Assessing Clients With Nathan Holiday of Level Method

Image of Nathan Holiday

Andrew (00:02):

Clients who don’t cross goals off their list will leave your business. To retain them, you have to provide results and you have to show clients that they’re actually progressing. In this episode of Two-Brain Radio, Chris talks to Nathan Holiday of Level Method about how gym owners can use testing and assessment to help clients accomplish goals.

Chris (00:21):

This is Chris Cooper. Two-Brain Radio is brought to you by AGuard, providing elite insurance for fitness and sport. AGuard offers coverage for functional fitness facilities, mixed martial arts gyms and even events and competitions. You can also get access to healthcare insurance, discounted AEDs and discounted background checks. AGuard’s coverage options are designed to keep you safe. To find out more, visit affiliateguard.info.

Chris (00:45):

Welcome back to Two-Brain Radio.

Nathan (00:45):

Thanks, man. Great to be here.

Chris (00:47):

Today we’re going to talk about testing. And so I’d like to start off with, you know, why is it important that gyms test their clients’ progress in physical skills and fitness, even if their clients are maybe just coming in to lose weight or some other goal?

Nathan (01:06):

I mean, testing in our model, it always starts with assessment, right? So we say the word testing, we’re trying to get away from that word just because people kind of can get nervous about it, but it’s assessment. And the reason assessments are important is because they give you a starting point, right? And from there we can map out a game plan. So when we look at like the model, we have the assessment phase, which gives us our starting point and also creates incentivization. So people get incentivized to maybe want to get better because they see where they’re at.

Nathan (01:39):

And then we have this bridge, which is the goal setting session, which we have this from the assessment we kind of know what’s going on. We can sit down with a client and then we can map out this game plan. So, I mean, the question is what do people, where do they want to go? What do they want to do? And the way that we look at it is always that assessment is the first step, right? And then, you know, the way we do the assessments, people do it in all sorts of different ways, but it is always a first step.

Chris (02:05):

  1. So way back in the day before CrossFit, like nobody tested anything. And what is the value do you think of doing these assessments in general and giving people, what’s the point of it all?

Nathan (02:23):

Well, so there’s a couple of things. Like if we go back however many years ago, when fitness was first starting, people would come in and they’d be, it’s very new, it’s fun.

Nathan (02:34):

I’m kind of getting better. And then it goes stale after a while. So you have these two different types of people. You have people that are going to be pushing themselves way too hard. And then you have the people that aren’t plugging themselves in to fitness. And so by quantifying, when someone comes into this world of fitness, it’s very overwhelming, right? There’s a lot of different stuff. So we want to drill down and we want to plug people in faster to where they want to go, what their goals will be. And so we narrow these things down into an assessment. And even if we go back, you know, five, 10, 15 years people were doing assessments, it’s like back squat, put it in an Excel sheet. Everybody’s always known that it’s good to progress people. This is what benchmarks are founded upon.

Nathan (03:16):

Right? Benchmarks. We do a benchmark and then later on, we do another benchmark and I can see how much I’ve gotten better, but it’s so like, there are so many variables and there’s no real cohesive way of doing it. So by choosing what the things are, I can take the clients that are very advanced. I can also do the clients that aren’t, that don’t really know what to work on, and I can establish a baseline. So that baseline, regardless of who I’m working with is super important. I can have people just work out randomly and not really do an assessment. But what we’ve found is over time, people start to ask, what am I doing? Where am I going? Am I going to go to the Games or what’s happening. So we’re just drilling down into a set number of things that someone can focus on.

Nathan (04:04):

And when we can drill down into those details, people get more motivated, they get more incentivized, they’re willing to play the game longer. And that’s really what we’re looking for. We’re looking to create incentives for people. And if it’s body fat, right, usually InBody, then we have nutrition and whatever the, if there are body weight movements that are being assessed, those will be affected by nutrition. But the whole idea with all of this stuff, the same way as a scale, I need a scale to tell me where I am. I can deny the scale and I can just lose weight on my own. And that’s great. And that’s like, sort of what people do sometimes. They’re just like, I don’t want to do it. I just want to lose weight on my own. But if I want to accelerate my progress, or if, as a coach, if I want to get handles on somebody, to be able to guide them and to really give them the prescriptive model, right?

Nathan (04:53):

So it’s like, where are we? And where do we want to go? And then what are the steps to get there? And when the client sees that the coach has bought into that process, that there’s a system around that process, they’re going to be much more bought into actually doing it because there are follow-ups, there’s all sorts of stuff. And it always, you know, the global assessment, a lot of, a lot of gyms see that. And they’re thinking like, it’s a lot of work. We got to do all these extra pieces and stuff. But the assessments lay that foundation of incentive in so many different ways that then let people sit down with a coach and we have metrics. We have numbers that are like, this, this, this, well, what do we want to do? People don’t know sometimes what their goals are, especially beginners. They’re like, well, I don’t know what I should do. What should my goal be? Should I do a Fran at this time? Whatever the thing is. With this, you know, w the way that we do our assessments, it’s very incremental. But regardless of how you do assessments, you want to have these next steps available that aren’t like this super long time away thing that is so vague because people stop engaging with the process when it’s that long. Right. It’s just too much. It’s too, it’s too big.

Chris (06:01):

There’s a lot to unpack there. And I think we’re going to get to it. I really liked what you said about play the game longer. So here’s a question that I didn’t really prep you for, Nathan, is somebody comes in and says, Chris, I need to lose 30 pounds by the summer. So I can fit in my bikini. How do you introduce, you know, how and why we’re going to be doing this other type of testing that doesn’t immediately seem to relate to losing 30 pounds.

Nathan (06:30):

To me, it would always come with the whole form and function thing, right? So we have this, we have this goal, we have this physical goal. And now in the coaching conversation, the idea is that we have the nutrition aspect, but then we have the physical, you know, the ability aspect. And the more somebody is willing to put in the work to, you know, at virtuosity concept there, they’re doing the details, right? They’re coming in, they’re working on weaknesses, they’re doing all those things, that whole ecosystem, in terms of the person, how they’re approaching this goal is going to completely change. They’re going to be much more incentivized to be working on these little things, which will on the back end make them have results a lot faster. So that’s really the way I bring that around. If someone only does nutrition, nutrition is a great way, it’s probably the most powerful way to lose body fat, but I want to get somebody to be totally committed to this process, right? So that they’re looking at all aspects. And when I can get someone to see that their performance that they have has a direct correlation with the way that they’re going to look and feel, then they can make that jump. And then they’re willing to put in the work, the more they put in the work, the more dedicated they are to the process. So it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? So it’s self-fulfilling circle of people eating better, training better. And continuously doing that until they reach the result faster.

Chris (07:55):

  1. So client comes in, sits down, I want to lose 30 pounds. You say, that’s fantastic. Let’s take care of starting measurements on the InBody or the scale or whatever you’re using. You know, when I started coaching, it was like a tape measure 25 years ago. And then you say, all right, now we’re going to see where you’re starting from in a movement perspective. What’s that first assessment look like?

Nathan (08:20):

Well, it depends on where somebody is. So we have onboarding protocols and those sorts of things. But the very first thing that we do, and this is Level Method specific, but I highly recommend for everybody, it’s just getting a very easy baseline. We don’t want to go into it and be like, we’re going to max out your front squat to see like, where you, you know what I mean? Like dude, we’re just going to kind of get the numbers, get a broad view of where somebody is. So like within our model, we have white, yellow, we have these levels that make it very easy to sort of put somebody in a bucket, like, OK, we got a white level person here, a yellow person here. Then I can easily talk to coaches about this stuff. But in the process, in the very first, I’m just trying to get an idea of where they are now.

Nathan (09:07):

A lot of people come in, they’re like, I’m not interested in all that. It’s like, OK, that’s totally cool. Let’s just get where you are. Don’t worry about the performance. We’re not going to do that. We’re not going to like, make force you to do all this stuff. We’re just going to get you on the map. Right. We’re just going to figure out where you are. And now I don’t, I don’t want to say 99%, but a super high percentage of people, as soon as they see where they fit, where they slot they’re immediately like, Oh, I got a weakness here. And they immediately are now thinking, cause this is just how human beings, how we’re wired. We’re seeing like, Oh, this. And so then they naturally, this becomes their next goal. Like, OK, well, I kind of want to bump this up.

Nathan (09:46):

OK, cool. Now we have something to work with again, without any pressure, right? That’s the big thing with beginners, especially when they’re coming in, they have goals about just losing weight and stuff. They don’t want to do anything intense. That’s totally fine. We’re not trying to push them to do anything intense. We’re trying to just be able to know where they are in the world of fitness, which will drastically change the prescription of what we do in classes, what we recommend to them and all that sort of stuff. If I don’t have any clue where somebody is, I’m not going to, as a coach, I’m not going to be able to give them the highest level of service. I’m just trying to plug them in somewhere like, OK, I got a worldview of where they are. OK. That’s really interesting.

Chris (10:25):

So I think a lot of gyms are really on board with the initial assessments. Right. But then what happens? And I think this is a big problem in a lot of gyms is that there’s no ongoing assessment, right? There’s no progress tracking. There’s no meeting, no goal review. None of that. How at Level Method have you found it best to implement ongoing assessments?

Nathan (10:50):

Interesting question. Because like really what this is is a system, right? Like the system is we have to touch base with clients on an ongoing basis. We need to reassess on an ongoing basis. And now my experience as a gym owner, it took me a lot of years to realize the benefit of systems, having systems in place. What we do in the early days is like, let’s assess everybody. And then we would not think about it again for however long. And then we’d be like, Oh, let’s assess people again. And then like, do it again. Like later, there was no real cohesive set of things that we did on this regular interval basis. This is systems. This is systems thinking. I map out the year. I kind of have an idea. And there is a process with how we do goal setting sessions.

Nathan (11:35):

There’s a process around how that all works. And so when I’m looking at like, you know, somebody that’s not doing that yet, we got to get sort of the mindset in place first that in order to be able to get a starting point, we need to assess. Once we’ve assessed, the very next step is to sit down with a coach. Right. And so then I can see things we’re looking at, what’s your goals. I’m connecting, I’m figuring out, I’m mapping out a game plan. And then there’s a very real, like on the calendar set time when it’s scheduled that I’m going to touch base with this person again. Right. So I’m not leaving it up to chance. It’s like we’re touching base on these days. And then at a higher level, depending on how we do assessments every three or four months, it’s on the calendar already.

Nathan (12:24):

So people sort of know that it’s coming up and the goal setting sessions are then always tied with that thing. But all of that is work, right? It’s it’s real work. There’s no way around it. You’ve got to get the team on board. You got to get the coaches on board. You’ve got to get all these things, but you have to ask, why would it be beneficial? It’s beneficial because now the members are way more engaged. They’re way more focused on their thing. They know the coach is going to touch base with them. They know that someone’s thinking about them on an ongoing basis. We have this meeting and then we have the next session coming up. And then now everybody levels up and now everybody’s excited and they’re ready to go on the next phase. You know? So it’s this whole systems mindset. Now, if you look at it just as work to do, I got to freaking assess all my people.

Nathan (13:11):

And then what am I going to do with that information? It’s great. It’s interesting, but I’m not going to—you have to realize that you take that information and we leverage it into delivering higher valued services and on the client side, more benefits. We’re just giving them the opportunity to get better, faster to approach their goals with new mind, they can be excited about it. They’re, they’re, they’re a, you know, attendance is bumped up. They’re thinking about the stuff on an ongoing basis. This is sometimes what’s so hard is some people catch that fitness bug, right? This was me when I was a coach. I’m training. I just want to get so good. And I caught the bug and I’m going so hard and now I’m hurting myself. So, you know, different gym members will go through that same thing.

Nathan (13:59):

You come out the other side. And now after so many years, I’m not looking to compete anymore. I’m not—what am I going to do? You know? And so I’m just looking at my next goal. What’s my next goal with the very small thing that I have in my training. Right? So yeah, I kind of went off on there, but I think when it comes back systems, it comes back to understanding that the work involved is specifically for being able to plug my client in and then map out a game plan and then do that regularly. And that regularity is founded upon the idea of systems, of having those systems in place.

Chris (14:36):

This episode of Two-Brain Radio is brought to you by Wodify. Wodify is an all in one solution for member management, appointment scheduling and tracking. Wodify’s insights tool includes the business health dashboard co-developed with Two-Brain to provide average revenue per member, length of engagement and more key metrics. Gym owners, to receive 20% off your first year of Wodify Core visit wodify.com/twobrain.

Nathan (15:01):

I probably said systems like 10 times or 15 times.

Chris (15:05):

Never enough systems talk for me. Right? So the key there that you brought up is that it’s not enough just to test people, that you have to have this step where the coach sits down with them and plans their next step.

Nathan (15:18):

Absolutely. That’s like the biggest. So there’s a bridge, we have the assessment and then we have the results, right? My assessment, and then the results in between those two things is a bridge. And that bridge is called coach goal setting session, where I sit down and I’m bridging, I have all of your information. I’m a professional coach. I see all your information. This is great. We got all this stuff now, what are we going to do with this? I connect with the client, figure out what they’re trying to do. I bridged those things. And then the result, I map out a plan and then the client actively achieves or goes after whatever the plan was going step by step to achieve the result. So it’s very, we’re removing the doubt, right? So this is the thing, I’m a big fan of handles.

Nathan (16:07):

I want traction. I want to get, I want to know the numbers. I want to be able to—cause without that, what are we doing? We’re just kind of hoping that people are going to come. They’re going to show up. They’re going to go to class. They’re going to get motivated like I was motivated all coaches, listening, you know, you were very motivated, but some people just aren’t like that. So we have to take away all the opportunities for someone to just kind of fizzle out and move away. And even with coaching session, goal setting sessions, and even with assessments, people will still fizzle, there’s no way around it. It’s just a natural thing, but it’ll happen a lot less. And that’s what we’re looking for, we’re looking to mitigate the amount that somebody is just sort of losing interest. They’re moving away.

Nathan (16:51):

They’re not doing, they’re moving away from their goals. They’re not like focused on what they’re doing. So the assessments we talked about, like getting a baseline, but when you reassess, you also have this amazing moment for people where they see that, Oh, I can actually get better. I’m actually getting better. As opposed to a regular model where you’re coming to group classes, you’re coming all the time and it feels, yeah, I might be getting better. I feel like these workouts, you know, they never really gets easier to work out itself, but I’m maybe using a little bit more weight, but it’s not like super quantifiable. And I can’t like, I don’t have the handles on it to award someone, awesome work on this. And that is another factor in the way somebody is motivated and engaged, right? So that’s another layer. They see they’re mapped out with the coach, they get all these things, but then they also get the reward of achieving a very concrete goal. So they know, bam. And now that’s another thing that’s keeping them more engaged and motivated over the long term. So it’s like a multi thing, but it hinges the whole thing hinges. And you talk about this all the time, the prescriptive model, right? It hinges on the prescriptive model. I need that element. I need to be able to prescribe individually for somebody where they’re going. Like, what’s the goal here? What are we trying to do? And every single person is different and everybody now has a little plan and they’re in the gym and we all sort of know we’re getting better, but everybody’s getting better in a different way, but it’s very personal. And this is the hybrid. You’ll hear hybrid all the time. Like, Oh, we got to do this. This is really how a hybrid would work in group a group model. You have a broad and inclusive group program. And then individually we address weaknesses. And this gives opportunities for the coach and the owner to provide more service, more benefit to the client and they get better, faster, right? So it’s this whole sort of interworking from assessment to goal sessions to then the results, and then the rewarding of the them getting the results. And then you just repeat that process forever. You just keep it going, right? So every time they’re getting a little better here and here and here, and we’re just getting better and better.

Chris (19:04):

So awesome, Nathan. I mean, what prompted this interview was a gym owner had some of his coaches going through our first degree coaching program and the conversation turned to goal reviews and a lot of gyms struggle to get their clients to do regular goal reviews even though they understand the value, and what this gym owner said was, well, we just tie our goal reviews to our Level Method global testing period. So I’m going to ask you for details about that in a moment, but what this gym owner was doing was saying, OK, every client goes through global testing, as soon as they’re done with that, it’s up to the coach to grab them and do a goal review with them. And they actually make a little competition of it, you know, which coaches can do the most goal reviews. And this gym’s retention figures are far and away, you know, like off the charts by an order of magnitude over most other gyms. So can you tell us why you teach global testing instead of just like testing each person individually one at a time, and then how does this work together with goal reviews to keep people around longer?

Nathan (20:10):

So the first thing is, you know, doing goal sessions, we’ve done them. You know, it’s hard to get clients to do it, right. Especially if you don’t have something in place that is going to incentivize them to do it. Right. So they’re like, why am I even doing this? The coach is trying to sit down and they’re thinking, what’s the point of it. I don’t have any goals anyway. Right. So we want to loop it around. And then you said global assessment. So we’ve done them both ways. Globally, so global assessments like a big event, right? And we have it over two or three weeks and people are getting leveled up in all this, and the anchor point for that is the calendar. So on a three to four month cycle, we know that the goal reviews coming out now, the other option is sorry.

Nathan (20:58):

The assessment is coming out. The other option is to have the programming as the anchor point. And when I say anchor point, so based on a weekly program, monthly, we were dripping out little tests. So say you’re going to do the back squat. We say, Hey guys, we’re going to test the back squat. So you test it. And then you go over eight weeks and then you test the back squat again, right. But it’s done within the programming. And that’s actually kind of a global assessment too. If it was individual, it would be like, people are testing different things at different times. So they’re doing individually there. And the reason that doesn’t work as well is we don’t get the community buzz people aren’t being celebrated simultaneously. They’re not, everyone is sort of silently in their own little cave without seeing what other people are doing, the reward isn’t there.

Nathan (21:45):

So we’ve done it both ways, but the, the global assessment, the big one, even though it’s more work, we found that, and it is a lot of work, right? It’s like running an Open kind of. It’s like, there’s a lot of different stuff that we got to do, but the payoff is very big. The buzz in the gym is huge. And to be honest, you know, when we first were doing Level Method years and years ago, we didn’t have levels based programming at the time. So we would do an assessment and then three months later, or four months later, we do another assessment. Right. But in the meantime, people weren’t really engaging with the map and I didn’t even know if people were going to get better or what it always made me nervous.

Nathan (22:25):

I’m like, are people going to level up or like, what’s going on here? And without fail, everyone would always level up. And this is the thing with an assessment, especially with the beginner population, they’re always going to get better. I mean, it until it’s like four or five years of serious and they might start to slow down, pretty much always they’re going to get better. And when you can have people leveling up together and people are celebrating their friends and they got these things and it’s just a much more, it’s a better way to keep people excited, focused on their progress and then celebrating their friends and celebrate themselves. So it’s a long way of saying that in the individual way. So if I’m doing like I have a client and I’m giving them a test here and then a month later, I’m doing another test here and then another test here.

Nathan (23:16):

That will work. I’m getting that sort of individual, the coaching thing, but I’m missing out on the community aspect. And I think the community aspect is a big reason why we do group training, right? It’s like the group training is a lot of people love. I mean, this is why people come to the class and we experienced this with COVID right. A lot of gyms went to individual program design. And as soon as we give the opportunities for people to come back to classes, they can’t wait to do it. Why? Because these sorts of people are wired to want to be around other people. And some people might transfer over. They might be like, Oh, actually I kind of like this more, but most people, if they’re in group training, they’re attracted to that. They’re going to be fans of working out with people, celebrating, being excited.

Nathan (24:04):

And that’s why the global assessments work a lot better.

Chris (24:06):

That’s really interesting. So how many global assessments should you do in a year? You said every three to four months or so?

Nathan (24:13):

We used to do them every three months and it just seemed like it was a little too much, just slightly too much. So we moved it to four. Cause the way that we do it, it’s three weeks. Right? So with the Level Method, it’s a, you know, there are 15 tests in order to get, you know, people come on different days, they come on different times, so they’re missing different things. So we layer in. And so we have multiple opportunities for someone to come in. So we gotta make it three weeks, but we have optional workouts. So this is just a little thing. If anybody’s out there and they’re doing assessments, they’ve created their own thing, give optional workouts.

Nathan (24:48):

So people don’t to have to assess every single time, but the three to four months, right. We’re going and four months seems to be about the number that works really well, where it’s just long enough where people are there. They’ve kind of forgotten about a little bit and they’re ready to now fully engage.

Chris (25:04):

Really cool. How do you work it into your calendar? If somebody is going to do an external event, like the intramural open or the CrossFit open, something like that.

Nathan (25:13):

Like if they’re doing that on as well?

Chris (25:15):

Yeah.

Nathan (25:15):

Yeah. So we’ve done it, if it’s a big thing like that, then we avoid doing it around the same time we treat it like a yearly, like a big event. Right? So it’s like the three weeks, if somebody chooses to do a global assessment style thing, you gotta be dialed systems.

Nathan (25:34):

You got to meet with the coaches. You gotta be on the same page. You gotta be taking pictures. You gotta be doing all of it. You have to have the right ready for you to do an award right there. Ready? Everybody’s sort of on their toes. They know what’s going on. Cause if you just check the boxes, it’s not going to be nearly as good. And this is one of the reasons like with Level Method, why over time, we’ve realized that in the early days we were, you know, Hey, anybody who wants to do Level Method, come with us, come over here. But we found very quickly that people that were didn’t know business or didn’t know systems, or didn’t have the discipline to do these things, it was a nightmare. They wouldn’t do it. They wouldn’t get the results. We needed people that had business acumen.

Nathan (26:16):

And this is why I love working with you guys because people that come from Two-Brain almost all, I mean, always they know the value of systems. They kind of come in knowing why this is gonna work. So I went off on a tangent there, but yeah, the fact is that, you know, understanding systems and having business training is really important to have the discipline and the professionalism to run any kind of event. Right. So any big event that needs to be dialed and the global assessments, that same thing, to do it right, to really handle it, you’ve got to have those fundamental tools in place.

Chris (26:52):

OK, fantastic. So, you know, this week before listening to this, people have been reading about some of the systems about assessing people and keeping them longer, including a little piece from you. How do you make that quick transition from, OK. We’ve been doing some testing over the last few weeks, here are your results. And now we’d like to sit down with you for 10 minutes and talk about your goals and plot the next stage. Right? How do you make that segue with a client?

Nathan (27:20):

And do you mean like if I was going to do an announcement, like a big announcement or would I touch base individually? Just sort of how we would go about getting the big thing is, you know, lead up time. So it’s like setting the expectations? Right. So from the get go, this is why it’s kind of hard to go back in time and set expectations when someone joins, you can’t do that. Right. But if that’s happened, we have to set expectations and new, and we do that through communication and lead up time on the assessments. Right. So, OK. We got a three week assessment coming up. We’re maybe six weeks out. Hey guys, just so you know, we got this coming up. If you want to get better at any of the levels to prep, we got this time period that we can do that.

Nathan (28:07):

Now after we do the assessments, we’re going to be doing goal sessions. So, and this is why goal sessions are important and maybe we go back and we talk about some people that were dialed in with goals session. So we give examples of, you know, a member that’s super awesome, who was doing goal sessions. And the reason they’re so awesome is because they had a game plan. And this is how it is almost always, if you look at the people, the clients that are the best, they have a plan, they’re not randomly doing shit. They got like, they know what they’re doing. They’vekind of come in with this stuff. Right. And so we want to use them as an example, and then also tie in the fact that, or always be bringing back the fact that we’re going to be doing a goal session.

Nathan (28:50):

And the expectation is that we get everybody to do it. Right. And if someone’s like, I don’t want to set my goals, then it doesn’t have to be like—we used to call them results sessions. We call them a success session before like we’ve called them different things, because sometimes people don’t want to be like, I don’t want to set a goal, so, OK, we’re going to have a conversation around why you’re here. And we just do that at this time. And so depending on the population and what somebody has experienced, they might use a different language. But the whole point is to once we’ve assessed, we sit down, one-on-one preferably in person, but zoom, I guess, would be OK too. But in person is always the best where then we pull up their stuff, they can see that we have their stuff,

Nathan (29:37):

maybe the InBody’s there too. And these are the two bits of information, right? The InBody and then the levels. And I can then say, we can talk about what they’re here for, why, and then I can bridge. And if we have workshops or specialty clinics or anything, individual program design, or just, here’s a free version of some extra stuff to do before or after class, it doesn’t really matter. As long as the client knows that you’re paying attention, you got a game plan, you’re giving them something specific and you’re going to follow up with them at a certain point. And this should be multiple times, right? It should be like maybe every few weeks or even less or more frequently, you just text them, touch base with them. And each coach should have like a roster of those people with a little system around when they’re touching base with them. What they’re saying to checking in doing that sort of stuff. Because if you let it go, I mean, this is super basic stuff, but if you let it go too long, clients will leave. Right. This is like, if you notice it just goes a little bit too long. They’re going to be gone and you can’t then get them back. So you just got to keep that going.

Chris (30:47):

  1. I think that’s really key what you just said there. And I think, I hope a lot of people are paying attention to that. So you have to show the clients that you’re paying attention. Do you know what their goals are? Second, that you’re actually tracking their progress. So that you can make a plan. That was really your second point. You gotta have a plan. And third that you’re checking in on them. And I think a lot of boxes miss these really easy opportunities in the pursuit to sell more group training programs. However, I think that COVID proved that this is really critical to long-term success and sped up the evolution of the model.

Nathan (31:24):

And then that’s like, you know, the fundamentals, right? Like this is the foundation, doing the fundamentals very, very well. And it’s relationships and results, right? This is what it is with clients. Like we got to build that relationship. We have to show that we should really actually care, right? This is like why we’re doing this stuff. And then we can get them the results that they want. Right. And these two fundamental things layered into a system where I kind of it’s expected that I’m doing this stuff is the way to go, right? Cause if you leave it up to your own brain, we got a billion things going on. Owner’s got a billion things. Coaches are coaching classes. They’re not thinking about it. So we got to build sort of a structure or a framework that reminds us that tells us, Hey, don’t forget about doing this because I’m just going to forget, right?

Nathan (32:14):

So it’s like, that’s where the discipline of installing systems, it’s the next level in terms of business. And you look at the best businesses in the world, the most profitable of all these, the Amazons, and they’re all these big, big, big ones systems are like it, right? It’s like how they do everything. It’s all automatic. And they’ve built it over many, many, many years. And these things are just incredibly complicated. But if you go back down just to the very raw, like foundation in our business, it’s like, we just want to remove us having to remember that we want to set something in place so that it tells us. And however coaches do that. And so it’s like a reminder on the phone, a roster that they check every day, they’re looking, you know, just these simple things that become habit. And then you don’t have to worry about it anymore. And it just happens. Right?

Chris (33:07):

That’s great, man. You know, we try to systemize gym businesses and you’ve done an amazing job of systemizing training while still letting coaches be coaches. So thanks for that, Nathan. And thanks for coming on to talk about assessments, global testing and how to work that into goal reviews and keep clients longer, man.

Nathan (33:26):

Thanks, man. I appreciate that.

Andrew (33:31):

For more on this critical topic for gym owners, check out the Two-Brain business blog. Chris Cooper will tell you exactly how to help your clients get results. That info at twobrainbusiness.com/blog. Thank you for listening to Two-Brain Radio. We’re back with another episode on Monday. Subscribe so you don’t miss it.

 

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