0:02

It's Two-Brain Radio. In this episode,

0:04

Chris Cooper reviews CrossFit LLC's

0:06

new affiliate playbook. Chris, a

0:08

longtime affiliate owner, digs into the playbook

0:10

and offers his thoughts right after this.

0:13

Back to Two-Brain Radio in just a minute.

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Visit wholesale.drinko2.com to apply for

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an account today. Hey

0:39

everybody, Chris Cooper here, and today,

0:42

I'm excited to be talking to you about the new

0:44

CrossFit affiliate playbook.

0:46

That's right. Excited. But if you're not

0:48

a CrossFit affiliate, this episode is still

0:50

for you because I think it illustrates the value

0:52

of having consistency and

0:55

having your business outside

0:57

of your head and written down into a playbook format.

1:00

I have been a CrossFit affiliate since 2008

1:02

after opening my gym in 2005.

1:05

In 2020, I actually thought about de

1:07

affiliating. I took the CrossFit name

1:09

off my big billboard off

1:11

the front of my gym, off our business cards

1:13

and t-shirts and stuff. And I called

1:16

CrossFit HQ and said, you know what? I think I'm done.

1:18

Like this is just, it's a personal choice

1:21

after having, you know , interacted with

1:23

some people and talking to my clients, I think it's

1:25

the right time for me. And Dave

1:27

Castro said, give us three months.

1:30

And at that time, I think maybe Dave knew that

1:32

the business is going to be sold. I didn't. And

1:34

he didn't share that with me. And then

1:36

when Eric Roza bought it , the day

1:38

after he called me and said, give us six

1:40

months. And so I kept hanging

1:42

on and finally my renewal date came

1:45

up and I said, OK, I'm just going to keep renewing

1:47

because I want to see what happens. And I

1:49

am interested. I'm not confusing

1:52

the methodology with the model. I know

1:54

that CrossFit has always left the

1:56

business part of owning a

1:58

CrossFit business to the business

2:00

owner without any help at all. And

2:02

while I do feel like it's kind

2:05

of the responsibility of CrossFit HQ

2:07

to at least gather data on

2:09

its affiliates and present them back to the affiliates,

2:12

that's never been the case. And a couple of years

2:14

ago, I realized that that's really been up to me

2:16

as a position that I hold

2:19

that was both close to CrossFit HQ

2:21

and a position of trust with affiliates

2:23

, that it was really up to me to gather

2:25

that data because nobody else was going to do it.

2:27

And so we've started doing that. We've put together

2:30

the state of the industry report. The second

2:32

annual one is coming out right now. And

2:34

it talks about more than just CrossFit affiliates.

2:37

It talks about data across the entire industry,

2:39

focusing specifically on micro

2:41

gym owners. However, one of the very first

2:44

things that I've always taught

2:46

to CrossFit affiliate owners, to

2:48

yoga gyms, to bootcamps, to strength

2:50

and conditioning gyms, to every type of micro

2:52

gym owner is the need to build

2:54

a playbook for your business. This

2:57

is a lesson that I learned at the foot of my first

2:59

mentor. I thought that when I signed

3:01

up, he was going to give me some marketing lessons.

3:03

Instead he said, the first thing we need

3:05

to do is build a playbook. And

3:08

I didn't understand how that was going to

3:10

create a better business for me, but

3:12

what it really does is it

3:14

creates a solid foundation, which

3:16

means that your business can stop slipping backward.

3:19

And then you can start taking the steps to move it

3:21

forward. The problem in my case

3:24

was that the business was all in my head and

3:26

none of my staff knew how the business ran and

3:28

none of my clients knew how to behave properly

3:31

because I left it all in my head. I didn't

3:33

tell them. I sure got mad when

3:35

they didn't read my mind and didn't do exactly

3:38

what I thought they should do. I thought

3:40

that, you know , they would just have quote unquote common

3:42

sense, not realizing that that didn't actually

3:44

exist. And so when I built

3:46

my actual playbook, things started

3:48

to turn around for me because I wasn't

3:51

always taking two steps forward

3:53

and two steps back and two steps forward and two

3:55

steps back. And so in 2012,

3:57

when I was recruited to mentor other gym owners

3:59

through a website company at the time,

4:02

I thought about the 10 big things that had

4:04

made a difference in my gym. And

4:07

one of those very first things was a

4:09

playbook. And so if you've worked

4:11

with me through that old website

4:13

company, or starting in 2016

4:16

through Two-Brain business, you'll know that building

4:18

a staff playbook has always been part of our curriculum.

4:21

In the early days, the early incubator was

4:23

like 1200 bucks or something. And

4:25

one of the very first things that you did was you wrote your

4:27

own playbook. And even

4:30

now the playbook is part of our ramp

4:32

up program. Although now we give you a more

4:34

complete template for you to just customize

4:36

a little bit, instead of starting from scratch because

4:38

a playbook's a lot of work. And here's

4:41

why this is so important. I

4:43

have never ever met a CrossFit

4:45

gym or a yoga gym or

4:47

a personal trainer or a bootcamp

4:50

owner, a Pilates instructor

4:52

who wasn't good at their job.

4:54

I've never met one who wasn't passionate. I've

4:56

never met like a bad coach

4:59

who didn't want to be better. And I've

5:01

met very, very few bad coaches in my career.

5:04

I've never met a coach who intentionally

5:06

harmed anybody. I've never met a

5:08

coach who wasn't invested in getting their clients

5:10

results. That's never been

5:13

the problem. Likewise, I've never met

5:15

a gym owner who was greedy, who was only

5:17

in it for the money. I've never met

5:19

a gym owner who , like,

5:22

you know, put money ahead of their clients

5:24

who didn't want to be good at coaching their method.

5:27

I've never met that person, but I've

5:29

met a lot of gym owners who have failed.

5:32

And in fact, you know , just speaking about the CrossFit

5:35

affiliate playbook, over 10,000

5:37

CrossFit affiliates have failed in the past.

5:40

And unfortunately the lessons that they've learned

5:43

were never passed on to anybody else. Like

5:45

their hard lessons, their mistakes. They

5:47

died with those affiliates because

5:49

nobody was actually taking

5:51

the lessons, recording them and teaching them to everybody

5:54

else. One of the reasons that they failed

5:56

was not because they were not good at coaching CrossFit,

5:58

right? It was because they didn't have a playbook.

6:00

They didn't have an operational system.

6:03

And so if you looked at their business and

6:05

the six ways that we now measure gyms,

6:08

you would see like they had common

6:11

strengths, but also common weaknesses that

6:13

were causing them to fail. So

6:15

strength, coaching, they were all pretty

6:17

darn good coaches, right? That's one thing that CrossFit

6:19

fixed. It made better coaches. They

6:22

had a good method that actually worked, you know, before

6:25

high intensity interval training, a

6:27

lot of people were just using like bodybuilding

6:29

plus jogging and they weren't really

6:31

getting their clients results. So those

6:33

weren't the reasons that these affiliates fail.

6:35

The reasons that they failed were operational

6:38

reasons. They didn't have a standardized

6:40

set of operations. And so if you

6:42

graded these affiliates up

6:44

until this point, what you would see is

6:46

they would be like an eight out of 10 in

6:49

coaching. And they would be like a nine

6:51

out of 10 in method. And

6:54

they would be like a two out of 10 in

6:56

operations. They just didn't have a business.

6:59

A lot of the times they would confuse the method,

7:01

CrossFit, Pilates, yoga, for the model,

7:03

which was actually a business. And

7:05

so this CrossFit affiliate playbook

7:08

is going to help affiliates. It

7:10

won't help every affiliate. It won't help the affiliates

7:12

who are at the top, who already have good systems,

7:15

who have a playbook, who have

7:17

solid ops, but it will certainly

7:19

help the affiliates who are still

7:21

scoring like a two or a three in operations,

7:24

but should be making a better living because they're

7:27

an eight or a nine in coaching. And

7:29

while this playbook definitely will not

7:31

bring them up to a 10 operationally,

7:34

it might move them from a two or a three up

7:36

to a five, to a level of sustainability

7:39

that will let them stay in the game a bit

7:41

longer, make a bit of money, reinvest

7:44

in mentorship or coaching or help

7:46

from other business owners who have been more successful

7:49

and eventually thrive. More

7:52

than anything else, having this playbook

7:54

will show affiliates the need to have

7:56

a playbook. And in fact that

7:59

the method is not the model. So

8:02

while I am very aware that

8:04

this playbook is the intellectual property

8:06

of CrossFit HQ, and I can not

8:08

reveal any very, very specific

8:10

parts of this, I'm also aware

8:12

that the playbook has already entered the

8:14

public domain, that other people have shared this

8:16

before, and talking with a

8:18

national or regional manager, whatever

8:20

they call them. I brought it up that

8:23

this thing was already out there and that non-affiliates

8:26

had it. And he said, yeah, we kind of knew

8:28

that would happen. So I'm going to be

8:30

general. I'm not going to say on page 16,

8:32

the CrossFit Affiliate playbook says this

8:35

phrase. What I am going to do is

8:37

talk in broad terms about what's covered in

8:39

the playbook, why it should be there and

8:41

the top lessons that I hope people take

8:43

from it. So the very first thing

8:45

is you need to have a playbook, right?

8:48

It's great. And so the playbook

8:50

opens with a self-reflection exercise

8:52

on why do you want to open an affiliate? And

8:55

there's a good balance here between

8:58

I want to make a living in fitness and I

9:00

want to create an impact in my community. There

9:03

are good questions. Like how will I balance my

9:05

family and business? And these are expectation-setting

9:07

questions. A lot of people,

9:09

they think about entrepreneurship and they just see

9:11

Gary V standing on stage with his slouchy

9:14

hat and his, you know , fashionably ripped jeans.

9:16

And they're like, wow, that's the life I want.

9:18

You know, you grind grind, grind, and then

9:21

you're famous. But what

9:23

they miss is that you have to learn

9:25

how to operate a business. What they miss

9:27

is that being a good coach is not enough

9:29

to make a good living in the fitness business.

9:31

And I think the affiliate playbook sets

9:34

those expectations really well early. One

9:36

of the questions is what sacrifices and risks

9:39

am I willing to take on to be successful?

9:41

And if nothing else, this is just

9:43

a good reflection point for the future affiliate

9:45

that there are sacrifices and risks

9:48

necessary. The next thing is

9:50

, you know, there's a section

9:52

on what gets you excited about opening

9:54

an affiliate? And then what does success

9:57

look like to you? And this is a really important

9:59

question to ask because

10:02

success to me might

10:04

mean sustainability. I just want to keep my gym

10:06

open long enough to

10:08

have a meaningful impact on my local community.

10:11

To somebody else, it might mean I

10:13

want to be financially successful because

10:16

I want to retire earlier. I want to be financially

10:18

successful so that I can open multiple gyms

10:20

and expand my impact. And we

10:23

have a number of these people in our program

10:25

right now. The problem is that

10:27

CrossFit HQ doesn't give us

10:29

a definition of what a successful

10:32

affiliate means. And so it's

10:34

really important as you're going through an affiliate

10:36

playbook or any like survey based,

10:39

you know, opinion piece like this,

10:41

that you understand that the definition

10:43

of success from

10:46

the people who wrote the book might not be

10:48

the same definition of success that you have.

10:51

I believe in an objectively

10:53

measured definition of success,

10:55

which is the freedom of time and money,

10:58

to be more specific. I

11:00

think that at minimum, if you

11:02

own a CrossFit affiliate, you should be able

11:04

to make a hundred thousand dollars per year in

11:06

net owner benefit and

11:08

work 40 hours a week or

11:11

less. That's how I define success.

11:14

It's very important that you understand

11:16

when you're going through an affiliate playbook like this,

11:18

that not everybody giving opinions

11:20

in the playbook has met that definition

11:23

of success. Because my definition

11:25

of success might not be theirs. They

11:28

might have day jobs. They

11:30

might not make a dollar from

11:32

their gym, but they might still be

11:34

portrayed as successful because that's

11:37

not what they want in life. OK. My

11:39

mission is to make gym owners wealthy

11:42

and by wealthy, I don't mean you've got a yacht.

11:44

By wealthy, I mean, you are objectively

11:46

successful and measurably so.

11:50

The next part of the book is writing core values,

11:52

mission statement, and vision statement. And

11:54

while this is important, it's important not just

11:56

that you have these things, but that you write them

11:59

down and writing them down

12:01

is , it's a good exercise

12:03

because iit forces you to stop and think

12:05

about these things. And basically

12:07

it's like, you know, what do you want to get? Now

12:09

while there's not a lot of help

12:11

in writing a mission statement and there's

12:13

not a lot of explanation on why you should do

12:15

that, I definitely agree that

12:18

that should be done because if your goal is to

12:20

help 7,000 people in Sioux Sault Marie

12:22

extend their lives in a meaningful way, which

12:25

is my mission, then everybody

12:27

on your team can work toward that mission.

12:29

Now, 7,000 people, we

12:32

can ask like, how many people do I need to serve

12:34

at once? Is it 700? Is it 7,000?

12:37

Or is it 70? And I know

12:40

that I'm going to own this gym for 30 years. And so

12:42

I know that I only need to serve 150

12:44

people at a time given my retention

12:46

rate and how long it takes to have a meaningful

12:48

impact on somebody's lives. So, you

12:51

know, the affiliate playbook does cover

12:53

that. Chris Cooper here to talk about

12:55

Beyond the Whiteboard, the world's premier

12:58

workout tracking platform. Beyond the Whiteboard

13:00

empowers gym owners with tools designed to

13:02

retain and motivate members. We all

13:05

know clients need to accomplish their goals if they're

13:07

going to stick around long term, and Beyond

13:09

the Whiteboard will help your members chart their progress. They

13:12

can earn badges view, leaderboards, track

13:14

their macros, assess their fitness levels,

13:16

and a lot more. Your job

13:18

is to get great results for your members. Beyond

13:20

the Whiteboard's job is to make sure

13:23

your members see those results and celebrate them.

13:25

For a free 30-day trial, visit BTwb.com

13:27

today. The

13:31

other thing that it does is talk

13:33

about culture. Now, now culture is kind

13:35

of this shifty term that

13:37

a lot of business book writers

13:40

are talking about right now. It's a

13:42

really easy topic to talk about.

13:44

You can generate a book on culture because

13:46

it's indefinable. In general, we

13:49

all know that we want a happy, upbeat

13:51

culture, but we also want

13:53

a culture of accountability. We want a culture

13:55

of fairness. We want a culture

13:57

of generosity, but we also want to

13:59

know that everybody's paying the same amount and

14:01

that they're all paying enough to keep the owner around

14:04

and fed, right? So while inclusivity

14:07

is amazing and you

14:09

know, you want to think about that as part of your culture,

14:12

meaning you don't want to discriminate based by

14:14

gender or race or skin

14:17

color or political preference or

14:19

anything like that. You also have

14:21

to understand that you are selling an

14:23

exclusive service and exclusive

14:25

in the sense that not everybody will

14:27

want it. Not everybody

14:30

will afford it, and it

14:32

will not solve everybody's problems.

14:34

Not everybody will want to do what you do and

14:37

that's OK. They might want something else.

14:39

Not everybody will be able to afford the service

14:41

you're offering. And that's OK. Not

14:43

everybody coming to your gym is

14:46

actually equal, you

14:48

know , financially, or just maybe

14:50

they have a longer drive to the gym than other people

14:52

are. Or maybe they have a bias that would

14:54

prevent them from getting results. And that's OK.

14:57

Right. You can be giving, you

15:01

can be open. You can be generous. You

15:03

can believe in equality, but you have to know who

15:05

your target audience is. OK.

15:08

And so, while it's really important

15:10

that in this affiliate playbook, they talk about

15:12

being open to everybody. You

15:15

still need to balance that against knowing

15:17

like your job is not

15:20

to give free memberships or to

15:22

have like a scaled rate

15:26

for people who quote unquote can't afford

15:28

your service. Your job is to make

15:30

money and then be generous with that money

15:32

as an entrepreneur. And these are two different

15:34

things. All right. The

15:36

next part of this book that I really like is like

15:39

how to serve people better. You

15:41

know, how to listen, how to be a professional,

15:44

how to educate and inform, how to overcome

15:46

obstacles. But there are also very

15:49

specific things here about

15:51

brand consistency, how to

15:53

know everybody's name and how to have

15:56

gym hygiene. Now it seems like

15:58

these are very basic things. You

16:00

should have a clean gym with

16:03

floors that aren't covered in sweat and chalk

16:05

dust, right? But nobody has ever told

16:07

us this before. And if nobody tells

16:09

us, then we tend to think like,

16:11

well, you know, maybe that's not critical.

16:14

And until I had an affiliate playbook, I

16:17

actually thought that to be quote unquote,

16:20

counterculture , I needed a big pirate flag over my

16:22

bathrooms, and I didn't want super

16:24

clean floors. I wanted chalk dust around

16:27

and I wanted dirty hand prints . And I wanted

16:29

pictures of ripped hands on the internet. I

16:31

used to tell people, if you puke

16:33

in your first workout, you get a free hat.

16:35

And that was a point of pride. Instead,

16:38

that actually kept a ton of people away from

16:40

my gym, because who wants to puke in front of strangers?

16:43

Nobody. So this is a great member experience

16:45

checklist. It's very basic, but again,

16:48

most gyms fail not because

16:50

they're not good at coaching and not because

16:52

they're not passionate, but because they

16:55

do not have a minimum set of

16:57

standards, right? Like

16:59

make sure your music is not offensive. If nobody

17:01

tells you that you might play

17:03

offensive music or your coaches might,

17:05

or your members might come in and crank

17:08

up, you know, some offensive music

17:10

and that actually hurts your business.

17:12

So even though we think this stuff

17:15

is like common sense, maybe 10

17:17

years ago, it certainly wasn't. And it's not common

17:19

sense for everybody today. For

17:22

example, having a positive first impression,

17:24

right? Safety and security, these

17:26

are important things. And if we don't spell

17:28

it out, we can't be sure that it's

17:30

going to happen every single

17:32

time. The next section of the

17:35

CrossFit affiliate playbook is it's a business

17:37

plan and there are some sample

17:39

business plans I think for people to download.

17:42

I'm going to tell you right now that the pillars

17:44

that they list, while similar, are not

17:47

the same six pillars that we teach at Two-Brain

17:49

Business. Our pillars are based on

17:51

data. And we know that there are six ways to actually

17:54

grow a gym. Yes, getting

17:56

more members is one way, but keeping

17:58

members longer is another way.

18:00

Having a high client value,

18:02

ARM, is another

18:04

way , minimizing business

18:07

expenses or matching expenses to ROI

18:09

is a fourth way. A fifth

18:11

is operational excellence

18:14

and a sixth is paying the owner.

18:16

There are good

18:18

examples of all six of these, where

18:21

a client might have really great client value,

18:23

but they don't have enough clients. Or there are

18:25

other examples where a gym

18:27

might have 400 clients, but the client value

18:29

is so low that they have massive churn.

18:32

And the owners still can't make a dollar. There

18:34

are other examples where the gym is sitting on like

18:36

$30,000 in cash. And the

18:38

owner's family is starving because the owner is

18:41

paranoid that something's going to happen.

18:43

And so they hoard cash. You know, there's

18:45

lots of examples where any one

18:47

of these six strategies , if

18:50

done improperly can kill you. And

18:52

at the start of this episode, I said like this

18:55

playbook exists to address one

18:57

of the six strategies, operational excellence.

18:59

There's no playbook in print that will tell you

19:02

how to address all six. I tried to

19:04

do my best with the gym owners handbook, my last

19:06

book, I'm trying to do my best with

19:08

my next book, which is start a gym. But

19:10

the bottom line is that strategies change

19:13

over time. What's really important here

19:15

is that you understand that there are six

19:17

strategies and that the specific

19:19

tactics might change or might be different

19:21

for each gym. For example, I said

19:23

that one of the six strategies is get more clients

19:26

at my gym. We don't run ads

19:29

except for maybe twice a year. There

19:31

are some outlying experiences, but generally

19:33

we have built a referral culture

19:35

and we use affinity marketing to turn

19:38

those referrals from passive into active.

19:40

And so we don't need to run ads. Twice

19:43

a year, August and December, we

19:45

will run ads to build up

19:47

a little bit of momentum before the busier periods

19:49

of September and January. And then

19:51

when our gym reopened in May, there was a bit

19:54

of confusion around what was allowed. And so we

19:56

ran some ads to educate our audience

19:58

about what we were doing. In the

20:00

CrossFit affiliated playbook, there's

20:03

a bunch of stuff about how to write a business plan,

20:05

right? Like how do I identify who

20:07

the ownership is? An executive

20:09

summary is like what your business

20:12

does, right? Then there's a paragraph

20:14

on your target market, really though

20:17

your target market is everything.

20:19

You don't open a gym

20:21

just to teach a method. As much as

20:23

you open a gym to serve an audience and

20:26

a client centric business means that while

20:28

your audience grows and expands,

20:30

it also deepens. And as

20:33

you understand your audience better, you might

20:35

change your method. You might change

20:37

your model. You might change what you offer to

20:39

match that audience best. That's

20:42

really important here, instead of

20:44

doing like a local market analysis

20:46

and measuring demographics and trying to figure

20:48

out what the average person earns and

20:50

then extrapolate to what should my

20:52

prices be based on what people can afford.

20:55

Look that doesn't work. What you have

20:57

to actually do is ask who is my ideal

21:00

client. And if you already own a gym, you

21:02

start with your three best clients and

21:04

you say, what do these people want? And then you

21:06

duplicate them over and over. The

21:09

SWAT analysis, that's in the CrossFit affiliate

21:11

playbook. Again, it's good. And

21:13

it will take you from a level two to a level four,

21:16

but it will not make you the best gym

21:18

owner in your town. The

21:20

seed client exercise is way more effective

21:22

than this. But again, you know, if

21:25

you're operating, you've never done a client

21:27

avatar, you don't know who your ideal clients

21:30

are. You're trying to get everybody in. You're

21:32

trying to compete on price. You think that the guy

21:34

down the street is your competition, then yeah.

21:36

This will take you from like a three to

21:38

a five. One of my favorite

21:41

things in here is the revenue model.

21:43

Now the CrossFit affiliate playbook does not

21:45

give you a revenue model. We

21:47

give you a great revenue model

21:50

in our ramp-up program, and we give

21:52

you industry averages in our

21:54

state of the industry address. What this

21:56

does though, is it gives you some big questions

21:58

to ask. Number one, do

22:01

you have access to experts in the field? You

22:03

know what the best people are charging. Number

22:05

two is how and why is the product

22:07

or service priced this way? I think this is a really important

22:10

question for CrossFit affiliates to ask, because

22:12

most of us set our rates based on what everybody

22:15

else was charging minus $5

22:17

or 5%. And we mistakenly

22:20

fell into this trap of decreasing prices

22:22

across the world, because instead

22:24

of saying, what should we be charging? And

22:26

using math to figure that out objectively,

22:29

we said, what have other people charged?

22:31

Not realizing that they didn't do the exercise

22:33

either, right? They just kind of guessed. The

22:36

other question that the playbook asks is

22:38

what are the associated costs and what is

22:40

the profit potential? A lot of

22:42

us got into this because we wanted

22:45

a job coaching forever. Instead

22:47

of asking ourselves like, how much can we actually

22:49

profit? How much do I need to profit

22:51

to make sure that I stick around long enough? We

22:54

just said like, what am I supposed to charge?

22:57

And so there's no specific

22:59

financial plan in this CrossFit affiliate

23:02

playbook. We give you that in the ramp

23:04

up program. Again, the

23:06

affiliate playbook does a great job of

23:08

triggering that question and

23:10

also setting the expectation that you should

23:12

profit. The next part of the playbook

23:14

is an opening roadmap about how to find

23:16

location. Should you buy or lease

23:18

equipment? You know,

23:21

what should you expect from a lease when

23:23

you're signing it? How do you get out

23:25

of a lease? What's a good faith clause.

23:27

Do you need a partnership? What kind of legal

23:30

entity should you set up? And then how to build

23:32

out an affiliate. These are great.

23:34

And they take advice from a

23:36

lot of affiliate owners and they put little

23:38

videos in, which are great. The thing that

23:40

you've got to understand again, is that

23:42

the people who are making

23:44

recommendations based on their experience

23:47

are well-meaning longstanding

23:50

affiliates. That does not mean they're successful

23:53

in the same way that you want to be successful.

23:55

Right? You have to understand that.

23:58

Also their model might not be your model.

24:00

So this, this book gives you lots of different

24:02

options. When you watch

24:04

the videos, you need to understand that there's

24:07

more than one way to do it. And I haven't watched

24:09

the videos myself. So I don't know if they're are

24:11

any good or bad, but what they probably

24:13

do is say here is the model that I have

24:15

built out. Now. Here's what I've noticed

24:19

from the affiliates that are featured

24:21

by CrossFit home office. Now a

24:23

lot of these affiliates go after the big

24:25

group model, they want 300 clients.

24:27

Everybody's coming to a group. If

24:29

you read the state of the industry and you look

24:32

at objective data, this

24:34

is not the model that is most successful

24:37

for the most people. Most

24:39

of the people who said this is the best

24:41

model didn't really do

24:43

well long term , and

24:45

especially through threats, like COVID, the model

24:49

of just having like big group classes

24:51

is inherently fragile and it's

24:53

susceptible to retention problems.

24:56

You have to have a mixed model of

24:58

one-on-one training, maybe

25:00

some nutrition coaching and group

25:03

to build a sustainable, but scalable

25:05

business. You also have to have a really

25:07

solid way of onboarding new clients

25:10

that usually involves some one-on-one coaching.

25:12

Now there's different ways to do this, of course, but

25:15

what you have to understand is that the

25:17

model of just big group classes

25:20

is actually a risky model because

25:22

that tells you you should rent a big space.

25:24

You should have a billion pieces of equipment. You should

25:27

have a dozen coaches when

25:29

really you don't need to do that. And that's not

25:31

even what Greg Glassman did. And so

25:33

if you're presenting an objective view,

25:36

based on data of what's actually been

25:38

proven to work, you might

25:40

hear from different experts than who's

25:42

chosen for the CrossFit affiliate

25:45

playbook, you might not, right. These people

25:47

might be actually successful

25:50

using the big group model. They might

25:52

have something else. They might be successful

25:54

with partnerships, you

25:56

know, but how do you resolve that dispute?

25:59

And how do you overcome the

26:01

data showing like 70%

26:03

of partnerships in this model

26:06

just generally don't pan out, right? So

26:08

there are some, actually some good tips in here about

26:10

like preventing a broken partnership

26:13

and addressing expectations and stuff

26:15

like that. And these are very useful,

26:17

especially at starting a new affiliate. What

26:19

they don't tell you though, is how

26:22

to use a partnership to optimize

26:24

it and become more than the sum of its parts.

26:26

Right? So again, if you're just starting

26:28

out and you're thinking about taking a partnership as I

26:30

did, here's some tips for maybe

26:33

figuring it out. But it

26:35

doesn't tell you whether you should do it or not. OK.

26:37

The next thing is calculating membership

26:40

to break even. So this

26:42

is this the part of the affiliate playbook where

26:45

I struggle. So for example,

26:47

they're saying like figuring out your financial calculator,

26:49

figure out what it's going to cost to operate your location,

26:52

and then choose your membership fees based on market

26:54

rate in the area. This

26:56

is a flaw. This is probably the

26:58

weakest part of the affiliate playbook because

27:01

it presumes that somebody

27:04

along the chain has figured out market

27:06

rate and they haven't. Even

27:08

the biggest affiliates with the most members

27:10

in the world did not start by figuring

27:13

out what the market will bear.

27:15

They started from what is the minimum

27:18

that people will pay with the intent

27:20

of raising value and raising prices

27:22

over time. But none of them actually did

27:24

that. And so what happens is that

27:26

new affiliates coming in, start

27:29

with a slightly lower price. I'll give

27:31

you an example. When I was speaking

27:33

with CrossFit HQ's

27:35

traveling road show in France

27:37

, we were visiting a gym.

27:39

It was an awesome gym and

27:42

they were charging about $170

27:44

per month for their peak service.

27:46

OK. In the room were about 200

27:49

CrossFit affiliates. And we

27:51

were talking to them about price and most of them were

27:53

charging like 130 a month, which is

27:55

not enough. And it's actually

27:57

below the world, average of 154

27:59

per month. When I said, why aren't you charging

28:02

more? They said, well, because you know,

28:04

we're at Daniel's gym and he charges 170

28:07

and we can't charge more than him because he's

28:09

the best. And I said, well, what do you mean he's the

28:11

best? And they said, oh, he's got all these certifications.

28:13

But none of them said, what

28:16

is the value of what I'm

28:18

selling? They said, what is the

28:20

ceiling? And the ceiling was artificially

28:22

low. You know, Daniel's gym could

28:24

have been charging 300 a month. They could

28:27

have been charging way more. But

28:29

the affiliate looked at the 170 and said

28:31

like, this is what the best charge, you know, compared

28:33

to him, I'm running a B plus affiliate.

28:36

So I need to be charging 10,

28:38

15% less than that. And that's

28:40

how people set their rates. It's not

28:42

what the market will bear. Definitely

28:45

not. You should not look at other affiliates to set

28:47

your rates. I promise you they're way too

28:49

low. Usually by about half. Then

28:52

the affiliate playbook says, check your membership

28:55

potential. And it says, what

28:57

are the realistic prime hours of the day? The

28:59

realistic prime hours of the day for any business

29:01

are the times that their customers are available.

29:04

So that's before the customer's workday

29:07

begins and after the customer's workday ends

29:09

and on the customer's weekends, that's

29:12

what it really comes down to. And then, you

29:14

know, the recommendations kind of flow from there,

29:16

again from this like high volume

29:18

model that we know is

29:21

pretty fragile. It doesn't actually work

29:23

most of the time. So I'm

29:25

going to end my review there. And because

29:27

it gets into pricing structures and models

29:29

and stuff, but basically what

29:31

it goes down to is they

29:34

want you to, or they propose

29:37

and promote this model

29:39

of, you know , like a high volume class,

29:41

because that is quote unquote CrossFit. This

29:44

is a big myth. And while the

29:46

CrossFit affiliate playbook will help you get better

29:48

at that model, you have to ask

29:50

yourself like, is that the actual model

29:53

that will make you objectively successful,

29:55

help you stick around long -term, make

29:57

you flexible enough to pivot in times of

29:59

crisis like global pandemics and

30:02

do the best job for your clients?

30:05

I don't think it is. I think that you

30:07

need to have a prescriptive model where you're

30:09

meeting with clients, you're reviewing their goals.

30:11

You're not just selling them workouts in

30:13

a friendly community every day, but you're actually

30:16

making sure that they make progress. Changing

30:18

that prescription over time, between nutrition,

30:20

one-on-one, online, accountability

30:23

and group classes, whatever, and

30:25

tailoring your options around

30:28

what your clients need. If you're

30:30

selling a big group class

30:32

model only, then you're probably selling

30:35

a service that is not

30:37

significantly different, at least to

30:40

the uneducated consumer, from the guy

30:42

down the street. And when you're selling the same

30:44

thing as the guy down the street,

30:46

you're selling a commodity. And what happens

30:49

when you've got a commodity? Price drops

30:51

to approaching zero. If

30:53

you really want to make a living here, you

30:55

can't go with the big group class

30:58

model anymore. You have to have differentiated

31:00

service at the bare minimum. You have

31:02

to have one-on-one available. This is

31:04

what scales, this is

31:06

what makes you resilient. This is what makes

31:08

you flexible. This is what creates enough

31:11

client value that you don't need

31:13

400 people to be profitable.

31:15

That you can make a hundred thousand dollars a year with

31:17

150 clients. And if you want to

31:19

see a roadmap on how to do that, you can

31:21

watch a video that I've got in the show notes here,

31:24

how to make a hundred thousand dollars with 150 clients.

31:27

If you start with that, then

31:29

you can always get more clients, but you

31:31

have to start with client value at the core

31:33

of your business. And what is

31:35

valuable to the clients? You have

31:37

to ask the client. Building a client

31:39

centric business does not mean selling

31:42

one type of class to 400

31:44

people. Building a client centric business means

31:47

identifying who the best clients

31:49

are for you to serve, identifying what's

31:51

most valuable to them, and then building

31:53

your service around that. That's

31:55

the real playbook to success. And the CrossFit

31:57

affiliate playbook does definitely shadow

32:00

that in certain areas. If you don't

32:02

have a written playbook in your business, the

32:04

CrossFit affiliate playbook will take your

32:06

business from, you know, having a weak,

32:09

operational link in your chain,

32:11

you know, from a two or three and operations to

32:14

about a five. It's certainly better

32:16

than nothing. It is not a roadmap

32:18

to success, but it will definitely

32:21

lift you up if you're weak in operations.

32:23

So kudos to CrossFit HQ

32:26

or home office for providing this, kudos

32:29

to the people who don't need it because they're already

32:31

past it. And I hope that this brings everybody

32:33

up to the bare minimum , sustainable

32:36

level so that they can actually thrive,

32:38

own several affiliates

32:40

and make a bigger impact down

32:42

the road

32:44

Two-Brain Radio's your source for the best advice

32:46

in the gym business. Subscribe so you don't miss

32:49

an episode. And now Coop's got

32:51

a special invitation for you.

32:52

Thanks for listening to, Two-Brain video. If you aren't

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this is my personal invitation to

32:59

join. It's the only public Facebook group

33:01

that I participate in. And I'm in there

33:03

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33:05

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33:16

[inaudible] .