 Stripes Fitness. Both Taryn and Joleen are Two-Brain mentors and certified millionaire gym owner...

“How can I stop working 70 hours a week?” “What will I do if an unexpected expense comes up?” “How am I ever going to retire?” As a young gym owner, Two-Brain founder and CEO Chris Cooper asked all these questions, and at first he couldn’t find any answers. This led him to search inside and outside the fitness industry for a path that led to freedom of money and freedom of time—aka, retirement. He...

This month’s leaderboard show is all about average revenue per member (ARM)—how much a gym earns on average from each client in a month. In this episode, host Mike Warkentin is joined by Two-Brain ARM leader Michaela Munsterman. Her gym, Elite Medical Exercise, in Austin, Texas, has a gigantic ARM—but Michaela doesn’t spend any money on ads to attract her high-value clients. Instead, she built a d...

Many gym owners are scared to raise rates, even though they probably don’t charge enough for the value they provide. The good news? There are a few simple tactics you can use to boost revenue before you do a rate increase. In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper is joined by Brendan Rice, CEO of Wodify, to talk about two new Wodify features that enable gym owners...

How much extra revenue would your gym bring in if you increased rates by just $10? What if each client contributed $300 or more to your gross revenue? In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host Mike Warkentin talks average revenue per member (ARM) with Kelly Lorenz, owner of FORM gym in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Kelly’s gym boasts an impressive ARM score: It earned a spot on Two-Brain's...

Every month, Two-Brain compiles a leaderboard of the top-performing gyms so we can find out what the best gyms are doing—and tell you. In December 2023, we focused on average revenue per member (ARM) at more than 1,000 gyms worldwide. ARM measures what clients are paying in return for the value a gym provides, and the businesses on our leaderboard provide a ton of value. The No. 1 gym earned just...

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host John Franklin interviews longtime gym owner Ben Bergeron of CrossFit New England and CompTrain. After spending more than 15 years in the fitness industry as a gym owner and coach to CrossFit Games athletes including Mat Fraser and Katrin Davidsdottir, Ben says that virtuosity—mastery of the fundamentals—is essential in a successful gym business. He d...

How do you dominate your local market? The key is focus: Don’t try to offer every service under the sun. In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host John Franklin is joined by Jack Wheeler of 360 Fitness in Red Deer and Sherwood Park, Canada. Jack’s flagship location does over 4,000 personal training sessions per month, and if you Google “personal training Red Deer,” his gym is the No. 1 resul...

Two-Brain founder and CEO Chris Cooper is a household name in his community of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, where his gym, Catalyst Fitness, is located. He’s a true authority when it comes to dominating your local market.  In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host Mike Warkentin prompts Chris to reveal the strategies behind his success in making his gym the obvious choice for people in the com...

Most people are still working the same 40-hour workweek introduced just under 100 years ago, and gym owners often go way beyond 40. In fact, many work closer to 80 hours a week. This can quickly lead to burnout—a killer of small businesses. In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder and CEO Chris Cooper is joined by John Briggs, accountant and author of “Profit First for Microgym...

Virtuosity—it’s the theme of this year’s Two-Brain Summit. But what is it exactly? Simply put, virtuosity means mastery of the fundamentals. In today’s episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder and CEO Chris Cooper discusses the basics that every gym owner should focus on and explains how mastering fundamentals will help you grow your gym faster than searching for new trends. The allure...

Two-Brain’s most recent leaderboard tracked net owner benefit (NOB): salary, dividends and anything else the business pays for. Every single fitness entrepreneur in the Top 10 is earning between $15,000 and $25,000 per month from their gym. In today’s episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host Mike Warkentin sits down with one of these Top 10 earners to lay out the path to success. Ashley Reese, owne...

Competition season is approaching—and it can be a stressful time for gym owners, who often take on extra work without seeing a reward. To help, Two-Brain has a step-by-step, plug-and-play guide you can use to reduce stress, boost retention, make money and ramp up the fun during the Open. In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Chris Cooper tells the origin story of the Intramural Open and how i...

As social media becomes flooded with fitness influencers, or “fitfluencers,” a new issue arises for gym owners: cameras in gyms.  Who’s liable when a member is in the background of a photo or video and doesn’t want to be? The gym owner or the media creator? The answer might surprise you. Believe it or not, cameras can cause serious headaches for gym owners. In some situations, they might lose memb...