Run a Profitable Gym

Marketing has always been challenging. Throw in a pandemic, months of closure and murky, varied reopening plans, and it's no wonder gym owners are unsure what to do. Colm O'Reilly is the owner of CrossFit Ireland, a certified Two-Brain mentor and the Two-Brain Marketing team lead. He joined Mike Warkentin to discuss Facebook ads in the post-COVID era: what works, what doesn't and ho...

Have you ever wondered why you haven't been able to achieve your dreams despite how much you want to? Why you just don't do it, even though you know you have the potential? Michael Bernoff calls that your "average"—the force inside you that keeps you from challenging the status quo and actually taking the steps that would bring you success. Michael is the founder of the Human C...

Carolyne Prevost may be one of the best all-around athletes in CrossFit. Not only has she competed at the Games, but she has also won 11 national championships in four different sports. She has competed in soccer, taekwondo and professional hockey, and she currently works as a high-school math, science and physical education teacher. She spoke with Sean Woodland about the benefits of being a multi...

What exactly is online coaching? What is it not? And is it as valuable as in-person coaching in the gym? Two-Brain Business online coaching specialist Josh Grenell joined Mike Warkentin to shed some light on the subject. He talked about how true online coaching differs from Zoom group-fitness classes, why it's more valuable and how to sell it. He also shared tips for increasing efficiency as...

What's easier: getting a new client or keeping a current one? Smart gym owners know it's the latter, but unfortunately, the data shows that gyms are only keeping clients about half as long as they should. If you don't want to stay stuck on the treadmill of constantly seeking new clients, you've got to focus on retention—and that means focusing on the client journey. Here, Chris...

If when all is said and done, Cole Sager is remembered for his character more than his fitness, he's just fine with that. But that doesn't mean he's not fit. Cole has been to the CrossFit Games six times in his career and finished in the top 10 thrice. His best career finish was 5th in 2018. He also received the Spirit of the Games award in 2017. He joined Sean Woodland to talk abou...

We've always said that microgym owners sell coaching, not access, and never has that been clearer than during the COVID crisis. Your clients aren't getting barbells and cues—so what are they paying for? Certified Two-Brain mentor and Two-Brain Coaching co-founder Josh Martin says coaches need to look at the bigger picture. At his gym, CrossFit For Glory, coaches take the "sleep, eat...

Over the last few weeks, Chris Cooper has talked about how to rebuild your business post-COVID and how to repackage your services to your clients' individual needs. Now it's time to talk about how to bring these new services to your clients. In this live webinar recorded on May 17, 2020, Chris discussed motivational interviewing, how to structure goal reviews to improve length of engagem...

Steph Hammerman is one of the most well-known adaptive athletes in the CrossFit world. She is the first Level 2 coach with cerebral palsy. She's a cancer survivor and has completed a hand cycle marathon. She also owns Hammer Driven Fitness in North Carolina. Here, she talks with Sean Woodland about growing up with cerebral palsy, beating cancer, how she uses her voice to advocate for others,...

If you've been watching your leads plummet during COVID-19, you're not alone. Certified Two-Brain mentor and sales expert Jeff Burlingame says it's normal right now to see a conversion rate of 25 percent or less. But that doesn't mean you can't sell. Here, Jeff shares what's working and what's not when it comes to sales during the coronavirus crisis. You'll...

Last week, we talked about evaluating your business: Where it is and where you want it to go. Now it's time to talk tactics. In this live webinar recorded on May 10, Chris Cooper walked a group of gym owners through the steps in Two-Brain's Your Gym 2.0 Worksheet Part 2. You'll learn how to create service packages that are perfect for your best clients, what to charge for them and h...

You might know that Jacob Heppner is a CrossFit Games veteran, but did you know he's also a nerd? While his friends partied in college, Jacob holed up in the library. And after requesting the "hardest major you have" of his guidance counselor, he chose math. He was pretty good at it, too—his first internship was as a mathematics technician at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. That's...

The coronavirus crisis has changed everything, and that includes advertising. Digital-marketing expert Mateo Lopez went down the rabbit hole to discover what successful gym owners and sales gurus are doing to make sales during lockdown. Here, he and Mike Warkentin of Two-Brain Media examine real fitness ads from clients of a fitness sales guru, discovering some key patterns along the way. Links: C...

The coronavirus crisis isn't just a crisis—it's an opportunity. An opportunity to evaluate your business: what you do and don't miss about how things used to be, what worked well, what you'll never do again and where you want to go moving forward. In this live webinar recorded on May 3, 2020, Chris Cooper took a group of gym owners through Two-Brain's "Your Gym 2.0&qu...

Michele Letendre understands competition from all angles. She's a former top-level athlete with six individual CrossFit Games appearances and a career-best finish of 4th in 2014. Now, she's a business owner and a coach to elite athletes such as Pat Vellner. In this interview with Sean Woodland, Michele gets real about the mental toll of competition, the pressure of being compared with Ca...

For Eric Siegel, owner of CrossFit 781, the COVID crisis is more than a crisis—it's an opportunity to learn. Though retention was good after he pivoted his gym to online training, Eric wanted more: He wanted to grow. So he completed Two-Brain's online coaching course and began the Facebook marketing Incubator. Then, he implemented what he'd learned. He began offering online training...

COVID-19 has changed the fitness industry. The most successful gym owners have pivoted to online training—and some of them might not want to go back to bricks and mortar. Even those who do have recognized an opportunity for a valuable new revenue stream. In this live webinar recorded on April 26, 2020, Chris Cooper will teach you how to move completely online in 11 steps—and how to add value to yo...

If you think Fran is tough, try hell week on a broken foot. And that's not even what Sean Sweeney is most famous for. Dubbed the CrossFit Cowboy, Sean is known for sporting a cowboy hat during competition, riling up the crowds and being a jokester in general. But he's also a serious competitor and three-time CrossFit Games athlete. He joined Sean Woodland to share some of the toughest le...

Gym owner Brendon Collins had zero online training experience before Strong Tower CrossFit was forced to close due to the coronavirus pandemic. Within 30 days, he'd generated US$2 thousand in front-end revenue from virtual training and nutrition sales while retaining 97% of his client base—without spending a dime on ads. Here, he reveals the secret sauce. You'll learn how a commitment to...

Many trainers are in brand-new territory right now. They're used to group classes and whiteboard briefings; to cues and countdowns. But that's not the reality we're living in. Coaches need to add a few more tools to their toolkits to keep clients happy, improving and coming back for more. Here, Two-Brain Coaching co-founder Josh Martin joins Chris Cooper to talk about what coaches n...

Amanda Barnhart is a rising star in the Sport of Fitness. She took 15th at the 2018 CrossFit Games, her rookie year, and followed that up with a 7th-place finish in 2019—despite a bum ankle. She joined Sean Woodland to talk about her collegiate swimming career and how that led her to CrossFit, the ankle injury that nearly took her out of the Games last year and her memorable showdown with Tia-Clai...

You've moved your fitness business online. Your coaches are checking in with clients daily, helping them get fit from home. It's strange, but maybe it also feels kinda good. Maybe you're enjoying working from 9 to noon, then spending the rest of the day with your kids. Maybe you're realizing you don't need to pay rent to get people healthier. Maybe you don't want to g...

The coronavirus pandemic has forced everyone to shift to a new way of life and work. It's difficult and stressful, and people are scared. Good leadership is more important now than ever. In this webinar recorded live on April 12, Chris Cooper explains the CALM model of leadership (clarity, assurance, leadership and movement) and how gym owners can use it to guide their communities and continu...

Pat Vellner made his individual debut at the CrossFit Games in 2016 and proceeded to take third overall. Since then, he has become one of the most popular athletes in the sport and a perennial favorite to finish on the podium in Madison. He joined Sean Woodland to talk about how competing in gymnastics and lacrosse helped prepare him for competitive CrossFit, how he managed to finish third at a Re...

Good advertising has always been about tracking data: Try something, track it, revise it, and track it some more. That hasn't changed just because we're in a pandemic. What might change, however, is your ad strategy. Two-Brain Business is constantly collecting data on what's working and what's not in the microgym world. Here, digital-marketing expert Mateo Lopez shares what he&...