C.S.R = The Most Important Metric You’re Not Tracking

gym, client, people, metric, success, expectations, star reviews, business, defined, weeks, talked, problem, sell, kpis, hour, accomplish, owners, place

Tyler 00:01
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this week's episode The gym owners podcast. This week we're going to talk about some of the most underused metrics because we just made it up. But the most underused metric in the fitness industry, because everybody on the business side is keeping track of. There's key performance indicators. There's data regarding client spending, there's all sorts of stuff that you can be tracking. And I think all of those are important. But there's one thing that I don't see being tracked, and it's that's client success. Now, John, I wrapped up our conversation last week with the athlete at the end of the podcast, and we said, well, we got done, that was good. That was the conversation about creating an ecosystem of success and how all things need to be rooted in the success of your clients. And I got done and I messaged on like, almost immediately. And I said, you know, there's a lot of metrics that are out there in the fitness industry. But I don't see anyone using any sort of metric in any way to indicate the success that their clients are having. When we try to figure out trying to get to the bottom, how can we do this? So for you as a gym owner, this week, we're gonna talk about how you can just find one simple number that matters in regards to how your clients are feeling at the end of any time period, whether they accomplish their actual goals, because those outcomes matter. If you don't understand why those outcomes matter, or how they fit into every other aspect of your business, make sure you jump back one episode creating an ecosystem of success in your fitness business, make sure you check that one out first. But before we get started, make sure you follow the gym owners podcast, that's the show's Instagram account on Instagram, go to the gym owners revolution.com That's we can get into gear Academy can do all the cool stuff, you can work with us directly. That's where we get hands on and work with your business year round. Also, join the Facebook group links in your description, follow John at Jay banks FL on Instagram, and also follow the walk on podcast while the iron is hot. And then make sure you go and follow me at Tyler F and stone this Tyler eff ironstone on Instagram. So John and I started going through trying to solve this problem because I want to make sure that a gym owner has the ability to really rectify what's going on, or reconcile what's going on with their clients when they set their goals with you in the beginning. And if they're not, we're gonna work on that as well. And then at the end of that timeframe, where they fell in regards to those goals. And we kept trying to go back to what if someone wants to lose weight? What if someone wants to recall what the percentage they defined in the beginning, and it became too convoluted. So we came up with one simple thing we want you to do. And you can do this right now. Set it up so that when you have a conversation with a new member, an intake or even your existing clients, what goal do you want to accomplish in the next 12 weeks? That's what we always kind of ask this next few months, what are you looking to accomplish. And by the way, that may just be losing 10 pounds, it may be that I want to get stronger, faster, it may be defined specifically with a number. It may be I just want to show up in the gym, I want to not hurt, I want to just get in a little bit of shape. Some may be measurable, some may not. But I want you to get them to admit that to write that down. You can do that via a conversation or an intake, you just have a quick little Google form that you set up. Right? Hey, quick fill this out. And we'll start on Monday, Greg? Just have them map out their goals.



03:21

I really liked that idea.



Tyler 03:22

Exactly. Yeah, being ahead of like, Yeah, and you need to because that sets expectations that says what they're expecting of you. And you know what they're expecting to accomplish that it works. That is a piece that we have aligned with everything that we do essentially is in the beginning, you need them to define what they're trying to accomplish, so that you can really map out what you're trying to do for them. And then plug in your services, as the pathway to that. Let's say then at the end of 12 weeks, all you really need to get from them is one metric, right? And you can ask other questions in say, a quarterly follow up survey or whatever that can be for the purpose of quality control and lots of other things. But there's one thing I want you to ask them, you can do it on a Google form as well on a little slide sliding scale from zero to 100. How would they rate the success that they had in accomplishing those goals that they defined in the beginning? How successful were you at accomplishing the goals that you defined in the beginning and you don't have to go back? We set it up this way. Because that's the only number I want to split up from zero to 100. That's it, because they're self reporting, because no matter what is out there in the world, the only thing that matters is what they think. Right? And how they think they got how they feel about just do they are they are they saying this was I think I got 80% of the way there that's good. It's not terrible. But you're getting a lot of people that are at 20% 10%. By the way, if you're in a 24 hour gym, that's tough. Right? It's tough because you're not, you may not have a lot of people that are invested fully, that are doing lots of other things, that are getting daily coaching, that are getting accountability. So in that case, though, someone who's self reports who's been showing up at your gym at say 10 o'clock. Tonight after work and kind of struggling and doesn't know how to start, and they're just working out by themselves, and they're a little lost, and they have no nutritional guidance, if no matter what, when they signed up, they were asked to write down what their goals were skin shape, the little muscle, yada, yada, yada. 12 weeks later, they go to rate, they're asked to rate their success, like what is your customer success ratio here, we're rating and they rated at a 5%. Well, that seems like an opportunity for them to reinvest or for you to plug in a next level, because they have defined what they have recognized right there and recorded. Yeah, I didn't quite get where I where I wanted to get, and they're not always going to be blaming you. The problem is I think gym owners often think that they're going to blame you for the fact that they weren't successful. But very often they know what product they chose in the beginning, especially if your offer stacks are set up the way that we like to have them be where they really have a choice, if you're giving them a choice, you're not pushing them to a big ticket item, you're just giving them a choice to choose between their buying habits and their budget, and their needs, what type of assembly of products that they want to choose. And that person opted out of nutrition coaching, they opted out of one on one private, they wrapped it out of some group classes, they opted out of an intro challenge or whatever it is, and they went. I just want 24 hour gym access, so I'm going to try this thing. Them admitting 12 weeks later, I didn't get it, I didn't get him close. That is an invitation to sell.



John Fairbanks 06:21

And the issue that I always had, whenever we talked about KPIs and being able to have this particular discussion of like trying to simplify it Now where were we we're kind of going into a direction where, where we saw just a gap, that's a gap in the industry, where all these KPIs are out there for you to see, like the health of your business, but not the health of your people. And when it came to the KPI side, it was for gym owners, I feel like the emotion oftentimes is you're all over the place. And you can hear you can read an article or you can read a book, or you can watch a book launch, or you can do something that really gets you focused on something and they say, Well, this is what matters, this, this, this and this, and you get really focused on that one thing, but then eventually, it's like, you're gonna end up like getting overwhelmed by your existence as a gym owner of having to wear so many hats doing so many things. And what I like about simplifying, and just cutting out all the bullshit and getting down to as simple as humanly possible, which just is, what is the success of your people? Can you answer that? How do you do? How do you feel about this person? And then more importantly, how do they feel about their progress? Because any example you give, whether you're talking about youth athletes, a 24 hour spot where the guy only works out at 2am, and no one ever sees them. You never meet this guy. You have no way of being able to try and communicate with this person to get a feel for Are they happy, where they're at? Like, what is their feeling about being in your spot, and when we really can boil it down to like this one sliding scale metric that's based off of how these clients are feeling that they're doing and how they're achieving. It's amazing what gets unlocked. And it at first, you'd be like, well, this is this seems too. This is too simple. It's too



Tyler 08:17

simple, which is why I am gonna want things out. And so now John, I have this concept, we've kind of built in now for all of our gear Academy gyms, they're gonna start rolling this stuff out. Now, those of you out there, it's free, take it run with it, I need you to do it, I'd love to hear how it works for you. The thing that we talked about with this ecosystem is all your marketing, all of your sales, all this stuff will be greatly impacted by this metric being higher. So you need to know this too, like if you're the place where people go to and they are, let's just say the vast majority of your people are going to answer zero to 20%. They have accomplished zero to 20% of the way to their goal after their 12 weeks. Like, that's a lot. That's what I would describe as the 24 hour global gym. Models are going to be like that, frankly, the amount of people with memberships, who are accomplishing not even halfway to the goals that they would have predefined. There's no way that that is going to give you a reputation for being the place where people go to get the job done. That goat, everyone I know who goes there. They dropped the weight. They dropped the you know, they're stoked. They love it like you need to fix that about your gym, or at the very least maybe in footwear for our gym. Listen, are you gonna have a very high number of people saying that they got 100%? No, but that metric still needs to be improved. And that will define opportunities for you to sell as well. And that's what's most important. It's not just about getting new people. It's about serving the people you have better. So if all those people have to have a fuck moment, and maybe they know it's them, that's the time where you go, Hey, perfect, you know, we do have a nutrition coaching thing or we do have some personal trainers that allows you to define who is right for these offerings. So I'm not just constantly trying to sell people who don't need You ever want to shit. And that's, that's what will make you hate selling. That's what will make you despise the idea of having to offer stuff to people.



John Fairbanks 10:07

This will also help you say, oh, fuck, it's me. Yes. Oh, fuck, it's, it's my I am Fuck, I'm fucking these people up. Because if you take a look at what you're offering them if all you have is, you know you have the one membership. Maybe you've listened to the podcast long enough and you've tried to break stuff out yourself and you've broken it out into two or three different offerings potentially. And it's just it's, once you understand well, how does someone feel about their results? Am I talking to them about what else I have available? Or is it just kind of like, well, you didn't know like, it's they're here, they're here. I haven't had those conversations, and it's, are they happy? Well, then what did they buy? What did they buy? And therefore how are they feeling about it, because that's where it's, if you have a 24 hour spa, and you have a general membership, and the majority of your people are going to be in a non coached product, then you don't wrack your brain as why that that self reported score of how they feel about themselves and how they feel about their progress. If it's below 50%. It's kind of like, okay, that makes sense. As far as what tier that they fell into what they bought, and this gets us into another KPI that is important to us. But it's like it's, it's how they feel about it. That matches.



Tyler 11:26

Yeah, so one of the one of the most important metrics, or one of the most important variables into the value equation is the customer's perceived likelihood of success. Right? At 100%. If I take a list of 100 people, right 100 People, they all want to lose 20 pounds, and there's two gyms, there's one that will guarantee 100% that they get that 20 pounds off. And then there's one that just doesn't mention any guarantee, I promise you, the one that they guarantee you will sell more, the one with the guarantee, you can charge more. It's just it's, it's a foregone conclusion, because people go oh, great, and especially that if the word is out on the street, that everyone who goes to the place with the guarantee gets it they got people that they know that have done that, that company's social media, their marketing is always about people who are accomplishing it, it means that all roads lead to your customer being successful. And from that, that leads to you being successful. So you need to understand that if you can, if you can, what's the word if you can constantly track this metric, you're going to have no problem making everything else work. Because you're going to fix your shit you're going to make sure people are getting into the right products, you're going to have better opportunities for internal sales, then externally coming in based on your marketing and based on your kind of the rumblings about the way your referrals are going to operate. At that point now is your the place where people get it done. That's the word. There's a problem that the fitness industry has that most other places don't have. The worst dining experiences I've ever had. It's not when I get bad food, necessarily because in my entire life no matter how often anyone has ever messed up or as I worked in restaurants for years when I was younger, did you know I've never not even once sent a dish back? Never not when I got the wrong food, not when it's cold. I once had an overcoat, not when it's undercooked I just don't it is whatever, I'll make note of it. Right. I may not go back. I may not order that again. But that is what it is. But I just don't like jamming up my experience by waiting another 2030 minutes for somebody shit. The worst dining experiences I ever have had in restaurants is when I go to a place and I sit down and we order our food. And we wait, wait, we wait. I would rather have it be bad and have me be fed. Then we wait and wait and wait and then leave having to say like hey, man, I gotta go like I baked in two hours to come here. But I can't wait for my food to arrive. This is a problem. I'm going to leave. You know why? Because when I leave that place, even if I didn't even if I got my money back, I still have to solve the I'm hungry fucking problem. The one that I walked into that place to solve and the fitness industry for you guys, your gyms, your coaching products, your classes. The truth is people came there for a reason. Their reason is not yours. Find out what their reason is. And very often, they leave without having accomplished that. It's not just that I went to a restaurant and I got food and it was either good average or bad. I went there and I didn't even get it. Okay, it's calling a plumber. And when he leaves us he's taking your money and your shit still leaking all over the place. And hopefully next time you get it right, you call the right guy, right? Like that. We have the issue where they came to lose weight. They came to accomplish A, B or C and we don't do it, we blame them. Okay, and a lot of it is on them. It dumped it first off it. A lot of it is but when you're in the business of modifying behavior, you better fucking figure it out. And by just ignoring the fact that did they accomplish what they I set out to do and is that a number that I'm using to actually guide other decisions in my business, to not boil it down to that as fucking stupid. And that's it. That's why we have such a bad reputation as an industry. This is why even good gyms and good coaches and good people, like pretty much under deliver still constantly, it's because you're out there doing good, you're having good relationships, and you're doing the thing and you're getting in, they're having fun, but you know what they got, they came here to lose 20 pounds, 30 pounds, 80 pounds, 90 pounds, and they fucking lost shit. Who did they come to? You know, I know they're in their own way. But you need to know, that number needs to sit there and go, Okay. Amongst all these other things that we're doing well, we are not doing a very good job of this. And they have defined that they did not get what they came here to get. How do we do better? And that means you're gonna have a come to Jesus conversation, which when you're coaching people to modify behavior, you need to fucking do that. Every once in a while you say, Hey, you're gonna find and fix the things you're doing outside this gym, or I'm not gonna worry, because it's a waste of all our effort. Okay, you came here for this? Or at the very least you don't, you don't have to be horrible either. You hardball it's I don't have time for it. Right? I don't have time for excuses. But you can just say, Hey, I know you're struggling with this. Here's what we can do. Let's plug something in here to make sure you said you did not accomplish what you came here to get done here this last 12 weeks. What do you want to do in the next 12 weeks? That goes right into our sales process? Right? What do you want to do in the next 12 weeks? Okay, well, what happened last week, we didn't get there. What do we need to do differently to get there, here's what I think as your coach. You let your buying habits budget and needs decide what you want to do from there. But it aligns everything with that. And until you do that, all you're doing is just running around. There's nothing worse than coaches think they're good and their clients don't get shit done.



John Fairbanks 16:56

To me, everything that you just described, it all comes back. The reason why someone knows if someone's going to come and work with you, Tyler, they're going to know there is a certain expectation of who you are. Yeah, based off of how you come across how you come across in conversation on the online, right, it's consistent, it's a consistent expectation of what it's going to be like to work with the big guy, I'm gonna work with the big guy, it's gonna be a certain way, and he will motherfuck me and call me on the carpet and call me to task and that is expected. Therefore, when it happens, it's not confrontational, and it's not contentious, but it comes down to those expectations. To me, a great example is: How do Burger King and McDonald's have so many five star reviews in some areas? They have fuck tons of five star reviews. And I noticed this as I look at like, I'll go to a spot and put in, you know, I live just just on the borders of coal country, here in Virginia and West Virginia. And sometimes we go for sporting events or whatever we go into some areas where the OIT the opioid crisis was clearly this was a city that it was an epicenter. Like there's just there's nothing here. But there was an old bomb that went 100% right there. 672, five star reviews at Wendy's.



Tyler 18:24

What? What,



John Fairbanks 18:27

What do you mean? And it's so for me, it's all about those expectations. It's when I go to Wendy's. I have an expectation of what I'm about to get myself into when they achieve or maybe even meet that expectation. Boom, it's five stars. Why



Tyler 18:50

is a five star review for McDonald's rated the same as a five star review for Ruth's Chris Steakhouse.



John Fairbanks 18:55

That's what I was just gonna say. Because it is right, but it's all about expectation. I'm going to tell you right now it's going to be a fuck, load harder for Ruth's Chris to get a five star rating from me than it will for McDonald's or Wendy's and that was like your example of when you sit down and eat at a restaurant. My expectation in the United States is that I'm going to be in and out in an hour. And I'm going to be fed depending on the style of the restaurant. It can mean a lot if it's an hour at Wendy's we have a problem. Yep, like now that's something that we now have a serious issue. But when I went and visited you guys in in in Amsterdam, the expectation was when we go out to eat We are now here for the next six hours because it



Tyler 19:44

Yeah, and you're not getting a refill, no matter how much you near your empty glass. They don't give a shit.



John Fairbanks 19:50

No ice. They're gonna give you two cubes ice and they're gonna wonder what the fuck is wrong with you and ask for it. But those were my expectations. So it wasn't that we heard that I couldn't I couldn't I couldn't even fathom what the experience would be like here in the States. If it was like, No, we're gonna go out to dinner, it's gonna be four and a half hours long. Like, what? No, we're not doing that. And so for me, that is what's happening is that you have, if you have clients that are coming into your business into your world, the expectation cannot be x. And huge fabulously under delivery. Yeah, and that is where you can still get where it's like, well, Planet Fitness, like they're fucking nothing to give we shit on them all the time, pizza on Fridays, and bullshit, and it's all this, whatever. But you've looked at the reviews, and there's really, really fucking high.



Tyler 20:39

There's tons of people who are very happy with their experience there because it aligns and all lines up. And this is the thing that we can't, we had to set expectations, that term set expectations in the heating and air conditioning business. That was on the service side of that business. Especially that which was the primary phrase that we heard most often. You need to set the expectations. And we do that with every point of contact in that business. Right. So some people aren't around here. By the way, people don't like to expect to pay. When someone comes and fixes their stuff. They expect someone to come fix their stuff, and then a bill to show up in the mail. And maybe do not even have to talk about how much it's gonna cost till they see the bill. So they can just not think about it out of sight or out of mind. Technicians love that because they're like, hi, five out the door. Everything's great, right? Like, I'm the hero. Yeah, we fix it worker, you'll be mad a little bit. But you know, bad that is for the business, leaving that money kicking out to three weeks before someone sends back the amount of chasing that it just doesn't work you collect while the technician is on site. But how would we do that? Nobody else in this town did that, you're going to be presented options before him. Nobody else does that either. Okay, that can be very jarring. So what that what that is, is every little the entire process, what this is going to be like is defined in the beginning. So when you call our lady, our dispatcher who answers the phone is going to get the deal, get the information, let you know approximately when to expect the technician, they will send you a message, there'll be a photo of your technician and their vehicle. So you'll know who their faces what it's going to look like, they're going to say you're going to be they will be Chuck, they will be charged a service fee of $95, or whatever that is, for the trip, if you do choose, and then you will be presented options for how to do your repair. If you choose one of those repairs, we will waive that service fee, just so you know. And they will be collecting at the time of service collecting payment at the time of service. And then to drive that point home you say will you be paying via cheque or credit card, so that they have to say a payment method, which means they fucking understand. That also means they have to be there at that time, right? Because they need to make a decision that sets all of those expectations, right? That has to be done up front. So for you and your fit and your fitness business in your gym, when you intake a new client. By the way, even if you don't have to see them to eat them. Even if someone comes as if you're a 24 hour spot or something's real quick. Now I just want this. We love closing sales via text message. It's great. It limits your opportunities for bigger ticket stuff. But if you do this stuff, right, you can move them up the ladder as they get going right as they get in as they define this thing, but you need to set those expectations right away, meaning just in the intake a quick form. Hey, thanks for coming in. You know, we're wondering, hey, where do you see where do you hear about us? Oh, great. What are you looking to accomplish? In this next, whatever is it Wait, like, whatever, let them go through and answer all that stuff. Because it's important for them to know. And if you're having that conversation with a person in real time, you may realize it's insane. If they're like I'm gonna lose 75 pounds in the next while we're gonna go okay, well, this is going to be a problem, they will be disappointed they came to McDonald's hoping for Ruth's Chris so this is the solution to this. Talk about the value equation, the guaranteed way to lose that weight in that amount of time is to go get liposuction, it's gonna cost 2000 times the money for your gym membership but that's how they need to align their expectations with your service and everything like that. So, so doing that upfront, allows your service everything else to do what it does and their choices that they make in between they're in between A and B are theirs but at the end of that then it's time Okay, on a scale of zero to 100 You know, regards to the goals that you listed before how close did you get 70% funded that's pretty fucking good. It's pretty good, you know, but you got to know this and as a gym owner you need to know this because this is it's insulting to not now we want to go to some quick adjacent memberships. So we call this a job. What did we even come up with to call this one we call it a client success ratio or rating? Yeah, the client success rate success ratio 0% to 100%. Right. Just just that's that's we are we'll call it the CSR because everybody has a has to have Some clever fucking thing.



John Fairbanks 25:02

These are the core four pillars of client success that we're going over. Yes,



Tyler 25:06

One, what is your CSR? Whatever, fuck that but, but that's what we're gonna kind of call this. So ask people, you need to get that but this doesn't need to be a conversation it can't be this needs to become data. And that's why we simplified everything out of this. That's why we didn't have you, someone who wants to lose body fat, we didn't have you go in and do the body fat scans before and after and then do the math to determine the difference that they felt. Because that sucks. And it's not apples to apples across the board, the only thing that matters? How do they perceive this?



John Fairbanks 25:35

Now can you sell that right? Don't confuse this with your packages. This is not how you package out and sell your services. And we will get into that just a little bit on another KPI but like no, just as Tyler said, like this is this is like a universal identifier of overall right clients,



Tyler 25:58

I would put this right up under straight up fucking gross revenue, right? This is like, what's our big number, right? This is and this is a big number have the same impact, in my opinion, which is fucking crazy that they don't, it's not even discussed, that there's just not even anything about and I get it, you don't want to simplify it down to something but but you need this, you need some number. And maybe there's a better way to get this metric, maybe there's a better way to track it, maybe there's a better way to determine client success. But I'll talk and have one right now. So this is what we're going with. And so what you need to do until you find a better one. Now, another so these next ones here are either upstream downstream, or adjacent to this client success ratio. Right. And these are other indicators or other things that you need to factor in when determining how to go about your business that are impacted by or do impact client success. Another good one is what we talked about earlier, five star reviews. That's it, simply go to Google Now there are other parts of your business system that will indicate to you how well or how many five star reviews are good or they will impact I'm sorry, there are other parts of your business that will impact how many you get, which is how often are you asking? Whatever Right? Right? How often are you asking for him? How easy is it for people to get them? Are they being asked frequently? Every person that comes to your door? Is it easy for them to leave you a five star review? Like is that possible? Once those systems are in place, though, the more you get, the better you're doing . That is about clients meaning that is more about client satisfaction than it is client success. But those the two things if your client satisfaction is not tethered to their own success, then your fucking gym is about you. And fuck you. As far as I'm concerned. Now. There is you don't you can do a great job with your clients success and have four five star Google reviews now but what is the outside perception going to be correct this business doesn't there's hardly any business there they got for review for fucking rating. Like I don't even know, if I'm just looking for a new spot one's got for one's got 40 It doesn't matter what's really going on in that gym. That's a tough hurdle for me to get over initially. Right? So I think, then you go well, so that's why you need to fix these other parts of your system. Okay, well, I'm doing a good job, my clients are happy, I need to get the ratings up, because that affects the perceived likelihood of success, which starts to feed downstream from there. So that's you need to have them, they need to exist on Google, obviously, then you can use those same testimonials. We've talked about this before. Use them to reward them however you got to to paraphrase them or whatever, like parsing down something readable using social media content, you want clients being successful to kind of be the centerpiece of your marketing, if it's not, whatever. Yeah, whatever, like, but then you're never gonna sell bigger ticket stuff, you're, again, you're perceived, the client's perceived likelihood of success is low.



John Fairbanks 29:00

And these are, we joke rounds, we kind of shit on like, the idea of like, CSR and whatever acronyms and shit but it's, it's understand, like these KPIs that we're boiling this down to, and we're simplifying all the things that we know all the KPIs that are out there. And this is a reason why we're like, so fuck these. And how do we simplify this down more to what truly what we believe is going to be the difference maker for your gym to be successful, which is like keeping clients' success at the forefront of all of our minds. So these KPIs are truly our like, it's four core, like KPIs that everything Brett like all roads lead to Rome, like all roads lead, like these items are indicators that there are, you know, if I'm building like a web design showing you all of the things that come out of these single points of data, that you can just very quickly go and say, Well, where are we at with this? What that number tells us Tyler and I can go into any gym. Right? We were working with a brand new guy this week. And he comes in, and he's got four Google reviews. Tyler and I know so much about your business just based on that number. You don't have to tell us anything else. And we know immediately, it's like, that's an area. And that's an area that we fix. Because it ends up being a, it is the solution to freeing up the flow of business throughout so many other aspects of your business, you don't even realize it, you're worried about like specials and ads and what percent off you should do and all the ends like it hiring and you have all these problems, and they're all problems that you have legitimate problems. And you don't even realize that the solution is sitting at that for Google reviews number. So that's why everything we're gonna talk about for the rest of this episode is going to be like, these are so important that you see them, because they are these north that are truly these Northstar level metrics that if you just know them, everything else becomes easier. These are



Tyler 31:09

the mathematical indicators that you have an ecosystem of success. These are the health markers of an ecosystem here. If these metrics are off, there's something fucking wrong, right? So the next one we want to cover after Google reviews, your five five star reviews is going to be the term is the average length of time that a client has or its lifetime period, lifetime period, right? average lifetime period, not average lifetime value, right? And not necessarily contract length either. Because that ties directly to buying habits, right, which is okay, and we have a buying habits type metric we'll get into next, which is why we don't have that much redundancy. But clients who spend long amounts of time with you, does it mean they're like someone who spends three years with you at a $70 or 24 hour membership, right? That person is a good fucking customer, they must be happy. They gotta be right, they have to be. Now there's ways we could serve them better. And that's what we do, that's what all these other things that we've described. But if they're there, they're happy. If at any of your products, your average lifespan is a lifetime membership, or life time period of a client is a couple months, three months. That means you're barely getting out of renewals, right? You are really burning, if it's three months, four months, that's tough. Like that's, that's the stuff that starts making businesses that do poorly if those things force people into long term contracts. You know what I mean? That's, that's, that ends up how they fight against it, because they don't have the time or human resources to be better for them. So they simply box you in more to move and maneuver that metric.



John Fairbanks 32:55

And it's padding that stat. Yes, like, if you get with a franchisee very quickly, it's like, oh, well, no, we're doing like 80,000 $120,000 in business. It's like, okay, but like, let's see, let's wait.



Tyler 33:13

Two years contract that most people default on after six months.



John Fairbanks 33:17

And in the back of your mind, you know, they know that. And they know that and you know that you as a gym owner, you know that. And so that's why it's like, don't don't hide behind some of these metrics where it's like, no, no, like, let's pull it apart. Let's look. And that's why that's why none of these live on their own. Tyler, you talked about the idea of like, these are mathematical, these key performance indicators of a healthy ecosystem. None of these can stand alone, they cannot stand on their own, they are intricately connected in that web of what makes the gym what it needs to be. So that's where it's like, oh, well, this then leads to the next and then leads to the next and then tells us what we need to know.



Tyler 33:58

Planet Fitness crushes the symmetric because it's nine bucks a month. 10 bucks a month. Yeah. Okay, well, that's a different business model for you. And do you think their client success ratio? What does that look like? Probably pretty fucking low. If we're being honest, if the expectation was set and track, remember, you can't, you can't lean on just one. So we're gonna go to the next one here. But that let me touch on this real quick. But the average can be what was average length, lifetime, lifetime, pure periods in length longer, stronger, whatever. Life lifetime of the relationship with the client. Listen, that's the stuff that can make you a cornerstone in your community as well as in your local community is that the fit people in your place are fit, they make progress and they're there like everyone knows that so and so here once he gets in shape, they know what Jimmy goes through. They've asked him if he's been a person in the world for long enough. People know people ask and that's, that's where a long enough time of kind of hitting these home runs here is like people just know like, Fuck to step up to the plate, it's a problem, right? This is, and that's what you want your gym to be like, alright, this is this place doing it and doing it. Well. I know people that go there, they love there, and they all look fucking great. And people should be chomping at the bit to go to your place, you shouldn't have to convince people.



John Fairbanks 35:18

And I would love to be able to say to all of you listening like it's alright, if we're talking about right, that average lifetime period for a client, it's, you know, it needs to be it needs to be it needs to be eight months, you guys, it needs to be 72 weeks it needs to be or whatever it's going to be right. Like, if I want to give you that hard metric. The problem is, that's not how this works. Because if I'm talking to a youth gym, their average lifespan for a client is five weeks. And then I'm speaking to a CrossFit gym. And the average lifespan is five weeks. Those are two very different problems. And then and then the way you get you and I completely solidify what that one metric goes. And our eyebrows raise. And then we go it's like, well, what is our what is the client success rate? Like? What does that ratio look like right now? What does that indicator look like? And it's, oh, yeah, the youth gym has a 92% consistent score. And the CrossFit gym has 22%. And it's like, this is we know exactly what this is. So this is not cut and dried, this becomes very customized to you. And again, this is why you're doing all



Tyler 36:30

denominators, I would use to say the measuring, determined how I use this term, the unit of measurement, right? I would use the average client, period, length, whatever right that metric for the length. For the length you go inches you go centimeters, right? In this case here, if you are , we want a gym to work with this really, it's personal, small and small group training for youth. So it's like in between seasons, it's in summer. So if we talked about a lot recently, that a lot of these Nobodies, you're not getting a 15 year old kid training in your gym, 12 months out of the year, stuff fucking happen out there in sports in the year that will not happen. If you're doing it like congratulations, maybe but I almost go fucking play and then go do your in season lifts with the team like I don't need the beat. Like I wouldn't want that, right. So what we do is then we with him, we have them count just weeks, total number of weeks. That's it. So if they're in five weeks, and then they take 10 weeks off, I don't think that gap for this gym doesn't matter for your gym, I think it does, right? Unless you buy for this type of gym, we have him go if they go seven weeks Great. And then if in December, they come back on for six weeks, that clients numbers, so isn't to keep accumulating 13 Total weeks, whatever ating. So over the course of a long time, we realized how many kinds of like cycles and in between seasons and off seasons that this person's done with you. So that's important. That is just your measurement of recurring business. That's a retention metric, really. But it's retention without the shackles of some of the other factors that get baked into it when we're just talking contract length and shit like this. So the next thing we want to get into, this one's going to be if you're if you haven't sold with an offer stack, I'm going to do my best way to describe this to you, okay, you're going to present people with, let's just say four options a platinum or gold or silver or bronze, right? Now, there's a ratio with which people are buying the floor with the distribution themselves within those four categories, right. And obviously, the tough ones are very expensive, longer commitment. Bottom one is very approachable, simple entry level stuff. So cheap. That is buying habits, budget, that person's specific needs, goals, that's how big their wants are. That's however they feel connected to the likelihood of success. This sits downstream of all these other things kind of right. And so this hits downstream of your client success ratio, because if the end how your marketing is about that, because you have tons of five star reviews, you have tons of testimonies about people that are successful, because you're actually making sure they're successful instead of keeping fucking blinders on. The right word is how you keep track of that you do well with this for a year, you don't have to worry about much. But people come into your spot looking for it with the impression that they're going to have a very high likelihood of success. They're willing to spend more money. If they come in going every time I've signed up for anything fitness related, I fall flat on my face and I it's a waste of time and yada yada yada if that's their impression of other things, and they don't have an impression of what you do, that's the route or reliable they are going to just default to I'm gonna spend as little as possible because this is how this shit always goes, you know. So but the ratio with which people fall in that is a thing that will be an indicator of how well you're doing in regards to clients actually being successful and how your marketing about that to follow up. What is that now allows you to start showing some of these things up. If your clients are super successful asphalt, right, you have a very high CSR. And you're getting tons of people coming in. And like all these people are buying base level repairs, if your crop Bay repairs, see all of your the impression when people are coming in, or at least maybe your marketing is pointed to this allows you to troubleshoot this stuff. So people come in choosing base level services . People are coming in just expecting to spend this much, or thinking that this is the only thing that we do, or this is what we do best. And if a lot of gyms are struggling to sell personal training or struggling to sell nutrition coaching, this is why Okay, so then maybe you need to speak to your clients success more directly or via testimonials, or speak just simply more on your marketing more about those other services and why that's tied to success. And so that people should come in going, nutrition is important, or simply your sales process sucks. And you're skipping the main part, which is, what are you looking to accomplish these next 12 weeks? They tell you? And you say, Okay, well what kind of is what barriers have been in the way of you accomplishing this in the past, right. And that's nutrition coaching, I don't really know what I'm doing in the gym, I don't show up. Well, hiring a personal trainer helps with accountability, nutrition, coaching helps with nutrition, fucking no brainer, right? Once they define that in their head, they go, it makes no sense unless they simply cannot afford it, which I allow them to just can't afford to start something is better than nothing, right. And so I'm all about that. But if someone comes in, and you're having those conversations, that distribution should be mostly in the middle, right, it should sit mostly kind of in the middle, and then some more in the bottom than in the platinum. But you should live mostly in the middle, like the majority of them should live right in the middle. Now. That is, if everything else is lined up, people's expectations are coming in. And you're still getting a ton of base level service sales. who's selling, okay, because this was the problem we had in the heating industry was guys didn't want to come out and say, one, define what the problem is make sure that they're you know, if they're concerned about warranty length, things like this, that the top option, our most expensive option in the repair image industry, we'd say it's the most premium and most permanent option, it's got the longest warranty, and we're gonna go extra far, whatever, that's kind of how you explain the top option. I see a lot of gym owners just like I would see technicians come in and go point to the bottom one because like that'll get you in, it's a sale, it's done, I can still go do the basic fix, I don't get to any more extra work, you ended up leading them, you lead them to that report to that purchase, because you think they're poor, or because you've defined what they want. Or you've you think based on what you see them, what their priorities are, what they value or how much money they have. So that's how you know that you or your salesperson is fucking up as well. Because if you continue to let people drop into these low value services when they want and can afford to move up that ladder, you are castrating their chances of success. So get the fuck out of the way. Let the system and the ecosystem do it. But it all has to be rooted back into client success. Now this, if you're only selling like we talked about the 24 hour joints, if you're only selling base level services, your client satisfaction rate and client success ratio will be lower. It will be 100% Lower. If every single person in your gym came and chose it's not forced, but chose a platinum or gold level service, right? Nutrition coaching and all this stuff and accountability baked into what your coaches really delivered good on it. Your client success ratio would be fucking high, very high. And you know what else is high? Your goddamn revenue because those things cost a lot of money. This is how easy this is. You don't need to upsell, okay, your system just needs to work. Okay, and it needs to work for your clients first, and it needs to work for you. If I took my car to a repairman, and I paid money and he said okay, here you go and I drove off and he didn't fix it. I'm not gonna be fucking happy. You have not had a successful relationship here. And I'm mad because I paid how many people leave your gym just as fast as they came in? A lot, a lot. And that's why the fitness industry has such a terrible reputation. And this is why one of the Tommy John how can the one of the biggest industries in the entire country of the United States it is billions and billions of dollars and extremely diverse. It is everywhere. No matter what you say about this town. There's six gyms like this. We have twice as many gyms as McDonald's. Right? We're a one Burger King place we're gonna have multiple locations of anything other than McDonald's and subway. Okay, this is not a place as of one there is a ton of gyms a ton of places to get fit and yet I do not see fit people almost fucking never. It's so although we are a failure as an entire industry, because we chase one variable and none of it is rooted back at the core of the business, your mechanic the one thing he cares about versus that he's got to be fixed, right? The car has got to be fixed, the tires got to be changed, the oil changed, your oil change spot changes your oil when you come in. Okay, we're one of the few industries that can just not do the thing that people paid you to do. Again, I know so much of its behavior and all this shit. But when you can actually deliver the fucking thing that people want you for you become valuable, they become successful, you become successful.



John Fairbanks 45:27

And this isn't the pharmaceutical industry. No, not when you get someone healthy. They stop taking medicine. Like it's you're better off to keep people sick and keep them medicated. This is when unfit people become fit. They continue to do it.



Tyler 45:45

Yeah, the client that I have probably the longest since I've moved back pretty much lost 90 pounds. He's lost another 20 This was before he started working with me. When people find fitness out of the darkness they find health they find weight loss that now takes up a space in their life that there was nothing before or there was dysfunction before this person still pays me every week turned up just just once a week now he's down another 20 pounds doesn't have much more to lose but like he likes he understands the investing because he invested so much time and so much effort and so much energy so that at this point he's like yeah, this is how I it's like it's an accountability thing having an hour with me a week I learned some new so these people don't leave you know leave your gym once they get healthy they know now that they have to maintain this



John Fairbanks 46:38

if the game changes and you know the game, if you're in fitness you love the game. I'm gonna lose a bunch of weight now I'm gonna put on some muscle and maybe I'm gonna try rock climbing and now I really like stand up paddleboarding.



Tyler 46:48

Listen, once you get jacked enough you just get body dysmorphia anyway, so you just look in the mirror you go man, like shit. Whatever, but the standard keeps moving. And you don't I mean, the standard keeps moving. What? Listen, every day I look in the mirror and what was a dream? 10 years ago, I carried it every day. And the problem is every day I look in the mirror and go fucking Okay, I gotta get shipped back on track every fucking day. Yeah, so this is this is it's like the bro science guy when he said, he was like when you first get your first real pump, isn't you and you see yourself for the first time you said that is the moment with which in which you are forever small. Because no matter how lean or how you will never look at Jack because you would look right now if you had a pump. And he said then it's over. You're screwed. So now obviously, we don't need to sell Body Dysmorphia to people but know that people want to lose 20 pounds, lose 20 pounds, and they want to lose 30 more pounds. Like everyone thinks they're 15 pounds away from having abs and they're actually like 40 is what it is. Guys, we kind of went all over the place with this one. But track starts with the client success ratio, set the expectations, make them define their goals that can be specific or loose, but let them have the opportunity to expand them. And then at the end of that timeframe, do this via an email Google Form, zero to 100.



John Fairbanks 48:11

client success ratio, five star reviews, your sales tier ratio, what you're selling, how many of each. And then your client's average lifetime period. Those are those four core KPIs that are foundationally built upon client success for the business.



Tyler 48:27

Yep. And they all live around the center of the client success ratio. That's the one this is three around one. So keep that in mind. Thanks for listening. Everybody. should check us watch another walk on podcast here John's gonna have the full run through of the companion episodes for swamp kings. Guys. They left some shit on the table when they made that documentary. It's like they I swear to God, it's like, it's like the University of Florida specifically was like, yeah, we'll help you make. It's like, I'm not gonna show us. It's like the Epstein documentary where they bring up Les Wexner like in passing and they don't say anything about the fact that they gave him a $100 million house and funded his entire lifestyle forever. And it's just like nothing, just nothing like Oh, it sounds like Wexner paid for this thing to be made. This sounds like the Unifor University of Florida came to make a good football piece. Some controversial stuff around here but like it was a lot centered on the field and a few personalities and they really avoided a lot of the salacious shit that I really wanted and John's got all the he's got the dossier on all of it. So you want the behind the scenes stuff, what was going on, what it was like, those practices, the things that talked about on the field, and real great insights into observing as an outsider some of the madness that was going on off the field at the University of Florida. Charter the walk on podcast for the rest of our shit, Folger Morris podcast on Instagram. Follow me at Tyler Elphinstone. John, all me at J banks f L getting the gear Academy by the way, gym owners revolution.com We'll make a gym kick ass this year. Right, let's go. So thanks for listening, everybody. We'll see you next