0:02

That gym down the street copies everything

0:04

I do. And I can't stand it. Ever

0:06

said that? How about this one? They're undercutting

0:09

my rates and trying to steal my clients. If

0:11

you've ever worried about competition, Chris

0:13

Cooper is on Two-Brain Radio to tell you exactly

0:16

how to find peace.

0:17

Hey guys, it’s Chris Cooper. Your members are

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0:48

Now back to the show. Hey

0:51

everybody, it's Chris Cooper. And today I'm going to talk

0:53

about competition because once a week

0:55

I get a letter like this. Dear

0:57

Chris, the nearest gym is 800

0:59

meters away from me. They charge less,

1:02

they copy everything I do, right down to my color

1:04

scheme. And if they're not copying me,

1:06

they're running me down, they're saying bad stuff

1:09

about me to potential clients

1:11

and even on Instagram and stuff. What do I

1:13

do about it? Well, before

1:15

you turn to arson, there are several

1:17

reasons to actually be excited about

1:20

competition, including this one. They're

1:22

not hard to beat. And I'm going to tell you how to

1:24

do that today. But first , some assurance

1:27

first, if you're going to compete with anybody,

1:29

you want it to be that person. You

1:31

will always have competition in your market.

1:34

If you're the only gym in town,

1:37

there is a vacuum and

1:39

somebody else is going to be tempted to open

1:41

up another gym. If there's

1:43

a bad gym who is negative,

1:45

or they're attacking you, or they're undercutting you, or even

1:48

if they're copying you, this is

1:50

the person you want to compete against because

1:52

they're beatable. Future clients

1:54

will see the difference and even better,

1:57

their best clients will graduate up

1:59

to you because people are human

2:01

and humans are smart and smart people

2:03

identify like, wow, I'm not

2:06

in the best place here or I'm in

2:08

the B minus version of that A-plus

2:10

plus service. So if you're going

2:12

to compete with somebody, you probably want

2:14

it to be that gym . Their

2:16

presence is probably stopping a better

2:19

competitor from entering your market. The

2:21

second thing that I want to say, just

2:23

to give you some hope is that the

2:25

bad gyms usually lasts three years and

2:28

then they're gone. All you got to do is survive. So

2:30

in 2016 , I was talking

2:32

to Dave Tate and I was saying like, oh

2:34

, there's this copycat business coaching program.

2:37

And it's out there right now and it's driving

2:40

me crazy. And he said, Hey, Chris,

2:42

don't worry about it because the top 10%

2:44

of gym owners in the world will just

2:46

keep looking until they find you. And

2:49

I thought he was paying me a compliment, but he

2:51

was really telling me to just focus on

2:53

being the best. And I'm asking

2:55

you to do the same. Don't just be 10%

2:58

better than the other gyms, be so

3:00

different that you have a monopoly. Be

3:02

so different that no one thinks that you're

3:04

the same as the low priced option, right?

3:07

There's no confusion. Be so far ahead

3:09

that everybody knows that you're being

3:11

copied. And finally, the goldfish

3:14

scenario, I was talking to a

3:16

registered psychotherapist, Bonnie Skinner,

3:18

she's in the Two-Brain program. She has offices

3:21

in my building and I work with her one-on-one about

3:23

every couple of weeks. And we were

3:25

talking about a lot of these new biz

3:27

coaches who have emerged since COVID

3:30

their own gyms have gone bankrupt. They

3:32

see an opportunity to sell biz

3:34

coaching or whatever. And so

3:36

they start promoting themselves online

3:39

to gym owners. And it drives me crazy

3:41

because they have a lot of false promises

3:43

and unfortunately, sometimes people fall

3:45

for them. And what Bonnie said to

3:47

me was , Hey, Chris,

3:50

let me tell you about how to have a beautiful

3:52

tropical fish tank. And

3:54

, this was actually super insightful.

3:56

And I wanted to share it with you. If you want to have

3:59

a beautiful fish tank that highlights

4:01

like these beautiful fish from

4:03

the tropics, you also have

4:05

to have in the tank, at least one

4:07

bottom feeder, because even the most beautiful

4:09

fish create like waste, right?

4:12

And that waste sinks to the bottom of the tank. And

4:14

somebody's got to clean that stuff up.

4:16

So these are present

4:19

in the fitness community. I mean, if you've been in fitness

4:21

for more than 10 minutes, you know this right?

4:23

There's like people hawking supplements

4:25

and snake oil and all kinds of crap. And

4:27

it's the same in the fitness business community.

4:30

There are people solving, like get

4:33

rich quick schemes and like sign up

4:35

for this thing. And we'll get you 10 new clients

4:37

in one minute or it's free. And you

4:39

know, you and I know what happens.

4:42

Maybe it works for a little while, but

4:44

long term, it has a negative outcome on your business

4:46

or best case it just stops working.

4:48

But now you've spent all your money on this, right?

4:51

And so , this goldfish

4:54

scenario applies to your gym because there

4:56

are people in your community who are not ready

4:58

for your gym yet. Goldfish scenario

5:01

doesn't have to be cheap. They don't have to be slimy.

5:04

I'll give you an example. I thought

5:06

for a long time that bariatric

5:08

surgery was a negative,

5:10

that it was my competition. That

5:12

people who went and got like a tummy tuck,

5:15

that's not what it really is. Right? Like they, they actually

5:17

put an elastic around your stomach

5:19

so that your stomach can't fit much food

5:21

in it. And that's how you lose weight. I thought

5:23

this was just the worst thing in the world. But the

5:25

reality is that a lot of people

5:28

wouldn't join my gym because they didn't

5:30

have the confidence to do so. And

5:32

I learned this the hard way I was ripping

5:35

on bariatric surgery in front of a group

5:37

class one day in my gym. And

5:39

after class, this woman pulls me aside

5:42

and she is a real maven at my gym. I loved

5:44

her. Her whole family came to my gym,

5:46

including her husband. They were just totally

5:48

enamored with the lifestyle and the community

5:50

at atalyst. They were kind of a central figure.

5:53

And she said, Chris, I've had bariatric

5:55

surgery. And I you're kidding

5:58

me. There's no way. Like you're

6:00

super fit. You've got abs, you know, you're

6:02

this great role model. And she said, yeah,

6:04

but I did the bariatric surgery lost

6:07

40 pounds so that I would have

6:09

the confidence to join a gym. And I joined

6:12

yours. And that made me see things

6:14

in a different light. When I opened

6:16

up Catalyst, I was ripping hard

6:18

on P90X because everybody in my town

6:20

seemed to be doing the P90X DVDs.

6:23

What I should've understood was that this wasn't

6:26

competition. It wasn't a slimy trick

6:28

that wasn't going to work. It was a stepping stone.

6:31

People who did P90X got bored

6:33

with it in 90 days. And then they

6:35

said, what's next? And they

6:37

would have said, oh, CrossFit is next.

6:40

Except that I'd positioned myself as like the

6:42

enemy. So , while

6:45

there are people in your market who

6:47

will come to you, eventually, they might

6:49

not be ready to come to you yet. And

6:51

so they might need to work with these people

6:54

who you and I might see as even bottom-feeders,

6:57

they might have to start there first, right? So

7:00

you have to look at this as like, these

7:02

people are maybe not competition to you

7:05

because nobody is going to sign up

7:07

for one fitness program, do

7:09

that forever. And that's it. And never

7:11

move up the best. People will always graduate

7:13

up to you. Now let's talk about

7:15

copycats. Even though Two-Brain is a huge

7:18

family with gyms on every continent, or

7:20

maybe precisely because of our success, we

7:23

have imitators, we have copycats,

7:25

right? There are consultants out there and giving mediocre

7:28

knockoff advice. But these people actually help our

7:30

mission to make gyms profitable

7:33

because they teach gym owners that mentorship

7:35

is important and easy to find. And

7:37

they also work with the clients that we don't invite

7:40

to our ramp up or mentorship program.

7:42

And they often help those people become

7:44

a little bit more successful. And

7:47

then many owners graduate up to Two-Brain

7:49

when they're ready, which makes me immensely proud.

7:52

OK. Cooper here with a word about

7:54

Arbox. This business management platform is

7:56

designed to take you from a fitness expert to

7:58

a successful gym owner. Arbox offers

8:01

a full suite of tools, including a dashboard

8:03

and report with the top metrics that we

8:05

prioritize at Two-Brain Business. With a glance,

8:09

you can see length of engagement, average monthly revenue,

8:11

new versus lost members and

8:13

more. Arbox will also help you drive

8:16

engagement with a members app that

8:18

allows clients to interact with their friends. So

8:20

here's the special deal for Two-Brain Radio listeners.

8:22

Save up to 50% for the

8:24

first year using Arbox. Visit arboxapp.com/tbb

8:26

to register to a free

8:28

10 day trial and

8:31

schedule a demo with one of

8:33

Arbox's experts. So

8:39

here are the problems that you might have

8:41

that create this type of competition.

8:43

And here's the opportunities that you have to fix

8:45

them. So the first problem,

8:48

people quit your gym and then go to that other gym

8:50

because it's a lower price. The

8:52

reason they're doing that is because the average

8:54

consumer in your town

8:56

can't tell the difference between what you sell

8:59

and what they sell. So they're just going

9:02

to change based on price, right? This is the definition

9:04

of commodity. If I'm selling vanilla

9:07

ice cream and you're selling vanilla ice cream,

9:09

I'm going to choose the cheapest or the people who

9:11

give me the most for the same amount of money.

9:14

But being slightly better isn't enough.

9:17

So if you have some sprinkles on your ice cream,

9:20

you know, I might not choose it. I'll

9:22

have to decide if it's worth an extra 25

9:24

cents to have vanilla ice cream with sprinkles. The

9:27

opportunity here is to be really

9:29

different, not to just add 24

9:31

hour gym times open

9:34

access sprinkles to your gym, but to actually

9:36

sell a high value coaching business.

9:39

So don't do free trials. Do

9:41

consultations. Build in a unique

9:43

measurement system. You know, sometimes

9:45

the InBody is a unique advantage in the market.

9:48

Sometimes the Level Method is a unique advantage

9:50

in the market, but create

9:53

a measurement system that nobody else has

9:55

, start with nutrition instead

9:57

of just throwing people at thrusters.

10:00

There's a hundred ways to slice this, but start

10:02

here, you sell fitness. CrossFit

10:05

might be your tool. Yoga might be your tool,

10:07

but it's not your only tool. Group

10:09

classes might be part of your delivery

10:11

of fitness, or they might not. Create

10:14

a consultative process that tailors

10:16

your approach to everybody, every client that

10:18

you have, that follows up the tracks

10:20

and optimizes for results, and

10:23

you won't be competing with anybody. Second.

10:25

The second problem, and the big opportunity

10:28

is that their gym is too close to yours.

10:30

They're creating market confusion because they're like right

10:32

next door, right? Well, the reason the other

10:34

gym built close to you, isn't because they wanted

10:37

to be all up in your face, it's because

10:39

you have a great spot and they also wanted

10:41

to be in the best spot. In this case,

10:43

the opportunity is to be the best

10:45

gym. So they're doing you a favor

10:48

by teaching the people in your area to love

10:50

yoga or love CrossFit or love bootcamp.

10:53

And then they ask their clients

10:55

to run by your door, a better

10:58

yoga, a better CrossFit, a better bootcamp

11:00

gym every single day during their warm-

11:02

up. They're basically running an on-ramp

11:05

for you. And if they do it right, if

11:07

you do it right, they're going to keep

11:09

all the troublesome clients who want that discounted

11:11

lower price option and their best

11:14

are going to graduate up to you. Because they're going

11:16

to see that. Having a gym

11:18

close by is not a threat. It's a massive

11:20

opportunity if you're better.

11:23

And the gyms who are really worried about a new competitor

11:25

opening up are really worried that they're

11:27

not going to be as good as that competitor.

11:29

So just be better. Third.

11:32

The big challenge, they copy everything

11:34

you do. Here's the good news. You're

11:36

not going to run out of great ideas and

11:38

they already have. So

11:41

you remember when your little brother played that

11:43

copycat game with you as a kid, right?

11:46

They just said every word that you said.

11:49

I'm going to tell mom, I'm going to tell mom , oh, I'm

11:52

dumb. Oh , I'm dumb. You know, whatever. How

11:54

did you end that game? How did you shake your little brother,

11:57

you started going faster. You're established,

12:00

you're bigger. You're stronger. You can just go

12:02

away from them. If another gym is copying

12:04

your content, your website, your programs,

12:07

just make yours bigger and better. Bury

12:09

them, right? Your clients will know because

12:11

people are smart. And then fourth,

12:14

the fourth big challenge and your opportunity,

12:16

they're bringing a poorer version, a

12:18

less good version of your service to the market.

12:21

They're hurting people, or they're giving yoga a bad

12:23

name or Pilates or bootcamp or CrossFit,

12:25

a bad name. So tell

12:27

yourself this again. If you're going to compete with someone,

12:30

you want it to be them. They're

12:32

not poisoning your market. They're

12:35

probably stopping a better competitor

12:37

from entering your market. So when a gym

12:39

owner tells me that he's going to expand, because he's

12:41

found a town with, oh , there's no, there's

12:43

no yoga gym in that town. There's

12:45

no CrossFit in that town. Then

12:47

I tell him to go back and

12:50

look for towns with poorly run gyms

12:52

in them. Those are the huge opportunities

12:54

because the bad gym has already taught people

12:56

to love yoga or taught people to

12:58

love CrossFit. And then given them

13:00

a B plus experience. They've groomed

13:03

the audience for you. If you have

13:05

an A plus experience. So trust

13:07

me, I get copied. Former coaches

13:10

from my gym try to attract my members

13:12

to their programs, personal trainer,

13:14

try to tell people that CrossFit is bad for

13:16

them in my town. I have a guy

13:19

running Google ads with Two-Brain Business

13:21

in the title to try and trick people. And some

13:23

people will be tricked. And I feel bad about

13:25

that, but I want to work with

13:27

the people who won't be tricked or who

13:29

won't be fooled more than once. Some

13:32

of my best clients in the gym and in

13:34

Two-Brain are people who went somewhere else first.

13:37

As one client said, quoting,

13:39

I ran the gauntlet with Gym Launch, Gym

13:42

Legends, and two other gurus. It was not

13:44

until I became a part of Two-Brain and

13:46

really embraced the idea of

13:48

getting 150 clients, tracking ARM and

13:51

LEG, that our revenue increased

13:53

in state high without any paid ads.

13:56

These programs did teach me how to sell

13:58

and kudos to them for that. But specifically

14:01

the prescriptive model versus one

14:03

rigid front end offer, the mentorship

14:05

and the fundamentals program are what made

14:07

all the difference. I'm so happy I joined

14:09

Two-Brain where I will never leave,

14:11

end quote. You

14:13

can get that kind of client. OK?

14:16

Now finally, you need these guys. You

14:18

need these competitors. You need somebody

14:20

to push you to deliver better instead

14:23

of becoming complacent. If

14:25

you have a competitor from day one, good,

14:27

because you'll constantly be looking for ways

14:29

to be better. Worst case

14:31

is if you have no competitor for three

14:33

years and you don't strive to

14:35

be better in a meaningful way.

14:37

And you know, following the ways that matter,

14:40

and then somebody enters your market with a brand

14:42

new approach, they're going to knock

14:44

you back a few steps, right? I

14:46

want you to remember this. If somebody is copying

14:48

your ideas, they're already in second place.

14:51

They can never do better than the silver medal.

14:53

They can never win as long as they're copying

14:55

you because they don't have any ideas of their

14:57

own. And you are not going

15:00

to run out of ideas. I promise because

15:02

you are more than enough, you

15:04

just have to live up to yourself.

15:07

Two-Brain Radio is your best source

15:09

for the best advice in the gym business. Subscribe so

15:12

you don't miss an episode. And now here's

15:14

Coop with an invitation.

15:14

Thanks for listening to Two-Brain Radio.

15:17

If you aren't in the Gym Owners United

15:19

group on Facebook, this is my personal

15:22

invitation to join. It's the only public Facebook group

15:24

that I participate in. And I'm there all the time

15:27

with tips, tactics, and free resources. I'd

15:29

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

15:31

Join Gym Owners United on Facebook.