Run a Profitable Gym

Camille Leblanc-Bazinet is one of the most recognizable athletes in CrossFit Games history. She appeared at the Games every year from 2010 to 2018 as an individual and stood on the podium as a member of a team last year. She is also the founder of the online training program Féroce Fitness. Here, she talks with Sean Woodland about her competitive CrossFit career, what it was like winning the 2014...

You've seen the ads: "Six weeks to a new you!" "Sign up for our six-week total-body transformation!" But do they really work? And if they do, does that mean you have to start all over when the challenge period is over? Digital-marketing expert Mateo Lopez is here with the scoop. He'll tell you why the six-week challenge and its variants work so well, the essential ele...

There's a lot of competition in the fitness business. Gone are the days where being a great coach and offering a great product are enough to get you clients—that's the bare minimum. Every successful gym has great coaches and great products, so what makes you different? Jason Rule, founder of Driven Nutrition, is faced with the same question daily. The supplement industry is vast and comp...

Meg Reardon is an elite athlete. After playing field hockey at the University of California Davis, she competed twice as an individual at the CrossFit Games and is slated for her third Games appearance in August. But what you wouldn't guess by looking at the leaderboard is that she's also a small-business owner. Five years ago, Meg founded Wags and Weights, a lifestyle brand for fitness...

Last month your Facebook ads cost $10 a lead. Now they cost $50. What gives? And should you pull the plug on Facebook advertising? Not just yet. Rising ad costs are normal and to be expected, especially if you're advertising to a local market. But that doesn't mean ads are a dead end. It's all about knowing your numbers. In this episode of Two-Brain Radio, digital-marketing expert M...

What's your 30-second elevator speech? That your gym is state of the art? That you have all the best equipment, the most qualified trainers and the smartest programming around? That's cool, but it's probably not going to get you many new clients. Customers don't want to hear you talk about yourself; they want you to talk about them. How they'll accomplish their goals and i...

More than a million dogs are euthanized in shelters each year. Many are pit bulls or other bully breeds, which are often stereotyped as vicious and sometimes outlawed by local government. Alex Castiglione is working to change all that. When Alex visited a shelter after losing his beloved bully, Chops, he noticed all of the unadopted dogs were bully breeds. Soon after, he and his wife founded Barbe...

The photo was perfect. The beads of sweat brilliantly illuminated, the chalk dust billowing through the air. At the center, your buddy hitting a PR clean. So why does it only have three likes? Social-media algorithms are constantly changing, and the dance between paid and organic marketing can seem complicated and confusing. Neither paid nor organic posts are enough on their own: You have to use t...

What would it be like to own a million-dollar gym? Would you be rolling in dough? Sleeping in every day, never having to worry about another bill again? Not quite—but it's still pretty awesome. Peter Brasovan and Jared Byczko opened NapTown Fitness in a tiny space in an ex-FBI building for $500 a month's rent. In the early days, they kept the lights off and the heat low, and they posted...

In Kari Pearce's first CrossFit Open, she could barely do a set of 10 double-unders. A few months later—after less than a year of CrossFit—she qualified for the CrossFit Games in 2015. What Kari lacked in experience she made up for with a robust athletic background. She was a gymnast for nearly 20 years and competed on the gymnastics team at the University of Michigan in college. She took up...

You're running ads for your gym. You've honed your copy and paid the man to boost them. Still, no bites. What's the problem? It's hard to get strangers to buy into your core offering when they know nothing about you or whether your program works. That's why in addition to your regular advertising, you need lead magnets. Lead magnets are smaller—but still valuable—offerings...

What makes a better coach: an impeccable eye or a sense of empathy? Do you need to be a full-time coach to be a professional? What makes someone a not-so-great coach? Jason Ackerman is a career coach. He's owned multiple gyms and coached more than 10,000 trainers as part of the CrossFit Seminar Staff. With all that experience comes not only a wealth of technical knowledge but also a keen sens...

Emily Bridgers has been a competitor for most of her life. After a 16-year career as a gymnast, she competed at the CrossFit Games as an individual five times. Her best finish was 6th in 2014. So what do competitors do when they stop competing? In this episode of Two-Brain Radio, Emily speaks with Sean Woodland about her competitive career and why she decided to retire after the 2018 Games—despite...

How do you get people to click on your Facebook ads? And how do you write ads that entice your audience without sounding slimy? It's not as hard as it might seem. And while you could hire a pro, you definitely don't have to. In this episode, digital-marketing expert Mateo Lopez unpacks the components of a great Facebook ad. You'll learn how to write in different tones to match your...

Say you've got a great idea for a killer event in your community. Maybe it's a local competition. Maybe it's a networking or continuing-education event. How do you get people to actually attend? Just do what Per Mattsson did. Per is a Two-Brain Business mentor and the founder of Coaches Congress, a multi-day event in Sweden for gym owners and coaches. The Congress is attended by fit...

What would you do if in a single moment, everything you had worked so hard for was wrenched from your grasp forever? Scream? Cry? Give up? Kevin Ogar may have screamed and cried after the accident that left him—a lifelong athlete —paralyzed from the waist down, but he didn't give up. He rolled with it, finding purpose in helping adaptive athletes, veterans and able-bodied people alike change...

Did you resolve to read more in 2020? We've got you covered. Chris Cooper reads for at least an hour every day—often via audiobooks on Audible—and in this special, extra episode of Two-Brain Radio, he shares highlights from his bookshelf in 2019. He shares summaries of his favorites and honorable mentions—as well as some that he didn't like, but you might—and which phases of entrepreneur...

"Sorry, I can't make it to our appointment tonight; my dog is sick." "I just got called in to work." "I lost my job between last night and this morning ... " Sound familiar? If you own a gym, you've probably heard all these excuses and more for why a lead—who has willingly clicked on your ad and opted in—suddenly can't take your call or book an appointm...

January. It's the time for resolutions and goal setting, and many gyms see an influx of new or re-committed members in these first days of the year. But what happens when the novelty wears off? When temptation creeps in and setbacks occur? This episode of Two-Brain Radio is all about human behavior. Chris Cooper speaks with Ty Krueger, owner of Packerland CrossFit and founder of the Behavior...

Chris Spealler was the underdog of CrossFit, competing against men weighing up to 70 lb. more than him and holding his own. That's what made him relatable—that and his big heart and tremendous work ethic. "Speal" is an eight-time CrossFit Games competitor (7 individual, 1 master). He stood on the podium three times during his individual career. Time after time, he won fans' hea...

Mike Warkentin is writing his memoir, and he needs a new pen to do it. Can Mateo Lopez give him the perfect pitch? Your prospective clients probably don't need pens, but they do need fitness—and in this episode of Two-Brain Radio, Mateo will show you what an effective sales pitch looks like. You'll learn what to say and when, how to get in touch with the client's "why" and...

You opened a gym because you wanted to help people improve their lives with fitness. But lately, you've been more stressed than passionate. The gym is short-staffed and you've been working 12-hour days. You lie awake at night worrying about cash flow and coaching feels like a chore. What used to be a source of joy now feels like a burden. How did you get here? And how do you get happy ag...

Matt Chan has done a lot of things. He's taken second at the CrossFit Games, owned a gym, traveled the country in an Airstream trailer, survived a nearly deadly mountain-biking accident—oh, and that time he sharted 5 minutes before his heat at Regionals. In this episode of Two-Brain Radio, Matt tells Sean Woodland all about those experiences and more, reflecting on his six-year CrossFit Games...

Facebook marketing. You know you need it, but that's about all you know. Should you target your ads as widely as possible in the hopes of reaching more people? Should you tighten the focus on certain demographics? What's more important, gender or age? Digital-marketing expert Mateo Lopez is on Two-Brain Radio to demystify Facebook ad targeting and teach you which net you need to catch th...

There's just more than a week left of 2019. Have you thought about where you want your business to go next year? With or without you, the fitness industry is changing. More gyms are embracing the functional-fitness model—and charging less for it—and technology is evolving to provide even more opportunities for service. In this episode of Two-Brain Radio, Chris Cooper discusses the state of th...