Run a Profitable Gym

Last weekend in San Francisco, Two-Brain held its first Tinker Meet-up. Entrepreneurs who have complete financial and time freedom and are seeking their next project are called "Tinkers." You can take the test to find out where you are in your entrepreneurial journey here. One of our speakers was Will Hawthorne, an investor at Code Advisors. Will is a partner in CodeAdvisors, an investment bank focusing on mergers and acquisitions. He's negotiated deals for some of the biggest tech companies in the world ... but he has a LOT to teach us about building a business worth selling. And that means a business worth owning longterm. Jay Williams is the interviewer on this episode. But anyone who pays attention to the Two-Brain message knows that we don't believe in building businesses to sell. We want businesses that run themselves AND pay the owner long-term. We believe in building cash-flow assets. Having a business that runs itself means you get the ultimate freedom: choice. You want to coach two hours every day? Perfect. Love it. Continue to serve.Want to coach five hours every day? Wow. Plan for a time when that isn't true, because that passion won't carry you forever.Want to coach zero hours every day? No problem - after 22 years of coaching, I'm happy and comfortable in retirement—I enjoy going to my gym, being coached, and signing checks for ten minutes every second week. But to get to the point of choice, you need to build a valuable platform. And Will is an expert on building extremely valuable platforms.

Whether you are starting a brand new business or you are having to go back and make difficult changes, either way, you are going to have to embrace stress and lean into challenging events. Today I want to talk about my experiences working through struggles and some tips for how to handle difficult situations. First, your body doesn’t know the difference between fear and excitement. The bodies default response when it comes to surging adrenaline is to be scared. A lot of times all that is needed is to recognize that you are just excited and take control. Second, I want you to know that anticipation is often worse than the actual event. Many times your mind will go to the worst case scenario and then when a tough situation actually happens, it’s not so bad. If you can choose when to do the hard thing, choose to do it right now. The hard part is the anticipation. Third, put the event into perspective. Will you remember this event in a year? There was a time when I was extremely susceptible to online feedback and it would absolutely tear me up. In reality this was extremely ridiculous and the fact that if got under my skin is just silly. Keeping things in perspective in all aspects of your life is extremely important. It is important to ask yourself, am I going to remember this in a year? Timeline: 0:30 – Changing up the Two Brain Incubator Program 2:43 – How to handle struggles in your business 4:50 – Lean into the scary stuff and embracing stress 6:41 – The anticipation of a tough situation is often times much worse than the event itself 7:38 – Putting important life and business events into perspective 11:38 – The secret to why Two Brain has become so successful 13:09 – Two Brain Stories with Kalle Solberg

The Pursuit of Excellence is a CrossFit trademark but it is not unique to the fitness industry. This doesn’t just mean being excellent once but being consistently excellent. Today we talk with Danielle Brown, the manager of quality control at Two Brain Business on how to achieve operational excellence and consistency within this process. We will be walking through the entire quality control process from hiring future mentors, giving mentor’s feedback, and how these same process can be applied to your gym. Additionally, we will be following up on the queen bee role that we mentioned in last week’s episode. Danielle Brown has been with Two Brain from the start, first as a client and now as a mentor. She opened her CrossFit gym CrossFit 781 in 2011 where she dove into learning anything and everything about business that she possibly could. Since then she has experienced it all and knows what it takes to run a successful gym and helps other entrepreneurs achieve success in their gyms. Join us today and take good notes as this episode will truly be invaluable. After listening, be sure to head over to twobrainbusiness.com/test and see where you are at in your entrepreneurial journey! About Danielle: https://twobrainbusiness.com/mentor-item/danielle-brown/ Timeline: 3:03 – Introduction to Quality Control 4:35 – Danielle Brown’s journey from Two Brain Mentor to manager of Quality Control 7:18 – The truth about coaching and business success in CrossFit 9:22 – How important is it to be awesome a the service that you provide? 11:11 – Where to find the best practices for your industry? 14:10 – Setting an example within your business for staff 16:08 – How are mentors at Two Brain selected and trained? 19:41 – The Two Brain Mentoring quality control process 23:52 – How to know whether your staff is running at a gold standard? 25:32 – How to gain comfortability with reviewing the performance of your staff? 26:45 – The importance of conveying what the gold standard is in your business 28:28 – The effects of implementing a quality control system on gym retention 30:16 – Why Quality Control should be the Queen Bee role in your business 31:51 – Two Brain Stories with Brian Strump

Mike Michalowicz' new book, Clockwork, continues his tradition of writing VERY actionable books. While business books containing one great idea are published every week, Michalowicz' books are valuable because of the action they trigger. His Pumpkin Plan and Profit First strategies are part of our Incubator and Growth Phase curriculum, and Clockwork's "Queen Bee Role" has been the subject of great discussion in our private Facebook group.First, we start with Mike's definition of the Entrepreneur's Survival Trap: doing the things that will help you survive the day, but won't grow your business. It's the rush to the "urgent problems" without considering the future we're trying to reach.Then we talk about Parkinson's Law: how your tasks will always expand to fill the time you have. You'll always be busy. The key to success is to do the RIGHT things.Mike said that he doesn't like the "grind" and "hustle" mentality that many business speakers push now. I agree (here's our post called "The Hustle Is A Lie."Mike went into his "4-D Mix" - where an entrepreneur spends his time, between Doing, Deciding, Delegating, and Designing.All of us know we need to spend more time thinking about our business; planning for growth; identifying and prioritizing opportunities. But we all get sucked into the daily delivery of our service. Mike gives us a great exercise to get more "Designing" time. He calls this the QBR: The "Queen Bee Role".Mike explained how to get yourself out of daily Doing, Deciding, and then how to properly Delegate. Then we got into Design, and what you SHOULD be doing every day.