Care-Coach-Lead

For years, we've witnessed that one of the defining factors for treating your gym like a real business instead of a hobby, was making the transition from part-time to full-time coaches on your team.

But the right part-timers can be a massive asset to any gym business, when the aspirations, buy-in, and availability of the part-time coach is in alignment with the needs of the business.

At its essence, part-timers can provide versatility and stability to a full-time team, serving as a utility player that can allow the rest of the staff to have a more stable schedule.

For gym owners and managers, this can keep you from getting pulled back into the day-to-day, allowing you to work on your business instead of in the business.

In today's episode, we break down the potential value of part-time coaches, and what to look for when bringing them on to your team.

If you want to improve your 1 rep max in a lift, most experienced lifters understand that you shouldn’t max out every day.

Yet when it comes to developing well-rounded fitness, most people attack all of their workouts with the intensity of a 1 rep max every single day.

This leads to them hitting walls with their conditioning and aerobic fitness, and plateauing their skills where bad habits become ingrained instead of improved.

As coaches, we can all picture those clients who go out hot in every workout only to redline and crash, or still do the same 2-part swing on their toes to bar, or a massive donkey kick on their double unders.

The problem is these athletes are trying to “compete” every single day.

They aren't willing to sacrifice today's score for tomorrow's improvements.

They don’t realize that there’s a difference between developing their fitness and showcasing their fitness.

When we are constantly trying to compete and showcase our fitness, we’re never able to address the underlying deficiencies that are there.

As coaches, it's our job to understand these nuances, so we can educate our clients to get the most out of their daily training.

In today’s episode, we break down the difference between practice, training, and competing to help coaches map out a better plan for all of their clients to improve.

What if you could streamline your gym business to only the most important parts?

What if you could intentionally downsize your gym in a way that allowed you to pay yourself more than you ever have, while restoring the work/life balance that excited you about owning a gym in the first place?

If you've owned your gym for any length of time, you understand that it's extremely common to reach member or revenue milestones with your business, only to realize that there's little to no profit at the end of the month.

For years, the common vanity metrics have been total revenue and total number of members.  Anything we could do to get more members or increase revenue was promoted as a great thing, even if it didn't equate to growing the bottom line.

But there are other less-known vanity metrics like average client value, number of revenue streams, or even personal training revenue that can become distractions to a business if not approached with the right intentions.

In today's episode, my good friend Chris Thorndike is back on the podcast to talk about how to streamline your gym around group fitness classes and nothing else.

He breaks down in detail how he downsized his gym, staff, and programs by over 50% post-pandemic, while freeing up his time and growing his bottom line.

On the care-coach-lead youtube channel, we've posted several videos over the last few months discussing universal movement patterns and how they can make you a better technical coach.

One example is how we look for a vertical forearm in most pushing and pulling exercises like push ups, dips, handstand push ups, burpees, and bent over rows.

Another example is what we call knuckles around the bar, which shows up in many barbell pulling exercises like cleans, snatches, and deadlifts but also in bodyweight exercises like pull ups and toes to bar.

By understanding the safety, efficiency, and transferability of these specific patterns we can become a more confident coach.

In today's episode, we discuss what universal movement patterns are and how they can be used to make athletes of all types better at what they do.

We're looking for our next rockstar coach at FitTown Jupiter!

Do you believe that coaching is your calling?

Do you love learning every day and being part of a strong team?

Do you love coaching both group classes and personal training?

Do you want to make a great living helping others and transforming lives?

In today's episode, we discuss what we look for in an ideal coach at FitTown, and how we set up coaches to thrive once they join our team.

Whether you are already coaching in another part of the country, or are a gym owner that has realized that coaching is actually your true calling, email me at andrew@fittown.com if you are interested in joining our amazing team.

All scaling is not equal.

When a client is in the middle of a workout, rarely are they happy about regressing an exercise to make it safer or to better achieve the stimulus for that day.

It's usually not fun to take weight off the bar, switch from a barbell to dumbbells, or come off the pull up bar to perform ring rows.

But one of the things that I've learned as a coach is its not the modification that's being delivered that matters, its how and why its delivered that makes it valuable or not.

It's the difference between customizing a workout and scaling a workout.

Customizing workouts = making valuable personalized modifications before class or prior to a workout based on individualized knowledge about the client's injury history, recent training, and goals.

Scaling workouts = reactive modifications done during a workout to make an exercise more appropriate or safer for an individual.

When we scale reactively, it can make us feel like we are at odds with our clients, instead of working towards a common goal.

It turns one of the biggest values we can provide as coaches, custom modifications, into something that actually feels like a takeaway from the client's perspective.

In today's episode we discuss the difference between proactive and reactive scaling, and all of the various attributes that we should take into consideration when determining whether to scale a client or not.

What if the people who needed your help most were already part of your gym?

What if the people who were most willing to invest in themselves were already the ones who know, like, and trust you?

What if you had an extra $100k in potential annual revenue for your gym that didn't require you to bring in a single new client?

The PT Legends Dave and Scott are back on the podcast to discuss how to upgrade existing members to higher-touch, higher-ticket coaching.

For group class facilities that already have a solid membership of people who love us, one of the things we overlook the most is the ability to help these people on a deeper level.

In today's episode, Dave and Scott lay out a blueprint for ascending existing members who just show up for the workouts and community, to higher-ticket offerings that have the capacity to change their life and change their story for good.

Since the sale of CrossFit Inc. almost 2 years ago, there's been a noticeable increase in the tools, resources, and desire to help CrossFit affiliates succeed from a business perspective.

This includes things like:

• Launching an affiliate network of brands and businesses to leverage the purchasing power of thousands of affiliates and save owners $$$
• Creating an affiliate playbook that incorporates staff and business ideas, not just training methodology.
• Launching CrossFit Affiliate Programming, and recently announcing that this would be programmed separately from CrossFit.com programming
• Partnering with Best Hour of Their Day, the first time CrossFit has ever had an approved mentorship service for business support.

In today's episode we discuss our thoughts on the recent changes CrossFit has made to their affiliate resources, and whether we believe CrossFit understands what affiliates need to succeed today and in the future.

We have a pretty thorough hiring process at our gym.

Every candidate goes through multiple phone calls or in-person interviews, fills out questionnaires, spends time shadowing classes, meeting with our team, and immersing themselves in our community.

We have had a few coaches throughout the years that have made it to the final stages of our hiring process, but we ultimately decided it wasn't a fit.

In today's episode, we discuss what would keep a coach from getting hired at our facility, and what we look for in someone that is a no-brainer to add to our team.

Last month, my brother Tony and I got invited to attend the FitPro Growth Summit in Nashville, run by Tim Lyons.

Tim opened the weekend with a powerful talk about the 19 Pitfalls that Fitness Businesses Need to Avoid if they want to be successful.

Some of them that resonated most with us were:

• Focusing on more, instead of better
• Lack of balance between front-end revenue and offerings, and back-end revenue and offerings
• Low pricing, and margins too slim
• Falsely believing more leads will fix our problems
• Seeking silver bullets that will magically turn around our business

In today's episode, we discuss the pitfalls that resonated with us most from Tim's talk. We touch on many of the mistakes we've made in the past, and where we still have lots of room for improvement in our business currently.

When I first started coaching, I was attending 2-3 certifications per year to develop my skills and help my clients on a deeper level.

Some of those certifications would conclusively make me a better coach, and other certifications sometimes created more client issues, not less.

The problem with most certifications I was attending, is that they were strictly focused on the technical aspects of specific modalities; kettlebells, olympic weightlifting, gymnastics, mobility, or pose running.

Every certification was focused on what to coach, but very little focus was placed on how to coach it and create buy-in with the everyday person.

So I would start nerding out on the nuances of a snatch or kettlebell swing, only to see everyone's eyes glazed over.

I quickly realized that coaching has less to do with the knowledge you have, and more to do with how you can relate that knowledge to each client and group you are working with.

In today's episode, we discuss how certain certifications could be making you a worse coach, and how you can formulate a mindset and framework that allows you to get value from. 

As coaches, we want our clients to feel comfortable enough with us to open up about their goals, their struggles, and what's missing from their lives.

But in my experience, coaches can accomplish this in a positive way through a foundational relationship of trust, or they can accomplish this through negative means like gossip, complaining, and venting to their clients.

So we may feel good about clients sharing their secrets with us, or confiding in us about the struggles they are going through, but a client opening up to us as a coach isn't always a positive sign.

When we put out gossip, complaining, and negativity into the world, we often times will attract it in return.

In today's episode, we'll help you distinguish between opening up and gossiping so you can be a more effective coach, teammate, and leader.  We'll help you recognize when you and others on your team are falling into these patterns, so you can address it and continue to level up your team.

One of our favorite exercises that we have all of our employees take on is building out their perfect day.

It can teach someone a lot about themselves and where they thrive, and it allows us as a business to put them in roles that come effortlessly to them, creating a win-win scenario.

But over years of running this exercise, we've also seen downsides to focusing too much attention on the perfect day.

Often, coaches get so focused on their perfect day early in their careers that they become impatient.  They say no to opportunities that could help them grow, because they can't directly connect that opportunity to their perfect day.

Or coaches become so focused on "work/life balance" that they are quick to judge themselves if they are feeling even a little off-balanced.  This begins a cycle of seeing work as an obligation, instead of something they love doing.

In today's episode, we dive into some of the downsides of the perfect day exercise, and how you can use this exercise to help you thrive instead of making you susceptible to burnout.

Have you ever fallen prey to the idea of chasing passive income?

You're rushing so hard to get to a point where you don't have to "trade time for money", that you don't even make enough money to support yourself or your family today.

Most coaches falsely believe that the only way to ever make a living in the fitness industry is to be a gym owner, not a coach.  

Meanwhile, many gym owners are making less per hour than their coaches are, even though their coaches may only be making $15-20 per class.

The idea that trading time for money is inherently bad, is rooted in a society where most people hate what they do.

But most coaches and gym owners love what they do, and would even do it for free in some cases.

In today's episode, we dive into why in many cases it can be a great thing to trade time for money.  We talk about the importance of finding work that you love, increasing your value to others in that work, and how it's possible to make passive income outside of your day job.

What if you could generate $250k in revenue as an online coach, only to find out that this path wasn't for you?

In 2020/2021, Drew Girton decided to hire out all of his responsibilities for his brick-and-mortar gym Pendulum Fitness in California, so he could move to Austin, Texas with his family to go all-in on online coaching.  

Despite having massive success in terms of revenue and profit ($250k in about 12 months with almost no overhead), Drew found he hated the online coaching space.

He wasn't able to deliver on the results that he could produce in-person, he burnt out his social media following, and lost friends and brick-and-mortar members in the process.

Now he's back in California rebuilding his gym and community, with the added tools and experience he has gained from the online space.  

In today's episode, Drew gives us an honest and behind-the-scenes look at what the online coaching space looks like, and how those skills can be leveraged in an in-person gym.  

Most coaches that pride themselves on being a great coach, would prefer not to believe that the clock or music can have a drastic impact on our ability to be effective coaches.

Most of us see it as a necessary evil, not something that can make or break the results we are providing for our clients.

But like it or not, the clock and music play a significant role in the level of enjoyment and engagement that you will get from your clients.

The clock can help us start and finish on time, maximize the hour, help us manage larger classes, and notify the group on transitions between exercises or intervals.

The music can add energy and fun to the room, signal the intensity we want to see from our athletes, or become a cue to pay attention and listen when the music is turned down.

When used properly, the clock and music can actually make us a better and more effective coach.

In this week's episode, we explore in detail how you can use the clock and music to enhance your class experience, and dedicate even more time and attention to your clients.

I was recently invited to be a part of a really interesting conversation about how personal trainers can level up, and make a lucrative career within a gym.

It's pretty common to see a physical therapist or masseuse renting space out at a CrossFit box or microgym, but it seems to be more rare where a freelancing personal trainer will rent out space at those same gyms.

In the rare cases where it does happen, those relationships usually end poorly if the personal trainer starts to achieve too much success that is then seen as a competing service.

Where we've seen the most success, is personal trainers finding gyms that align with their values, and where they align with the brand of the gym.  When a trainer is invested in the core service of the gym they are a part of, and especially if they are a client themselves of that service, it creates alignment where all parties benefit from the partnership.

The other important thing to note is that early on in this business relationship, the gym is providing most of the value in terms of marketing, training, and stable pay.  As a trainer develops and fills their book of business, they grow their value to the point that the opportunity cost of losing that coach is significant to the business.

In this discussion, we dive into all aspects of the trainer-to-gym relationship, and how that relationship can and should evolve as value is created and shifted over time.

In a recent interview with Stuart Brauer of WTF Gym Talk, we discussed how our programming has evolved over the last decade, and if we made any significant changes since rebranding from CrossFit.

The answer to that is yes, there have been lots of small changes that have been made, but we didn't do it with the goal of differentiating ourselves from CrossFit.

All of the programming changes we have made over the years have been in an effort to create a better product that clients enjoy more, reduce injuries, and improve results.

Some of those changes have taken us away from traditional CrossFit, but we're not trying to be different for different's sake.

In this episode, we discuss a lot of the changes we have made to our programming over the last decade.  Those changes include things like adding more tempo work, incorporating functional bodybuilding, eliminating specific kipping movements, and varying levels of intensities instead of doing all high intensity all the time.

When you make the transition from a coach or staff member into a leadership position like head coach or owner, it can be difficult to now become the authority when you are not used to being the one in charge.

Many new gym owners and managers struggle setting and upholding policies in this new role.  They don't want to be a hard-ass unnecessarily, but they also want to create the systems and structure for their team to thrive.

One simple framework that has helped me become a better manager, is to think about policies in terms of agreements instead of meaningless corporate rules.

Policies are often one-sided rules that benefit the business, but can feel like punishment for the employees.  Many are outdated, or never served an intentional purpose when they were initiated.

Agreements, on the other hand, force us to understand the needs of all parties involved, and create a buy-in to achieving a specific objective or solving a problem.

In today's episode, I dive further into this concept of policies vs agreements to help you become the most effective manager and leader you can be.

A long time listener of the podcast reached out for some quick advice before he opens his first gym later this summer, Gowanus Fitness in Brooklyn, NY.

Instead of answering his questions 1-on-1, I thought it would be fun and valuable to bring him on the podcast and give him some feedback and coaching live for everyone to learn from.

In today's episode, we dive into how to set up your memberships, pricing, and marketing in a way to fill your gym and be successful right from Day 1.

We discuss when and where to use discounts, and how to set up founding member packages that bring clients into the gym, but don't overextend the business and crush the profit margin.

When you are coaching a warm up in the group class setting, do you prefer to lead the class exercise-by-exercise, or do you prefer to explain the entire warm up and then have athletes go through it on their own?

It's common for coaches to have a preferred style, or believe that one format is better than the other.

But we use both formats are our gym, and here's why:

Coach-Led formats are great for keeping the group together, working through progressions or higher-level skills, and minimizing the pre-class preamble that can feel slow or tedious.

On-your-own formats are great for building relationships, maximizing your 1-on-1 technical coaching, and when you want to opt for simple formats that don't require a lot of time or explanation.

We've found that by balancing both, we get a nice mix of coaching, relationship-building, and skill practice over days, weeks, and months, that we couldn't get if we just stuck to one format.

In today's podcast, we break down the pros and cons of these 2 warm up styles in more detail, so you can maximize the beginning of your class each day.

If you struggle with your confidence or your effectiveness in public speaking, then the solution might be simpler than you think.

So often we get caught up in how we appear to others or whether we are doing a good job or not, that we lose sight of our role as coaches or presenters in that moment.

But if we can (1) keep our focus on the audience and off our own performance, (2) find our unique voice or value that we want to bring to the table in every class, and (3) reframe our nerves as excitement rather than anxiety, then we are likely to see our speaking ability improve tremendously in a short period of time.

To hear in detail how you can implement these 3 principles into your next class, seminar, or presentation, check out the latest episode of the Care-Coach-Lead show.

Whenever we are coaching a group class or 1-on-1 training session, our clients are placing an expectation on us to deliver value to them above and beyond what they are paying for that day.

That value typically comes in the form of answering 5 key questions each day in a way that resonates with each client.  But I should note that these questions aren’t usually asked out-loud by our clients, they are just inherent in how the client is experiencing the value they are receiving each day.

If we can proactively answer these questions each day for our clients (without them asking), that client is going to come away from each session feeling like they got way more than they paid for, and hopefully stay a client for years or decades to come.

Every gym needs someone who's setting the standard and making everyone better.

We'll call this person the head coach, whether you have this as a defined role at your gym or not.  

In the simplest sense, there are 3 objectives that all head coaches should be looking to achieve with their staff.  

1. A way for delivering consistent feedback (Both formally and informally)
2. A shared language among your staff
3. A way of doing consistent and ongoing coaches development (Both internally and externally)

And ultimately what we're striving for is to create a culture where everyone wants to grow, and feedback is shared often.  That way our growth doesn't rely on quarterly performance reviews or outside certifications to happen, but it happens through every class, interaction, and podcast that we listen to.  

That's where the real magic happens with great teams.  

If you want to hear more about how these 3 must-haves for head coaches can help you establish a culture of excellence and growth, tune into today's episode of the Care-Coach-Lead Show.  

Ideally your first interaction of the day with your members is a positive one. This doesn’t only mean it’s not a negative one, but that also means avoiding it being a neutral interaction as well.

In a perfect world, before class even begins we’ve greeted each person individually and used their name. Realistically, though, when we get into a class setting we aren’t always able to greet each and every person like we want to.

In this episode, I’ll discuss how to make each interaction positive and sincere, regardless of when the interaction happens in the class.

On March 28th, the next round of our Rockstar Coaching Intensive begins. This course is for anyone who is looking to make a career out of coaching. The course focuses on softer interpersonal skills alongside leadership skills necessary to become a professional coach. Head over to care-coach-lead.com/rockstar to sign up

We didn't always have a great Kid's Program at FitTown Jupiter. When we rebranded our gym, we felt passionate about starting a great kid's program. Without that, we felt like it would be hard to leave a lasting impact on future generations.

Melissa really forged the first successful FitKids Program. Since she started the 8-12 group, it's been a huge hit. In this episode we'll discuss the elements that have allowed the class to thrive from not only an attendance perspective, but also from the perspective of parents and kids. 

This also translates to good coaching in general. As we've learned to simplify topics such as nutrition for the kids, it's allowed it to better simplify it for our adults as well, and better serve our community as a whole.

Many great coaches turned gym owners struggle to translate their coaching skills into business success.

As coaches, we are clear on the objectives we are trying to achieve with our clients, and we have a good understanding of what it takes to get there.

As gym owners, we often feel like we are trying to do a million things at once, and don't have a clear path to success.

The fundamentals of coaching seem clear and tangible, but the fundamentals of business seem vague and all over the place.

In today's podcast, Justin Hanover of Fitness Revolution joins the show to help us distill the fundamentals of business into 3 key concepts that anybody can apply to their business.

By defining our ideal client, narrowing our core offering, and creating a unique selling position in our market, we can create consistent and repeatable success with our gym business.

Most tech start ups take years or decades to see their first profit, investing heavily in growth, at the expense of short-term profitability.

Even a great company like Amazon, which was founded in 1994, didn't have its first profitable quarter until 2001.  It didn't become the money-printing machine that it is today, until 2 decades after its inception.

Unless our goal as gym owners is to start a franchise with hundreds of locations, our businesses don't benefit from massive scale the way most tech start-ups do.

We are better off chasing steady, consistent, profitable growth month-after-month that allows us to support ourselves, our teams, and invest consistently back in our businesses.

In today's episode, I break down in detail why the physical and local limitations of most gyms require them to treat their gyms differently from most tech start-ups, and how most of the costs that we view as fixed costs for our microgym are really variable costs that will increase at scale.

It's easy for us as coaches to get stuck in our own functional fitness niche, and forget that the profession of coaching extends to sports, business, and so many areas outside of fitness.

In many ways, coaching is coaching.

Whether you are coaching professional athletes making tens of millions per year, or coaching Moms and Dads at your local gym, the principles of great coaching remain the same.

You have to build trust and buy-in with each person you work with, and you have to connect your expertise in a way that allows them to get the most out of their potential.

In today's episode, I have my good friend, FitTown Jupiter member, and 1st base coach of the Los Angeles Dodgers Clayton McCullough on the show to talk about his journey through professional baseball, coaching, and leading some of the best baseball players in the world.

If you've been following along on the new Care-Coach-Lead Youtube channel, you've seen how we incorporate range of motion assessments to create better modifications for clients in the class setting, and help them attack the root cause of their pain or performance issues.  

Having these assessments has been one of the biggest upgrades to our coaching staff since our inception, yet we still see so many coaches and gym owners that don't utilize this amazing tool.

One of the big misconceptions that we see with movement assessments is that they don't really have a place in a general fitness group class setting, and they are only for coaches that want to specialize in helping clients resolve pain and injuries, similar to what a physical therapist would do.  

But movement assessments can make you more valuable to every client that is coming to your gym; helping you to create better modifications and warm ups, sharpening your coaching eye, and helping you build more empathy for clients.  

In today's episode, we break down why movement assessments are so important, and explain why all coaches should use them, even if you don't plan to ever specialize in the rehab setting. 

The principles of great coaching are universal, whether you are coaching a sports team, coaching employees at your business, or parenting your kids.

Being a great coach requires you to be great at connecting with people, hold them to a high standard, and to be empathetic to the challenges they are uniquely facing.

No one understands this better than Danny Lehr.  Danny's coached wrestling, CrossFit, and weightlifting, all while starting multiple businesses, and being a Dad of 2 girls.

Coaching isn't just something he does from time to time, but it's baked into his identity.

In today's episode, we talk about how to translate the principles of coaching to all areas of your life to be more productive and increase your impact.

If you've had any success as a personal trainer, you've probably experienced those moments where your schedule is full, and you can't take on any more clients at those prime times.

You end up having to turn down great training opportunities, or forcing clients into inconvenient times, which usually results in the client not being happy.

In today's podcast, we discuss an overlapping PT model, which allows coaches to fit more clients during their busiest times, while allowing them to double or triple their hourly rate.

This results in the client getting their ideal training time, being surrounded by other like-minded people, without taking away from the individualization which brought them to PT in the first place.

Coaches are more powerful than they think.

Not only can we help people lose weight, gain muscle, and get in the best shape of their lives, but we can help people get out of pain and overcome injuries that aren't currently being solved by their doctors or physical therapists.

Through smart modifications, corrective exercise, and helping to manage a person's lifestyle, we can help our clients do what they love, without being held back by pain and injury.

No one knows this better than Dr. Ray Gorman, who is today's guest on the Care-Coach-Lead audio podcast.  Ray has been working with coaches and clients for over a decade to help them resolve pain and injuries.

In today's show, we discuss how coaches can transition group clients who need help to 1-on-1 training, and how to think about building a remote business to expand our reach.

After years of building a successful CrossFit gym in New Orleans, Jonathan DeJean realized that what his city needed was not another CrossFit gym.

If Krewe Fitness was going to fulfill their mission and help more people, then it would likely happen with a model that was more accessible to the average person.

As a former rower at LSU, Jonathan and his business partners decided to build a gym around the 3 Concept 2 machines; the row, the bike, and the ski.

ErgoFit was born.

In today's podcast we discuss Jonathan's journey building a successful CrossFit gym, how he grew his gym by 100 members through covid shutdowns, and the future of his new brand, ErgoFit.

One of my favorite insights from the episode is that ErgoFit will enable them to comfortably fit up to 24 clients per class in about 2000 sf, where his current barbell-centric model at Krewe Fitness only allows them to fit 15 clients per class in about 4000 sf.

That's 1 client per 83 sf as compared to 1 client per 266 sf!

Or said differently, their current Krewe Fit model requires more than triple the space to serve the same amount of clients, which is not cheap in a major city like New Orleans.

Whether you want to open a 2nd location, open a new gym concept, or maximize the square footage in your existing microgym model, this episode is for you.

Years ago, it was common to have anybody who was interested in your gym try a free class, and then hope they liked it enough to sign up.

As the micro gym industry has matured over the years, many gyms have moved to doing a no-sweat intro or consultation in order to learn more about what their clients are looking for and to potentially prescribe higher value services.

The next evolution of sales in the gym industry is happening, and the key to making it all work is a simple 7-minute discovery call.

In today's episode, Dave and Scott from PT Legends are back on the podcast to talk about how a 7-minute phone call can enable gym owners to sell high ticket packages in the realm of $4K-8K per package.  You won't want to miss this episode.

When I first started coaching CrossFit over a decade ago, I didn’t really enjoy running personal training sessions.

CrossFit in a group setting seemed like a magic pill that could solve everyone’s issues, so personal training just seemed unnecessary, overly expensive for the client, and a little boring to run.

For those first several years, I would gladly take a group class over any personal training session.

Over time, my skills evolved as a coach, and my ability to help clients in a deep and individualized way evolved with it.

Personal training became so much more enjoyable for me, and the value clients got in return was night-and-day.

When done correctly, personal training is not just a 1-on-1 version of a group fitness class.

It’s a chance to deliver individualized value to help clients overcome pain or injuries, develop complex skills and techniques, or train for a specific sport or event.  And these types of high-value solutions are almost always best delivered in a 1-on-1 environment.

In today’s episode, we discuss why some coaches may be adverse to 1-on-1 training, and why that may be a sign that it’s time for you to double down on your skills and education as a coach.

Imagine opening a gym in your twenties only to see it go out of business a couple years later.

Now imagine re-opening a gym under the same name in your thirties, and it reaching such a massive amount of success that you quickly scale to multiple locations and have franchisees knocking down your doors.

That's what happened to my good friend Craig Avera, but with his drive-thru coffee concept, Cali Coffee.

After seeing his dream coffee business fail over a decade ago, Craig spent nearly a decade growing personally and professionally through CrossFit, working at Brick Los Angeles, and competing for their teams at the CrossFit Games.

We hired him and his girlfriend Rose to coach at FitTown in early 2017, as they were working to find a location to re-open their new and improved Cali Coffee concept.

Today, Craig and Rose have 2 thriving locations in South Florida, with many more on the way.

They are incredible business owners that have mastered the art of branding, taking action, and building culture in their business. Craig joins the show today to talk about his journey in CrossFit and in business, why he was successful the 2nd time around, and what it was like training high-profile celebrity clients while working at Brick.

A few months back, we starting working with a company called PT Legends to help us create high-ticket, high-impact transformation programs at FitTown Jupiter.  

We've known for years that many of our clients needed more than just group classes, personal training, or nutrition coaching, but we struggled to create a system that could have a deep impact on the mindset, lifestyle, and habit changes necessary to see deep and lasting change.  

Dave and Scott are the owners and creators of PT Legends, and they have nearly perfected a process for creating, selling, and executing high-ticket programs.  

They are already helping many gym owners and coaches save their businesses, stop trading time for money, and create a level of impact with their clients that is renewing their love and passion for why they got in the fitness industry in the first place.  

This is the first of many episodes with Dave and Scott, where we layout the backstory behind their transformational programs, and layout the mindset changes that coaches need to embody to create lasting success in the fitness industry.  

A few years back, I got an email from a listener of the podcast, recommending that I check out a book called the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership.  That email came from Brandon Simpson, the general manager of Swamp Rabbit CrossFit in Greenville, SC, and was the start of a relationship that has provided tremendous growth for both of us. 

Brandon and I share a love of learning, curiosity, and a desire to learn what most other people would accept as "untrainable skills".  

Most people assume that things like empathy, leadership, love, and caring are things that can't be learned and trained.  You either have those traits or you don't.

But we've both experienced in ourselves and others how these traits can be learned and cultivated, just like any tangible skill can.  

In this episode, Brandon and I discuss how to be a rockstar coach and a more conscious leader.  We talk about how to find a great mentor, and how to be one for others.  

A few years ago, we almost hired a coach out of Canada to re-locate and work at FitTown Jupiter.  The coach talked really highly of his home gym, Greater Purpose Health and Fitness, and was excited by how much our core values lined up with where he was currently working.  

The owner of that gym is Matt Chenard, and he is an incredible coach, gym owner, and leader. 

What I love about Matt's approach, is that he doesn't just settle for helping people lose weight, improve their performance, and set PRs.  

Matt truly believes in a holistic approach that thrives in 5 key areas: Physical, Mental, Spiritual, Connection, and Purpose.  He challenges clients to get uncomfortable and ask difficult questions that helps them create insights they haven't experienced before.  

It's one of the reasons why Matt has challenged himself to do ice baths and post to social media every single day, despite the resistance he feels towards these activities.  

If you want to deepen your impact, conquer fear, and live a more meaningful life, this episode is for you.  

It's almost assumed in the fitness world that you are either a great coach or a great salesman.  

It's common for coaches to say that they "just want to coach", so they leave the selling and asking for money to the gym owner or someone else in the business.

But our experience has taught us that you can't defer these skills to someone else if you want to be a great coach.  Because sales skills are so closely intertwined with coaching, that you will inevitably have to get good at selling in order to be influential and effective as a coach.  

So if you are struggling to sell or build your book of business, instead of asking how can I sell better, you should be asking how can I coach better?

By answering this question and developing the skills necessary to improve your coaching in this way, you will inevitably have to become better at selling.  

In today's episode, FitTown coaches Melissa Dixon and Austin Bettigrew join Andrew to discuss the necessary skills you need to develop to improve your coaching and sales ability.  

Facebook ads can be a powerful tool for microgym owners to fill our gyms, but they can also be confusing, time-consuming, and feel like a distraction from the most important parts of our business.

Not to mention if you don’t see the results you hoped for, you feel like you just flushed a wad of cash right down the drain.In today’s episode, Jono Petrohilos joins the show to simplify Facebook ads for us gym owners.  

His approach is great because you don’t need fancy landing pages or funnels.  

All you need is a few simple photos from your gym paired with the right headline.For photos, he’s seen gyms have the most success by sharing group shots of clients smiling and gathering after workouts, NOT while they are exercising. For headlines, he recommends always using the location in your headline, and sticking with the word “challenge” which he claims will always outperform other buzzwords like fat loss or transformation.

To get the full rundown on how to fill your gym with Facebook ads, listen to the full episode.

You can be running the best group classes or personal training sessions in the world, and still be failing to give your clients what they really need to transform their lives.  

Even if your clients workout for 60 minutes every single day, that still leaves 23 hours per day that can make-or-break their health, happiness, and sense of purpose in their life.  

But how do we as coaches begin to have an impact on those other 23 hours?How do educate our clients on the importance of proper nutrition, sleep, hydration, and mindset, without overwhelming them with information, or pushing them away altogether? For the last several years, that has been the focus of today’s podcast guest, Brian Costello.  

He’s on a mission to deconstruct what it means to live a healthy and fulfilling life, so we can make it simple and actionable for our clients.  Enjoy today’s episode with Brian where we discuss how you can help your clients master the other 23 hours of their day.

When I started Seven Figure Box back in July 2018, I wanted the brand to motivate gym owners to think bigger about what their gyms could be, and the value they could provide to their teams and clients.  

After nearly 200 episodes, I’ve realized that Seven Figure Box doesn’t really say who we truly are, or what we care about. The last 18 months has been especially challenging for the microgym industry, and many gyms and coaches have decided to, or been forced to leave an industry that they once loved and were extremely passionate about.  

For those that are left, we will need to find a deeper purpose for what we do, and separate ourselves from a commoditized industry filled with franchise brands, globo gyms, and Pelotons. We believe that what separates us from the rest of the industry is the coaching and mentorship that we can provide.  And specifically we believe in coaches that care, coach, and lead by example on a daily basis.So moving forward, Seven Figure Box will be transitioning to Care-Coach-Lead.  

We have a brand new Youtube channel where we will be posting coaches development content every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 6:30 PM EST as well as 2-3 audio podcasts on the same podcast feed as before (which will be rebranded).    

In today’s podcast, I share an update from the last 4-6 months, explain the why behind the rebrand, and lay out my vision for the future of the Care-Coach-Lead brand.

My good friend Chris Thorndike of LIV Athletic and Factory Forged is back on the show to talk about how to eliminate excess in your business, in order to increase profit, improve your client and coaching experience, and fall back in love with owning your gym again.  

 Chris is a master of helping gyms simplify their model down to one core program.  

This allows them to raise prices, and then cut out any unnecessary and unprofitable services like on-ramp, personal training, nutrition coaching, and kids classes.  

This podcast is all about how to scale your business by focusing on simplicity rather than growth.

A few years ago, Stu Brauer leveraged his success as a CrossFit gym owner, into purchasing his own commercial real estate building in Charlotte, NC to house his rebranded gym, URBN MVMNT.   

Recently, he just accepted a lucrative lease offer for that same building, that officially has made him no longer a microgym owner.  The offer was too good to pass up, and allows Stu and his business partner to each clear 5 figures per month in income, without having to worry about the ups and downs of running a gym.  

In today's episode, we talk about how Stu was able to transition from CrossFit South End to URBN MVMNT to now being a commercial landlord that can focus 100% of his time on helping other gym owners.  We also talk about his brand new project, The Gym Real Estate Company, where he will be helping other gym owners find and buy/lease their own buildings.  

In this episode of the SFB Show, we're playing Overrated vs. Underrated. We stole this idea for this episode from Gary Vaynerchuk. 

We'll be talking about all things related to coaching, the gym setting, and athletes, and whether we think things are overrated or underrated. 

Great coaches and great leaders are those that can find the balance between seemingly opposing ideas or attributes. 

Great coaches know how to strike a balance between being caring and being commanding.

They are great at building 1-on-1 relationships, but also great at managing large groups.

They balance seriousness and professionalism with the ability to be playful and fun.

They create a class experience that feels full and worth the money, but doesn’t feel crammed or rushed.

They take complex ideas and find ways to communicate them as simply as possible.

Because of this dichotomy that exists, it’s very rare to find a single piece of advice that will help 100% of the coaches out there. 
Some coaches need to focus more on 1-on-1 connections, while other coaches need to stop getting stuck in individual conversations or corrections while the group is waiting.

Other coaches need to be more serious and professional, while someone they coach with may need to be more relaxed and lighthearted.
The goal is to be able to embrace these seemingly opposite attributes, and strike a balance that fits with the audience we are working with in that moment. 

In this week’s episode, we discuss how to adopt these characteristics in a way that will make you a better coach, leader, and teammate.

On Wednesday, July 7th, we will be launching the Rockstar Coaching Intensive.

If you want to learn how to retain more members, improve your class and client experience, build a world-class coaching team, and finally get some freedom from your business, then this course is designed for you.

It's the only coaches development course specifically designed to help you retain more members, and the only one that you and your entire team can go through together.  

It comes with lifetime access, which also means it can serve as your training and onboarding process for any new staff that you hire in the future.  

This episode breaks down why we felt the need to create the Rockstar Coaching Intensive, and how you can use it to gain more freedom, reshape your team, and grow your business.  

Building and maintaining a great coaching team is one of the toughest parts about being a gym owner.  

But it can also be one of the most exciting and rewarding parts of what we do.  

And while no team is perfect, being a part of a great team that is committed to growing and getting better every day is a game changer.

For gym owners, great teams provide support for key decisions, the ability to delegate tasks that you aren't great at or don't enjoy, and the freedom to spend time away from your business.  

For coaches, great teams provide valuable feedback, others to learn from and bounce ideas off of, and a work environment that is fun and motivating to show up to each day.  

Great teams allow all of us to compound our impact, and maximize the amount of people we can reach.  

In today's episode, Andrew and FitTown Head Coach Austin Bettigrew share what it's like to be a part of a great team at FitTown.  Our goal with this episode is to help inspire you and give you the vision for what work could be like when you are surrounded with other humble, hard-working, and like-minded people.