0:02

What's your hourly rate? When I started

0:04

running my gym back in 2009, it was

0:06

definitely below minimum wage. I was putting

0:08

in huge hours for little financial

0:10

reward. Last month, some of the top

0:13

Two-Brain gym owners posted hourly rates from

0:15

$200 to over $300.

0:18

One of our leaders will tell us how she makes more

0:20

money in less time, right after this. It's

0:22

Chris

0:29

It's Chris Cooper here.

0:31

Your gym's programming won't

0:34

attract new clients, but it can help

0:36

you keep your clients longer.

0:38

Good programming includes benchmarks, novelty,

0:40

skills, progressions, leaderboards, you know all that stuff.

0:42

But great programming contains something more: a link

0:45

between each client's fitness goals and the

0:47

workout of the day. Your

0:49

coaches need to tell your clients

0:51

more than what they're doing every

0:53

day. They need to explain why

0:56

they're doing it. Gym's whose coaches

0:58

could explain the why connection had a 25%

1:00

better retention rate during lockdowns. Imagine how that translates

1:03

into better retention when things are back to

1:05

normal. Now, I want to solve this problem

1:08

for gym owners. Programming is the service

1:10

you deliver to your clients. So I

1:15

partnered with Brooks DiFiore, who had one of

1:17

the highest adherence rates in the world for

1:19

his group classes at his gym to build twobrainprogramming.com.

1:22

We built this for Two-Brain

1:25

gyms and we give them free access

1:28

in our mentorship program. But I'm now making this available to the public. Programming proven to improve retention and cashflow in your gym. Visit Two-Brain programming.com to get it.

1:29

It's Two-Brain Radio and I'm Mike Warkentin. Effective hourly rate,

1:33

or EHR for short: divide your

1:35

pay from your business by the hours you worked to

1:37

earn it. You can drive this number up by working

1:40

fewer hours or by increasing your

1:42

income from your business. In the early

1:44

stages, many gym owners have hourly rates

1:46

around minimum wage as they work big hours,

1:48

and don't collect a lot of pay. Two-Brain's programs are

1:50

set up to help. Gym owners raise their hourly rates quickly

1:53

first to $50 an hour, then well

1:55

beyond it as their businesses generate more

1:57

and more revenue without the owners' direct effort.

1:59

Today, Jolene Bingham of 13 Stripes

2:02

Fitness is on the air to explain how she drove

2:04

her hourly rate up and became one of

2:06

our top gym owners for July. Jolene.

2:09

Welcome to Two-Brain Radio. Thank you for being here.

2:11

Thank you for having me.

2:12

I'm excited about this one. This is such

2:14

an important topic for gym owners. So I'm going to get

2:16

right in. I'm going to ask you, how has your

2:18

effective hourly rate evolved over the years

2:21

as you've improved your business? Like, do you recall what

2:23

it was the first time you ran the number and how has

2:25

it gone from there?

2:26

Right . So I actually am , I was curious and

2:28

I looked back at this and admittedly,

2:31

it was probably much lower because I was

2:33

one of those mentees early on that

2:35

didn't do my metrics. So

2:37

it's one of the reasons why I kind of drill it home for

2:39

people. But I went back to when

2:41

I had numbers and it was $10 an hour the

2:43

first time I ran it. And that was probably

2:46

spring of 2017.

2:48

I have to ask the question now, was it

2:50

$10 because you were working like 300

2:53

hours a week or was it a combination of

2:55

low revenue and high hours? What was it ?

2:57

I think it was, I was working a full-time

3:00

job , at the same time.

3:02

So I was a teacher, a full-time teacher at that time.

3:04

And I had just had a

3:07

baby 17 days before we purchased our

3:09

first gym. It might've

3:11

been a combination of low revenue and

3:14

not having a whole lot of bandwidth to

3:16

run it the way I should have been running it. OK.

3:19

That's interesting. So starting

3:21

at $10 an hour, and now we're up, you've

3:23

driven it all the way up to 290

3:26

that, which is, you know , an incredible, incredible

3:28

rise. What are some of the main

3:31

milestones along the way, like what

3:33

we're going to get to dig into this detail , but right off the top of your

3:35

head, is there something that stands out as like the major

3:37

milestone that really got this thing moving on this

3:39

upward trajectory?

3:40

I might be somebody

3:43

different than what other people are gonna say. I really

3:45

think COVID , and that might

3:47

be something strange that not a lot of people

3:49

are going to hear or believe, but it

3:52

made me step up as a leader , into

3:55

a role that I wasn't a hundred percent comfortable

3:56

with prior to that.

3:59

OK. That's interesting. We're going to dig in a little bit later

4:01

in the show on that one, but let's go back

4:03

to the beginning. So founder farmer

4:05

transition, from like the first stage of entrepreneurship

4:08

to the second one. What really

4:10

helped you get from $10 to $50

4:12

an hour, which is kind of one of those benchmark numbers.

4:15

50 is a good one for people to target in the early stages.

4:17

What got you there?

4:22

I started listening to my mentor. And I stopped being stubborn.

4:25

And thinking that I knew everything

4:27

myself. No , I did realize,

4:29

I didn't know everything, which is why we had reached out to Two-Brain

4:32

for help. And why I had taken that original

4:34

call with Chris Cooper is cause we knew we needed help, but

4:37

you know, you have that little piece of you that's like,

4:39

oh man, do I really need to do that? So

4:42

I did. And that started working. We

4:44

really worked on things like

4:46

increasing our revenue , realizing

4:49

that I didn't need to micromanage things like cleaning

4:52

or emails. So taking

4:56

some of those lower value roles, which my mentor had

4:58

told me, and finding people to help

5:00

me do the ones that I needed to pay somebody

5:02

10 to $15 an hour for, and actually

5:04

focus on the things I was good at, which I'm

5:06

good at sales. I love sales. I love

5:09

operations. Those are things

5:11

I really like.

5:12

Sales is a great skill to have. Was it

5:14

hard for you to offload those

5:16

roles? Because as gym owners, when we wear

5:19

all those hats at the beginning, sometimes it's really easy

5:21

to latch on to things like I have

5:23

to do the cleaning because no one else does it properly.

5:25

And other things of that nature. Was

5:27

that you, was it hard to get rid of that stuff or

5:29

was it very easy for you to just get rid of

5:31

it and move on?

5:32

It was hard. And I'll be honest,

5:35

letting go of things is still hard. I've just

5:37

learned how to do it. So

5:41

I honestly, for me, it's looking

5:43

at finances and realizing that I

5:45

can create a great career for somebody who's

5:48

really good at that and probably does a better job

5:50

than me at it, honestly. And then

5:52

I can focus on things that provide for my

5:55

family better. So for me, it comes down to does

5:58

this do more for my family?

6:01

You've hit on a couple of really interesting things and for listeners

6:03

who aren't familiar with the Two-Brain program, we

6:06

call this climbing the value ladder and there actually

6:08

is a formula to doing it where you calculate

6:10

your rates. And you look at the rates of the jobs that

6:12

you're doing. Like, you know, you pay yourself four

6:15

hours of cleaning a week at $12 an hour,

6:17

and you have about $50 there. And if you

6:19

could hire someone for that 50 hours or

6:21

sorry for that $50, you'd have four

6:23

hours that you could spend on a different

6:25

task that would make more money. And then it's on

6:27

you as the entrepreneur to make more

6:29

than $50 in that new task . So it becomes

6:31

very dollars and cents metrics driven

6:33

calculation, and then offloading

6:36

that stuff. Like you said, the other key point

6:38

is having someone do it to

6:40

your standards or even better than you

6:42

could do it. And that's where you start being a true entrepreneur

6:45

where you're hiring people who are better at certain

6:47

things than you are so that you can grow the business.

6:49

So that's a really cool, like when

6:52

you first saw that structure, was it

6:54

easy for you to start working through it or did it take

6:56

you a little bit of work to start handing those jobs

6:58

off?

6:58

I think that's where it goes back to where I finally started

7:00

to listen to my mentor. So

7:03

when we talked about that, the value ladder

7:05

at first, I was like, no, I'm just going to do it all. You

7:07

know, I have that mentality. I work

7:10

really rarely well under pressure

7:12

and I thrive under stressful situations,

7:15

but when they got me to sit down

7:17

and look at it from a dollars and cents standpoint,

7:19

like, look what you can provide for your family if

7:22

you give up this role. And that

7:24

really is what drove it home to me is kind

7:26

of tying it. And they did a really good job tying

7:28

it to something that mattered

7:31

a lot to me.

7:32

So you're anchoring it. Not to just,

7:34

you know, you obviously have the data in front of you with

7:36

dollars and cents, but you're anchoring it to something that's

7:38

even more important, which for you

7:40

is your family, you know , which is a really cool thing

7:42

where it motivates you. And I think the same thing when there's hard

7:44

things that I have to do, I sometimes

7:47

don't want to do it. I procrastinate. But then when I look

7:49

at the reason that I would do it, then

7:51

I'm pushed through because you find those anchors

7:53

and it's up to a mentor to help you see those things

7:55

and then take the action. And that's why,

7:57

you know, you're obviously worked well as a mentee,

7:59

but you're also now one of the mentors who now does that

8:01

with clients. When you started doing

8:03

this, did you see that rate? I

8:06

mean , maybe you didn't calculate it right away, but did you start seeing

8:08

financial numbers that right away showed

8:10

you you were on the right track?

8:11

I did. And then COVID

8:13

happened. So we

8:16

started to make a lot of progress. I would say we probably have

8:18

had about a year of making progress , maybe

8:20

a year and a half, the dates kind of all run together

8:22

for me a little bit right now after the last

8:25

year to half. And then that

8:27

started , I will say

8:29

it has exponentially grown because

8:32

I knew what to do the next time

8:34

around.

8:35

And that's just it, I mean, Chris has always said,

8:37

like, you know, if you run a business, learn all the

8:39

stuff, you could be able to open another

8:41

business very quickly because you will know all

8:44

this stuff and you don't have to make all the same mistakes.

8:46

So you can definitely, experience counts a lot in

8:49

the entrepreneurship game. Would you agree?

8:51

Yes. For sure.

8:53

So to get above $50 an hour,

8:55

you generally need to do less yourself and develop

8:57

team members. And you've talked a little bit about

9:00

that with offloading things and climbing the value

9:02

ladder, but how did you make that transition

9:04

to like, you know, you said you like to do everything you like

9:06

to be under pressure. You've got high standards. How

9:08

did you start to make that transition in your brain

9:11

to become what we call a tinker, which is that upper-level

9:13

entrepreneur, who's now developing like your role

9:16

as a tinker and a gym owner is often more

9:18

about developing staff than actually coaching,

9:20

which is a weird transition for a lot of people in the

9:22

gym industry.

9:24

I might be a little bit different

9:26

than some other gym owners in that I'm not the coach.

9:29

Coaching is definitely not my thing.

9:32

My husband is

9:34

our head coach. And so just

9:36

for the sake of everybody listening, when we did the hours,

9:38

the effective hours are on mine,

9:41

but he also gets paid too . So

9:45

yeah, we actually, as a family make even more.

9:50

Who wins between you?

9:50

I do.

9:50

Nice, congratulations!

9:50

We do

9:55

what we're good at. And

9:57

he is really good at that. But from a standpoint

9:59

of developing my general manager and

10:01

my personal training director, it was realizing

10:04

that I had to model a lot of things. So I actually

10:06

went back to my role when I was

10:08

a teacher , many, many years ago, what we

10:11

taught our kids to do. You know, you do it,

10:13

you model it, you do it with them and then you

10:15

let them do it themselves. And

10:18

that's how I looked at developing

10:20

my staff. I also found

10:23

a really good general manager who is

10:26

very motivated, very driven,

10:28

very much my personality , from

10:32

operating as a standpoint of, you

10:34

know, how she interacts and handles things with people.

10:36

So it was very easy to trust her

10:38

and trust her with running portions of my

10:40

business.

10:42

OK. So it comes down to, you know , finding

10:44

the right staff people. And, you know , I won't say that

10:46

your husband is your staff member necessarily, but he fills

10:48

a key role in your business. And if he

10:50

wasn't there, you could find a head

10:52

coach or whatever you want to call it that would

10:54

be an excellent person, that position you

10:56

could do that if you're not working with a partner. When

10:59

you're working with mentees, maybe who really

11:01

love coaching and that was why they got

11:04

into it, how do you get them to take

11:06

that tinker step to move maybe

11:08

from a coaching role into that developmental

11:10

role that helps them get to the higher EHR?

11:13

Right. So we really sit down and talk

11:15

about what their goals outside of the gym are.

11:17

Why are they in the gym? Why do they have

11:19

this business in the first place? Does it exist for

11:21

them just to have a job? Does

11:23

it exist to serve their family? Like, does it

11:25

exist to create a legacy in the future for

11:28

their kids to grow up and run the business? What's that

11:30

reason for and it really,

11:32

for a lot of them, it makes them think about it. And it usually comes

11:34

back to family. And so we talk about,

11:36

OK, if for some, maybe it

11:38

means they stay on the coaching schedule once, twice

11:40

a week, just because they get to do something they

11:42

love and it continues to fill

11:44

their cup up and make them happy, but

11:47

then show them what they actually can

11:49

do for their family if they take

11:51

some of those coaching hours and they apply

11:53

it to sales or marketing,

11:55

or, you know, finding corporate

11:58

sponsorships or whatever it is that their next

12:00

step is, it's different for everybody. And

12:02

once they can actually see that, it kind

12:05

of opens up their eyes to how they make

12:07

that step.

12:08

It really comes down to kind of like a version of motivational

12:10

interviewing, which we talk about often with gym

12:12

owners and prospective clients, where you're

12:14

asking this gym owner as a mentee, why, why,

12:17

why, why do you want to do this? Why, why, why? And

12:19

you get to the deep whys , and then you help

12:21

them take the steps based on those reasons.

12:24

And the cool part about being in the tinker stage is

12:26

that you can kind of do whatever you want. You could choose.

12:29

And I don't know if anybody does this, but you could certainly

12:31

choose to coach, you know, seven classes

12:33

a day in your gym, because as a tinker, you

12:35

kind of have that freedom. I think it's more common

12:37

that tinkers , maybe coach , like you said, one or two hours

12:40

a week or something like that, just because they love it so much,

12:42

but you have the freedom to choose. As Chris has often

12:44

said, at that stage, you can choose to work

12:47

in your business if you want, you can offload

12:49

tasks, you can build another business, you can do all

12:51

sorts of different stuff. So really

12:53

that tinker stage is about freedom. And you

12:55

have the freedom obviously now to delegate

12:57

roles to your GM and then do other things. That

12:59

must be an incredible feeling to be able to do

13:02

that and have that for you .

13:03

It is. And I'll tie it right back to

13:05

my why, which is my family. So

13:08

when I was teaching in the early

13:10

stages of my business, you know, we'll go by

13:12

now, three kids, but this is even prior to

13:14

my third child. I couldn't make my daughter's

13:16

things, right. I couldn't

13:18

go to her school parties. And she was in elementary

13:21

school because I'd have to take off of work.

13:23

And I didn't have the sick days. So

13:25

having the freedom now, now she's in high school.

13:27

She doesn't necessarily want me at everything,

13:29

but I am there whether she wants to be there

13:32

or not. You know, if a kid is sick, I can

13:34

be there for them. If I wanted

13:36

to in the summer, I basically

13:39

worked every other week so that I could spend the

13:41

weeks that my daughter was home, and not

13:43

at her father's house, my oldest daughter, with her

13:46

and not be working. So that freedom has allowed

13:48

me to be much more present with my family.

13:50

And to me, that's my why.

13:52

So, I mean, I'll draw

13:54

this line, but it may not be the direct line, but

13:57

if you're saying, OK, I'm really,

13:59

I'm hesitant to give away my cleaning

14:02

role, but if I do, I

14:04

can make my daughter's piano recital. I

14:06

mean, that becomes a no brainer at that point, right? So

14:11

your hourly rate is now incredible, creeping up on

14:13

$300, which is fantastic. And

14:15

you said your husband has a nice one as well. Give

14:18

us, give me an idea of like how much work

14:20

you put in to hit that rate and like,

14:22

what are the main financial contributors,

14:24

like, I think I've talked to you about this a little bit before,

14:26

but, and COVID definitely changed things. How

14:29

has your focus as a gym owner changed

14:31

in the last month and produced that

14:33

EHR number?

14:34

So I think, and

14:36

I briefly alluded to it before some of the work

14:39

that has gone into getting that was

14:41

realizing that when COVID hit,

14:43

we had to adapt and we couldn't necessarily

14:46

go back to the way that we were before. Right.

14:49

So I've spoken

14:51

of this, you know, on some of my calls

14:53

and I've spoken of this in some of the posts I've written

14:55

that my revenue

14:57

since COVID is now two and a half times

14:59

what it was before. So we actually

15:02

shifted the vision of our business

15:04

more in line with what I wanted, and

15:06

we really dialed in our avatar, right?

15:08

So I talk about those hard hours of work.

15:11

It was really going back and reworking

15:13

our systems and processes to

15:15

truly 100% fit in with our

15:17

avatar. I also, after

15:21

COVID, I realized that we needed

15:23

a little bit more leadership. People were kind

15:25

of struggling. They didn't necessarily know what

15:27

was going on. I stepped back into the business

15:30

and I took on a lot of different roles

15:32

that, you know, maybe

15:34

a gym owner might have removed themselves

15:36

from, for a time being, to retrain

15:38

my staff, right. To show them exactly

15:41

the way it needed to be done. And I'm guessing

15:43

my effective hourly rate might've taken a little dip,

15:45

but you can see that from that, where it's

15:47

gone, because I wasn't afraid to step

15:50

back in and rebuild things

15:52

and then step back out again.

15:53

It's an investment.

15:53

It is, and I

15:56

actually think there was something recent, a recent

15:58

blog post about the difference between abdicate

16:00

and delegate. I think that was even,

16:02

you know, a week or two ago, about

16:05

training your staff, that you're delegating

16:07

topics to them. You're teaching them, you're being

16:09

a leader and showing them how to do it. You're not just handing

16:12

it to them and saying, here, go do it.

16:14

That's a huge one, because a lot of people are guilty of just like washing

16:17

their hands of a job and saying, do this, and then walking

16:19

out. And I certainly was guilty of this. And

16:21

Chris has written about that. We'll put that blog post

16:24

in the show notes, the idea of, you

16:26

know, teaching someone and mentoring someone

16:28

in a new role. So you give them this job. And

16:31

then there's a feedback loop where you say, OK, this

16:33

was great. We need to improve this and keep them

16:35

on the page so that they get to be good at this

16:37

job, as opposed to you just walking every

16:39

day and saying, oh, they're not doing it

16:41

properly because that's really, that's the abdiction.

16:44

It doesn't actually work. You know

16:46

, whether

16:48

you're stubborn or not. You'll learn that eventually.

16:51

Cause I sure did. And you know, you Jolene you learned

16:53

it for yourself as well. I got to ask , just

16:55

as an aside, what is your avatar right now?

16:58

Chris Cooper here to talk about Level Method. When

17:00

it comes to owning a gym, it can be really tough

17:02

to show your members their progress and

17:04

keep them engaged long term.

17:07

Level Method provides experienced gym owners

17:09

with a visual step-by-step

17:11

fitness progression system that's fun,

17:13

engaging and easy to use. With Level

17:15

Method, your clients can reach their fitness goals

17:17

faster and safer than ever before and

17:19

become raving fans of your gym. Go to

17:22

levelmethod.com to find out more. I

17:24

use this product in my gym,

17:26

it helped with my conversion from my

17:28

on-ramp program into ongoing group coaching, and

17:31

it's also boosted my retention over time.

17:32

So my avatar is middle-age

17:35

, primarily women, but we do

17:37

work with men, who are busy,

17:39

either working or they run their

17:41

household and don't have a lot

17:43

of time to focus on themselves.

17:46

And are you focusing on them in a one-on-one

17:48

setting or a group setting or both?

17:49

So we do

17:51

have group and one-on-one, we are

17:54

about this month, I just ran the numbers, 76%

17:56

one-on-one and

17:59

then we have nutrition, which is about

18:01

4% and then the rest would be group or

18:03

our youth program.

18:05

Wow. So has that percentage changed, like

18:07

are one-on-one clients a higher percentage now

18:10

than they were say pre-COVID?

18:11

Yeah. Pre-COVID, I would say it was almost

18:14

flipped. Maybe not quite to

18:17

that extent, but we were definitely over 60%

18:19

group pre-COVID.

18:21

You've adapted. So this is interesting. You hit, you

18:23

know, the worst period of the all time, you know

18:25

, in all of all time in the fitness industry, with the pandemic

18:28

where people literally couldn't

18:30

work out and open their businesses in a lot of places, you

18:32

completely changed your model. Got it in line

18:35

with your vision, put in the systems, reinvested

18:37

yourself in the systems, procedures, staffing, and

18:39

all the little nitty-gritty parts of the business, created

18:42

a brand-new avatar, or maybe a variation

18:44

of your old avatar, but made it more specific and tailored

18:46

it. And then you've

18:50

driven your revenue up two and a half times.

18:51

Right. And the

18:53

flip , I would say in

18:55

the percentages came from dialing in the revenue

18:58

, or dialing in the avatar. Sorry, because

19:00

those , what

19:02

we found is that avatar client, once we

19:04

were talking about busy people, they

19:06

might not necessarily have time to make it to our group.

19:09

And now some do. Like, I think group classes are great.

19:11

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to like

19:13

bash group classes at all because I love them . I love being

19:15

in them. But our avatar, we realized

19:18

their focus was on getting

19:20

in and getting out at the times that they want

19:23

it to be. So instead of

19:25

expanding our group classes and having seven group

19:27

classes a day, eight group classes a day,

19:29

we kind of dialed it in and focused on,

19:31

OK, well, we'll do one-on-one during that time.

19:34

OK. So this is actually huge. And, you know, listeners

19:36

don't gloss over this one because you

19:38

might not see the link between

19:41

your effective hourly rate, which is very mechanical

19:43

and numbers, right. And dialing

19:45

in your avatar. There is a couple of steps

19:48

that go into that to connect those two things. But

19:50

it's easy to just say, ah, you know, I'm casting

19:53

a wide net. I want everyone. Jolene

19:55

on the other hand has dialed in a very

19:57

specific avatar that she could name for me and

20:00

describe for me on the spot. And

20:02

with that avatar in place, she

20:04

was able to drive up her EHR

20:06

by speaking, you know, I'm guessing in

20:08

your marketing or in your organic posts, to

20:10

a very specific segment of

20:12

your audience that wanted exactly

20:15

what you are selling and you've created programs

20:17

for that person, is that how it went?

20:20

Yeah . That's exactly how it goes. And I

20:23

would hope people see it on our social media. I've been told

20:25

that it has, if you look at it, you could

20:27

probably look at it and say, oh, you're speaking to,

20:29

you know, a middle-aged woman or man who

20:32

wants to lose weight, wants to be healthy. And doesn't

20:34

have very much time.

20:38

So my question here on this is it

20:41

seems so counterintuitive to narrow

20:43

your market right, to say, oh, there's a huge

20:46

pool of fish out here, but I only want to catch

20:48

bass. Like, it seems counterintuitive because

20:50

as a newer gym owner, or as someone

20:52

who's struggling, you're like, I want to take everyone.

20:54

I need every single client. So you put out this broad

20:57

net and then you don't catch the

20:59

things that you want. Was it scary for

21:01

you to dial that thing in and start talking

21:03

to a specific segment that was much smaller

21:05

than the broad whole?

21:06

Yes . If I'm being totally honest,

21:09

it was. But I also realized

21:11

that our vision was

21:14

to , when I kind of distilled it down, that was our vision

21:16

and anything else was just noise. And that noise

21:19

was what was causing all the stress and

21:21

causing me to lose sleep and causing all the

21:23

problems, and getting rid of some of that

21:25

noise, it was almost like a breath of fresh air.

21:27

Like we can finally help the people

21:29

that we want to help.

21:31

Wow . I mean, like, I don't want to beat this

21:33

to death with a hammer here, but a lot

21:35

of people still haven't made that transition.

21:37

And when you did and narrowed your audience,

21:40

you literally saw, you know , clear

21:42

financial success. That must have been like

21:45

such a relief for you, but also such

21:47

a, you know, a reward for

21:49

taking a scary step .

21:51

Right. And , I know a lot of people listening

21:53

to this might be working with a partner and sometimes

21:56

your vision clashes with

21:58

your partner a little bit. So this was very much my

22:00

vision and my husband was gracious

22:03

enough to go along and say, all right, you know what? You're leading

22:05

the ship right now. This is your vision.

22:07

And even he is, he

22:09

from the beginning was a little hesitant, same

22:12

reasons, but even he now sees like,

22:14

look, this is the right step. So it can

22:16

be scary, no matter if it's your vision or if

22:18

you're the partner of the person.

22:21

But once you truly realize what

22:23

it is that helped people. And for some people, it might

22:25

not be my avatar, maybe it's athletes.

22:28

And when they hone in on athletes, they can show

22:31

the success. That becomes

22:33

a marketing strategy, more people

22:35

like them come because they see they're being successful

22:38

and they feel comfortable being around people like them

22:40

.

22:42

What a cool marital moment to have, you know , your partner maybe not

22:44

agree with you, but say, you know what, let's

22:46

do this thing and support you. That must have been great.

22:49

It was. And , now we're

22:51

kind of circling it back and seeing

22:53

the benefits of it.

22:55

And with good reason, because you've done

22:57

the work and that's the cool part is that you've

22:59

actually done the work. And I love what you said about

23:01

reinvesting yourself into

23:04

the business and finding the you know, the

23:06

weak spots or the things that need upgraded doing

23:08

the work, then not abdicating,

23:10

but delegating it out and making it better. So

23:12

these are really important steps

23:14

for people. I'm going to ask you this

23:16

one. So we're gonna go in the time machine.

23:19

So like you just opened your gym. Imagine,

23:21

or you just opened a gym. Someone out there is

23:24

in this stage who has just opened a gym or is even thinking

23:26

about opening a gym. What are the three things, or two

23:28

or three things that you would focus on right

23:30

off the bat to reach $50

23:32

an hour first when your EHR might be like

23:34

$1 an hour when you opened your gym?

23:37

OK. So number one, hire a mentor and

23:41

listen to them. It's kind of a two-part answer, hire

23:43

a mentor that resonates with you, but

23:45

listen to what they tell you and don't be stubborn. So I'll

23:49

kind of tell a quick story with that. Jeff

23:52

Smith is my mentor and he's my mentor

23:55

in tinker. And, you know, I

23:57

can be very stubborn and I can be very

23:59

hard to like, believe things

24:01

at first. And he gave me some tough love on the one

24:03

call, which was much needed , very,

24:06

very much needed. And I

24:08

listened to him. And from that, my

24:10

leadership has increased dramatically.

24:13

And you're seeing some of the results of this now, too,

24:15

because I am much, much stronger as a

24:17

leader, just even from one little tiny,

24:20

you know, phone call where I got a little

24:22

bit of tough love. So don't be afraid to listen

24:24

to what your mentor says.

24:26

I'm just going to highlight what you said. Listen

24:28

and act because there's so

24:30

many programs out there, knowledge

24:32

and information, you know , Two-Brain doesn't have

24:35

a trademark on knowledge and information. What we specialize

24:37

in is getting people to take action. That's what our mentors

24:39

are trained to do. Obviously we have

24:41

knowledge, but we're getting people to act. And it's funny, you

24:43

know, Jeff is an old retired soldier that , I'm

24:45

sure he had no problem handing out a bit of tough love

24:48

for you when you needed it.

24:49

None at all, and never does, which is exactly

24:52

the type of mentor I need. And that's

24:54

one of the things I love about Two-Brain too, is the ability

24:56

to match someone up with a mentor that very

24:58

much works with them.

25:00

Hit me with number two , that's a great point for the first one.

25:02

Number two, don't be afraid to step

25:05

back in and fix things. Sometimes

25:08

we get so caught up in moving up to higher

25:11

levels or higher , that I

25:13

can't even think the word rungs on the value ladder, terminology

25:16

is alluding me today. So

25:19

don't be afraid that sometimes you might have

25:21

to step back into a role that you might not have done

25:23

for a year or two. Maybe you need to step

25:25

back in and coach that class because

25:27

you had to fire a coach who wasn't getting results,

25:30

or wasn't acting in a way that you felt your

25:32

business needed to portray themselves as. I

25:35

read a really good story about one

25:37

time , it's actually a book, "The Dichotomy of Leadership." In it, there was

25:41

a military training exercise, and this really stuck

25:43

with me, which I think it will with some other gym

25:45

owners, they're in a military

25:47

training exercise and they killed the

25:49

leader of the team , to

25:52

see what would happen. And the team entirely fell

25:54

apart. Like, didn't know what to do, people

25:56

weren't in the right place. So what they

25:58

did to show the team what needed

26:00

to happen, they brought the leader back to life,

26:03

basically to show the rest of the team how to function

26:06

and how to do the tasks, and

26:08

then they could remove the leader again, and the team

26:10

the second time learned how to do it. So

26:12

I think sometimes my number two point

26:14

would be being a leader requires you to get

26:16

in there and helping guide and train. And don't be

26:18

afraid to do the kind of the dirty work sometimes

26:21

to make that happen.

26:22

Yeah. And my addition to that excellent

26:24

point is to fix it as best

26:26

you can so you don't have to go back because you

26:29

only want to fix things once. So if you lay the groundwork,

26:32

you might not have to go back to that role, but if you do a crummy

26:34

job of fixing and just offload

26:36

it and move on, you might find yourself

26:38

right back in the role. And one of the things that Chris has talked

26:41

about, he actually has a process for this, is

26:43

setting up all your systems, delegating

26:46

them and then stress testing them. So like leave

26:48

your gym for three days and be out of contact,

26:50

just like quote unquote, you know, killing the leader in the

26:52

military exercise, see what happens and

26:55

come back and see what problems are and what problems

26:57

needed to be solved. What couldn't be solved, then

26:59

solve them, put that stuff in your

27:01

SOPa and in your staff playbook. And

27:03

hopefully you'll never have to deal with them again. And then

27:05

constantly do these stress tests at increasing

27:07

times. So to the point where we have some gym owners that

27:10

won't even check in with their gyms for like 30 days or

27:12

something like that. So follow the process

27:14

that Chris has for you guys. Number three,

27:16

what do you got?

27:17

Number three. I kind of debated

27:20

back and forth, but I think the most important

27:22

thing for a new gym owner is

27:24

identify your vision early on, who

27:27

you want to help, who you want to be as

27:29

a gym owner and as a gym. And

27:31

then don't let other things distract

27:33

you. Take action on only the

27:35

things that fit in with your vision.

27:38

There are so many things that we see on the internet and

27:40

we're like, I don't know many

27:42

other people are, but I'm like, oh, that's great! Wait. Focus.

27:46

And even now I still have to

27:48

draw myself back to the vision, which is why I

27:50

kind of repeated over and over to myself and

27:52

our avatar clients so that I do stick

27:54

to it.

27:55

I love that. And I'll give you a ridiculous example is

27:57

like, if you have your avatar in mind and your

27:59

vision in mind, you're probably not

28:02

going to buy, you know, the 80 foot monkey

28:04

bars rig, right. You're just like, unless

28:07

you know, OCR training is your avatar,

28:09

but that's just a simple example of how

28:11

vision and avatar will make

28:13

decisions for you. And it will take a lot of stress

28:15

away. OK. So that's a great one. So

28:19

we'll take the time machine just a little bit further forward. You've

28:21

just hit $50 EHR

28:23

as a gym owner. What are the three

28:25

things that you're going to focus on to reach the

28:27

hundred dollar mark after that?

28:29

OK. One would

28:32

be developing yourself as a leader, really

28:34

spending time on that.

28:36

And for me, that meant joining tinker.

28:39

For other people that meant doing

28:41

other leadership development roles. But that would be number

28:43

one. For me.

28:43

That's such a weird one, right? Because normally you're working

28:46

on your business and systems and SOPs

28:48

and coaching and teaching the squat and all this stuff.

28:50

And then all of a sudden to reach this next stage, you suddenly

28:52

have to not stop, but like delegate

28:55

all that stuff. And then look at yourself and say,

28:57

how can I lead people better? That's a tough

28:59

one.

29:00

Yup . Number two for me

29:03

would be really make

29:05

sure any person I hire is 100%

29:08

bought into the vision of the gym.

29:09

So that means you can't just hire the person who

29:11

happens to be most convenient. You've actually got to start

29:13

working to find the right people.

29:15

Right. And sometimes that means you have to keep your roles

29:17

a little bit longer than you want to,

29:19

to find that person. But it definitely pays

29:22

off in the long run.

29:23

That is a good one, because if you delegate, even

29:26

if you, you know, you don't abdicate , but you delegate

29:28

something to the wrong person, you're still gonna have a problem.

29:30

Yes. And actually you probably will have more problems.

29:34

I agree. All right . Number three.

29:36

Number three

29:39

is delete everything that

29:42

doesn't make sense in

29:44

your business. Right? So, and I'll

29:46

kind of explain that a little bit more. You've developed

29:48

your vision to get yourself to $50 an

29:50

hour, right. But to get yourself to that next

29:53

level, we all have these little pieces of our business

29:55

that we hang onto for whatever reason,

29:57

sentimental, because it's always been done like

29:59

that, whatever it is, but it doesn't

30:01

make us that much money and it's not profitable.

30:04

It just causes drama usually. So deleting

30:06

those things out, and those can be hard to let go of.

30:09

I'll call that addition by subtraction. And

30:12

Chris has written about this so many times,

30:15

getting to advanced stages of business

30:17

requires more focus

30:19

and more narrow focus rather than broader

30:22

stuff, because it's so easy to get distracted as

30:24

you get higher up on the rungs of the ladder.

30:27

There's so many opportunities are so many things you can

30:29

do. You need to do the most

30:31

profitable thing or the best thing, not

30:34

a combination of things that are mediocre,

30:36

you know, and I'll give you a role that I think

30:38

is probably it might hit home

30:40

for a lot of people. Here's one that people, I think generally

30:42

hang onto too long: social media. I

30:44

think that was one where it's like, it's a personal thing.

30:47

There's also that like, you get that real kick

30:49

in the ego when you put up a post

30:51

and get a bunch of likes and stuff, but it's,

30:53

and, you need social media, but do you

30:55

need to do social media? Probably

30:58

not yourself, you know, would you read agree that might be a good

31:00

one to offload?

31:01

I agree. And I'm guilty of

31:03

that one. I do it because I love

31:05

it. So for me, that's one of my passion things, but

31:08

could I get rid of that? Yes, but

31:13

I could. So social media, I think coaching's

31:15

and other one for people. Programming

31:19

is definitely one. And even like

31:22

membership adjustments,

31:24

sometimes I think we get so caught up in

31:26

wanting to see what memberships are coming

31:29

in and out of our business every day and not just

31:31

getting a report at the end of the month. And

31:34

that's one I think that's really hard to let go of

31:36

for most people.

31:37

And I think one of the keys to doing it is what

31:39

you said earlier is hiring the right people

31:42

and then training them. Because if you hire the wrong people

31:44

and don't train them, all your reports and everything,

31:46

you're going to get to the end of the month. And it's just, you're going to look into a disaster

31:49

and then you've got to go fix it. Right . But if you get the

31:51

right people and systems in place, you

31:53

can be comfortable that that report comes

31:55

in, you get the numbers you need, everything is going well.

31:57

There's no wrenches in the machine and

31:59

life is beautiful, right?

32:01

Yes, exactly. And I think that's probably one of

32:03

the reasons I haven't given up the few things that

32:05

I do, first of all, I like to do them. But

32:07

second of all, I haven't found that person who

32:09

will do them to my standard yet. Doesn't mean I'm

32:11

not looking. It just means I haven't found them

32:13

yet.

32:14

Yeah. It's all according, the thing that I'm getting from you here

32:16

is it's all according to a progression and

32:18

a plan, and guys, if you're

32:20

out there and you're thinking like, oh my goodness,

32:23

this is overwhelming. Know that like the

32:25

plans that Jolene is talking about are laid

32:27

out for you in the Two-Brain program. We absolutely

32:29

have the steps in there and your mentor's

32:32

job is going to be to find the exact

32:34

step you need to take at this exact time and

32:37

then make you do it. And I don't mean force you

32:39

to do it, but help you find a way to take action

32:41

by knowing what is your why, why do you need to do

32:43

this and then do it. And then you move on to the

32:45

next step, the next step, the next step. And it's always

32:47

finding the thing that's going to move your business forward.

32:49

So it's not a question of, I have to figure this stuff out.

32:52

It's actually all documented according to

32:54

a roadmap and plan. Jolene, when you went

32:56

through that plan and when you help people go

32:58

through that plan, you know, how does it work for people?

33:00

Like, do they understand that this progression,

33:02

like, are they stubborn like you at the beginning or do

33:05

they jump in right away and realize that this is like

33:07

literally a slippery slope of easy buttons

33:09

and shortcuts to gym ownership? Like, how does it go mostly?

33:12

Actually I think it's kind of a mixed bag

33:14

and I think that's what's great is

33:17

that mentorship is about you

33:19

and your business. Not

33:22

what everybody else's business looks like. So

33:24

your action steps and what you're taking

33:26

action on might be different

33:29

than what somebody else needs to take action on.

33:31

Yes, we all go through, you know,

33:33

our ramp up where we get certain things in line

33:35

in our business so that we all have kind

33:37

of a , I guess I I'm trying to think

33:39

of the right word, but the same starting place.

33:42

Right? So that we have a really good foundation. That's probably

33:44

the best way to say it so that we have a good foundation to build

33:46

on. But then the way I might

33:48

take action is different than the way

33:50

somebody else does it. But that doesn't mean it's wrong. It

33:52

just means that my mentor sees this as the

33:55

way for me to get there. Whereas

33:57

somebody else might have a different path or thing that

33:59

they should be focusing on.

34:00

Listeners. If you're out there and you want to hear more about this

34:02

exact process, book a free call at twobrainbusiness

34:06

.com . You'll get 60 minutes on our dime

34:08

to talk about exactly how this process would work

34:10

for you and your unique business. And you might be lucky

34:13

enough down the line to work with Jolene. Jolene.

34:15

Thanks so much for being here and sharing your plan

34:18

essentially for how you got to be on our leaderboard

34:21

for EHR. Congratulations on that. And

34:23

thank you so much.

34:23

Thanks for having me.

34:24

That was Jolene Bingham, Two-Brain EHR

34:27

leader for July. I'm your host Mike Warkentin.

34:30

And I'd like to invite you to subscribe for

34:32

more episodes. Now here's Two-Brain founder,

34:34

Chris Cooper, with a final word.

34:35

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

34:38

in the Gym Owners United group on Facebook,

34:40

this is my personal invitation to join.

34:43

It's the only public Facebook group that I participate

34:45

in. And I'm in there all the time with tips,

34:47

tactics, and free resources. I

34:49

love to network with you and help you grow your business.

34:52

Join gym owners United on Facebook.

35:05

[inaudible] .