S05E169: The Rise and Fall of CrossFit Gyms: Cultivating Community and Overcoming Business Challenges
Can a gym truly thrive without a strong community? Discover the secrets to achieving long-term success in the CrossFit industry with coaches David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic. Drawing from over a decade of experience running a CrossFit affiliate, we tackle the complex dynamics of gym business cycles and how to sustain growth amidst inevitable ebbs and flows. We promise to share strategies that can help you prevent decline, even when dealing with fluctuating membership numbers.
Join us as we highlight the essential balance between fostering a vibrant community and maintaining financial sustainability. We shed light on real-world challenges like managing open gym memberships and how shifts in members' personal lives can impact a gym's cohesion and growth. By sharing personal anecdotes and insights from industry events, we aim to provide a valuable perspective on why some gyms plateau and how others continue to thrive.
We also confront the challenges within the CrossFit community, discussing the roles of media figures and the need for clear communication from CrossFit leadership. We address the perception of CrossFit's difficulty, especially for older participants, and explore how gyms can adapt to better serve those feeling sidelined by traditional models. This episode is packed with reflections and actionable takeaways designed to help gym owners, coaches, and members navigate the fitness industry's ups and downs effectively.
@crossfitbison @crossfittraining @crossfit @crossfitgames #crossfit #sports #exercise #health #movement #crossfitcoach #agoq #clean #fitness #ItAllStartsHere #CrossFitOpen #CrossFit #CrossFitCommunity @CrossFitAffiliates #supportyourlocalbox #crossfitaffiliate #personalizedfitness
S05E169: The Rise and Fall of CrossFit Gyms: Cultivating Community and Overcoming Business Challenges
TRANSCRIPT
Speaker Names
David SyvertsenHost
00:05
Hey everybody, welcome to the Herd Fit Podcast with Dr Sam Rhee and myself, coach David Syverton. This podcast is aimed at helping anyone and everyone looking to enhance their healthy lifestyle through fitness, nutrition and, most importantly, mindset. All right, welcome back to the Herd Fit Podcast. I am Coach David Syverton. I'm here with my co-host, dr and Coach Sam Rhee, and we have a really interesting topic today that I think could bring some clarity and maybe just get the conversation the ball rolling with gyms, coaches, owners and affiliate members of why do gyms really get popular? Why do they crush it? Why do they grow, but then why do they also fall?
00:47
And as an owner of a gym, that's been, you know, we're almost 11 years in now. We've seen ebbs and flows like any business would Like. No, the answer is no. We have not been on the constant ascent since February 2014. We've gone up, we've gone down. We've dealt with COVID. We went up, we went back down. It's a constant and it's like what I learned my first day as a broker don't get happy about good, don't get upset about bad. Like, just stay where you're at and trust that process and try to make your process even better.
01:14
And here at Bison, we've been up and down business-wise for probably the past. I want to include COVID in there. So since 2019, 2020, we really have had like whoa. We're getting huge. We're like whoa. We just took a huge hit, and this happened multiple times and COVID could play a part of that. But from even 2021 on, after the mask came off, it's been up and down and we are constantly trying to think of ways to prevent the downs and maintain the highs. Like anyone's fitness does right, like you're on a great fitness run, you want to maintain that high you're feeling. You want to avoid those lows. They're inevitable. But I I've done a lot of like thinking over the past few months, um, and we've had a lot of good conversations too with other owners and coaches and even, in some cases, members.
02:08
Why do gyms like this go up and down? I think, sam, you brought attention I think it was a Best Hour of the Day podcast. Don't quote me on that. You can expand on it. You'll probably know what I'm talking about where you said or read, you heard or read that it's very common for, like bigger CrossFit gyms, to get to about 300 members at some point, but then it comes back down to let's pick a number 250. And that's kind of like just where they live. Yep, and I want to get some of your initial opinions on why do you think other than it just ebbs and flows of any business, why do things get really big and then they take a hit and they come crashing down at some point and then they eventually just kind of find that medium stage? Why do you think it is that that happens?
Sam RheeCo-host
02:54
There are a couple of factors I think that we're going to talk about, but I think when you look at CrossFit, they published some numbers. They published some numbers. They said a large gym is about 250. Average is about 165. Breakeven usually is around 125. And, yeah, I think it was best hour of their day. They usually top up around 250, 300. And then they kind of peter off after that. They can't sort of break through that. But then you told me you met a couple affiliate owners and they were in the 400 plus member range and I think there are unicorns I don't think there are very many that can do that and I don't know what the difference is between, say, a 400 and 450 member gym versus, say, a 250 member gym. I would love to see what they do differently than the rest of us.
David SyvertsenHost
03:43
Yeah, and I think you also have to. There's a couple of considerations here and we'll kind of dive into the media podcast after this is how many members do you really want? We've actually had that discussion a few times here. Do we want 500 members? I don't think it would work. I really don't. I would love to try. Yeah, I would love to try and get to that number too. Another time and, sam, I was referencing a call I was on with affiliate owners. We were talking about sport and the open. It's cool to listen to other owners talk about their business and we have the affiliate summit coming up next week that we're all going to be at. I'm really looking forward to that and just hearing and networking and talking to people and trying to pick up on little things here and there.
04:24
But I have learned in the past that the number that some people do give about how many members they have, it's not always a clear cut. I don't want to say truthful, but it's not a clear answer. Like even right now, if you asked us how many members you'd have, I'd be like well, we have X amount of people that come here right now, but these 18 people have free memberships. Those four people have bartered memberships. These 29 people have free memberships. Those four people have bartered memberships. These 29 people are 10-packers, so they're not monthly paying members, but they're still members, and that can be something that you have to be a little careful with.
04:57
When I hear numbers from other people, but it does seem that you're never going to find a CrossFit gym that is like 600, 700, 800 members, 1,000 members, because we're class-based, right, and we only want so many people in our class. It doesn't make mathematical sense to get to 600 members. Example let's say we doubled our membership in the next two years. Oh, you're crushing it, right? What the hell happens to 6 am in that scenario?
Sam RheeCo-host
05:21
I would run screaming because the only workouts we could program would be air squats and burpees maybe, yeah.
David SyvertsenHost
05:29
So I mean there's a limit, there is a cap to how many and we don't really have an objective number, Like we're not cutting off memberships. We're never going to get to a point where we're like sorry guys, we're full, you can't join this gym and there's other things you can do. Maybe we'll get to that at some point in this discussion. There are some things you could do to curtail members to go to certain classes and whatnot, or try to be. We do have. We have 11, 12 class a day, which is as much as anyone out there, and there are multiple classes with less than five people in a 6000 square foot gym, so that that in some ways is not an economic use of the space. But we moved to a space this big because our classes in the morning were too big, they were full, and now they're full again. So it's kind of like a tough situation to only talk about numbers. Hey, we got to 300, peter down to 50. That's where we're at. Like it's hard to say that that's the metric.
06:17
But I want to talk more macro level. Why does a gym grow? Let's have that discussion first. You know Bison started off with Sam and Andres at 6 am every day for basically four months straight and all of a sudden like there's a wait list for that class. Why does it grow? Why did Bison grow in that Like? I think our peak growth was from 2015 to 2018.
Sam RheeCo-host
06:39
I would say Opinion. The reason why we grew was the coaching was good, the programming was good, but the biggest thing for me was the community was tight. Yeah, there wasn't a ton of marketing or outreach or social media advertising. None of that was what allowed Bison to grow. It wasn't like people were seeing commercials for Bison everywhere. It was the fact that there was such a strong community of athletes that continued to attract other like-minded individuals, and I think that that was the main focus.
David SyvertsenHost
07:23
I completely agree. I actually sometimes we'll kick back a little bit, and I've done this. I can remember Tyler Campbell saying this to me in 2015,. Like, literally, we were in the bathroom and he goes man, what you got, what you created, is this is just amazing. And like I didn't even let him finish sentence, like it's you guys, like it's the people we like, we did.
07:40
There is, in my opinion, in any successful story, there's some luck involved, and I do tell everyone with two ears that there was some luck in the growth of Bison, that we got our hands on really awesome people, and that's why I do get uncomfortable talking in front of the gym sometimes, whether it's at the holiday party, the open party, especially when we had the announcement and when I was on that live broadcast, I made sure I said I was like we are only here, no-transcript fun to be around. They were really fit, they worked really hard, they were really nice to each other, they were a great time outside the gym. Like we, we really got it, and like that to me. And then I think that actually is like the main reason. And then the programming, the coaching, the facility, the schedule right, I'm going to talk about that that's a more of a logistic thing, that all those other things were like accessories to the people.
09:02
Now, if you had a great group of people but bad programming and bad coaching, it wouldn't have grown. I will say that we can take as a staff, as ownership. We will definitely take credit for that. If we didn't have 12 classes a day, we wouldn't have grown, and I want to talk about that. That was one thing I heard a lot back in the day. People came to our gym because we had classes as early as 5 am and our last class back then was 8, 15 pm. Most gyms do not do that. I have never found. I've looked at so many, including the top gyms in the world. I don't think I've ever seen a gym have more than 10 classes a day.
Sam RheeCo-host
09:34
They do a couple in the morning, a couple in the evening, maybe open gym during the day.
David SyvertsenHost
09:38
Yep, that's it, and that's another thing. Why did the gym grow? This is where some gyms will disagree with me and I'll have this discussion and I'm not going to say I'm right. But I do think this is a key reason why we did everything together at CrossFit Bison, meaning we didn't do open gym for six hours a day. Come do your own thing, see you later. We didn't do competitor class. We didn't do hey, you're a certain caliber athlete, you're on that side of the gym, the other caliber athletes over here.
10:02
That's something that, and, coming from a competitor, that you know what. Yeah, I would have personally loved to have a class once or twice a week, or it was me and the other eight people that really want to push the boundaries, and that was part of the inception of Next Level. Was I wanted something for those people? But the number one rule and you've been on Next Level before is you're working out with class. Yeah, no, you got to do the programming.
10:24
I had someone recently ask me about the gym. I've been asked probably four or five times in the past year hey, I would love to join your gym, cool, but here's the schedule Cool, can I just do open gym? The answer is no, and honestly, we're probably losing $1,000 a month for that reason, don, and I'm not going to say that we're never going to have an open gym membership. I do see it as part of it and I don't want to criticize other gyms there's a lot of gyms that do this but everyone has their own books, right, everyone has their own numbers.
10:52
If you don't have a lot of members and you have bills to pay, you have to find other sources of revenue so that, and if you have the schedule to really man that Like if we do open gym in the afternoon, which what we've talked about keep the gym open from two to four my first thing is like we got to pay someone to be here an extra 10 hours a week. That's going to be like $2,000 a month in expense. Are we really going to get that much of membership? But more than that, to me, that kind of stuff divides the gym and I think that's why Bison grew a lot in that hang out on the weekends, go to kids games, kids play with each other Like everything was done together. And I think if any new gym out there, if they said like, hey, what, what's the key to growing my gym? I say do as many things together as possible.
Sam RheeCo-host
11:40
And that doesn't mean that they all have to be friends. Like I was looking like we do have open gym on Sunday and I looked at everyone that was there and they were all different. It wasn't like we're just like one big conglomerate of like-minded people. There was Dave and Frank doing one thing, there was Steffi and Bill doing something else, there was Alex, there was Amy Edelman and you know you others doing other things.
12:08
Kathleen, like, these are not people who, just like you know Eric Salas, like these are not people who just hang out and like things, kathleen, these are not people who just like Eric Salas, these are not people who just hang out and are like the tightest buddies or anything, but they are all like-minded. All of them follow the programming, all of them come in for class, they all feel an affinity for what we're doing together. Affinity for what we're doing together. They are not all buds, but we do share a like-minded ethos in terms of getting fit, trying hard, doing our thing, and so when you find people, like I said, who share that, you don't have to be best buds, but if you share that mindset, that's what brings you together.
David SyvertsenHost
12:51
Yes, that's a great point. I do think that's something really common here, especially now, more than it used to be just to be at the gyms. Bigger is that there's a lot of people here that have very similar macro level goals. They don't want to work hard, and they probably do the same thing outside the gym too. They're just hard workers and you like being around other hard workers. And that's going to bring me to the next part of it.
13:14
This is where this episode I don't want it to go off the rails. Let's try to keep it on. Okay, but why do gyms stop growing at some point and, in some cases, why do they start struggling? We know a lot of gyms that have had a lot of success, Like when we were early in the game. We were like man, that gym is awesome, I hope we're like them someday. And then at some point, they hit that peak, they climax and then they fall down. Why do you think? This is Again opinion, just from what we know about gyms that have gone through that why do gyms start to struggle? Why do they go backwards?
Sam RheeCo-host
13:50
I think it is lack of losing that community focus, for whatever reason and we can go into reasons why gyms lose that community focus. There are some, I think, scientific reasons as well as maybe human or psychological reasons. But I think when a gym loses that sense of community, you start to lose that sense of growth and you lose your way.
David SyvertsenHost
14:18
Yeah, so it's funny, that's the first answer that comes to your mind. You didn't bring up programming, you didn't bring up coaching which maybe that could be part of your answer but you didn't bring up facility, you didn't bring up equipment, you didn't bring up the balance sheet, and I think the growth of a gym Bison stems from the people, and the demise of it if it falls apart, if it starts to go backwards, if we hit a lull and we've hit lulls in the past that is usually one of the first things that comes to my mind. It's you know, you lose a few people, or relationships have changed, lives have changed. Example when we started Bison 2014, a lot of our members were in that 26 to 35 year old gap Married, not married, just got married. You know maybe a kid, maybe a kid Fast forward 10 years the amount of those key people that really helped us grow, including myself and Ashley, where we were so available to do everything at any given point.
15:21
It's different now. Our lives are very different, and you can say that about, I would say, three dozen people in this gym where, like, the lives have changed so much in the gym that you're just simply not able to get there anymore, or as often as you want, in addition to the outside the gym stuff, and because of that the community takes a hit. Now you can't blame anyone for that. It's not anyone's fault. You don't look down on anyone for that. I wouldn't want anyone looking down on me. It's like well, dave, you used to be at the gym for 45 of the 68 classes that you guys have per week. Now you're here for 31 of them. Do you not like Bison anymore? No, no, no.
16:01
It's like the other day Ash and I were talking about this same conversation. It was so common back in the day You'd have a workout, you go into the lobby at Old Bison Maybe you have a drink on a Tuesday, hang out with people for 40 minutes and then you go home. Those 40 minutes, community building-wise, were more important than the class. But now it's like hey, I got to go pick up Brock. Ash, you got to go pick up Brock. We have to go get him. We have to feed him dinner, we got to get him down. Multiply that by 30 thing when that's not there or it has not been replaced by someone else, it's inevitable that the feel, the aura of the place will take a hit. How do you combat that?
Sam RheeCo-host
16:41
I think you have to make a conscious effort. It was easy to do that when you had all that time. At the numbers that we're at now, in the stage of life that we're at now, it is incumbent on any affiliate owners, coaches and members to consciously reach out and make that effort to connect, because it just doesn't happen anymore, because we have oodles of free time.
David SyvertsenHost
17:11
And's that's important. Yeah, I mean. And relationships, right, reaching out relationships. Is it possible that sometimes a gym that gets to a struggle point? Is it possible that the relationships of people in between people it's changed? Right, some people were great friends back then. Now they're not, maybe even to the point where some people don't like each other anymore. Does that make? Is that something an affiliate owner should focus on?
17:38
Because I've gotten involved in a couple of these like bickering, these fights between these people, that people trying to mend the fences, and sometimes I feel like it's my responsibility. Sometimes I'm like I'm not a kindergarten teacher, like I'm not, I'm not gonna. Like brock gets yelled at for wrestling with kids at the gym. He put a girl on a headlock on Monday. He got in trouble for that. But like so the teachers are like reporting this, writing this or talking with them, and like I go home, I punish Brock. Like do I need to do that with grown ass adults in the gym. It's like maybe now these people are saying this about that person, that that person said this about that person, but that person's like that. That's the kind of stuff that I feel like I have zero desire to do, but you have to do it as an affiliate owner and I think some coaches not all have to do that as well.
18:27
Bison in the past, I would say since COVID, let's say, five to six years, certain relationships. You almost get to a point where, like, you'll tolerate someone for a certain amount of time. You're not friends with them but you're not going to be mean to them. But then the patience wears thin. You kind of get to this like effort mode. I don't have time for this. I hear that a lot now, right, I'm above this now. I'm 40, I'm 50, I'm six, I'm not dealing with that stuff anymore and it kills a vibe. And I've always said Bison is a vibe, it's a culture, and I think most crosses should feel that way as well. It's not just a business, it's not just a vibe, it's somewhere in the middle. But the vibe and the culture is huge. And if you start getting that growing group of people that want to form their own cliques and create issues like that, that to me is the biggest threat to a CrossFit affiliate.
Sam RheeCo-host
19:17
I know personal relationships change over time and I've seen that with the people at Bison. Maybe this crew hung out for a while and then a couple of people split off, or maybe one person joined this one. It's fluid and I agree, as affiliate owners and coaches, it's not our job to mediate how people choose their social relationships with people, but on the other hand, I think it is our job to make sure that people, if given the, have the opportunity to create healthy social relationships with people. So I think, as an affiliate owner and as a coach, I am particularly mindful of new members. I would like them to find like-minded people.
19:59
They don't all have to be buddies with me, but I feel like they can always find someone that they connect with. They don't have to hang out with them on the weekends, but in the gym, brandon and Angelo, they just gravitated towards each other. They hang out with Dan on the weekends, but in the gym, brandon and Angelo, they just gravitated towards each other. They hang out with Dan Cota. I don't know if they do socially or not, but they got buddies now in the gym.
David SyvertsenHost
20:20
If you ever want to see a real life example, come work out at 615. Shout out to the 615ers here. It's like I'm not allowed to say this. It's like saying your kid's the favorite kid they are one of the coolest classes in the gym right now Is that the dog pound, the dog house dog pound. There's some infighting right now. One of them got called a puppy. I don't know what's going on, but I told Ash this the other night the 615 class right now feels like what Bison was eight, nine years ago. They just like. I don't know if they socially hang out. I think most of them don't, but it's the same crew and they hang out. They're joking around and after every class they go in the back for a half hour and they roll out. They act like they're rolling out, but really they just have a roller next to their leg and they're just chatting for a half hour.
Sam RheeCo-host
21:02
I like them. They're younger some of them, so I think they have a little bit more flexibility in their schedule. I will say that's the thing that I think we've talked about is for the people who have been here for a while and they don't feel like they're as connected to people, for whatever reason. Maybe their life has changed schedule wise, maybe they can hang out, but we as coaches, friends and affiliate owners need to remember hey, how's he doing? How's she doing? Haven't really checked in?
21:32
And this is, and you know, two brain goes through all this in a very sort of dispassionate, analytical, financial way, which I don't like, because to me, yes, is it about return on investment for each person that's in your gym? Okay, yeah, but for me, I'm not doing it because I'm like oh, if I lose Bobby, I'm losing $250 a month, so I need to do this for that. If you do that solely for that reason Everyone will know, yeah, and that's the worst reason to do it. So I hate when these gym analysis companies are like retain your, yeah, do a monthly three, like a three month check-in on everyone, like that's bs. To me it's like I, if I care about someone, I'm going to reach out and that that's the key.
David SyvertsenHost
22:23
And this is where you know we have to have some hard conversations with some people about this, about, and I think I think when I say we affiliate owners not Bison affiliate owners should oh, and head coaches should always have a strong feel pulse vibe on how much do their coaches actually care. And no, we're not paying. We've never paid a coach to send someone a text message, check in on or an email and I never will. But we did an episode a long time ago on what makes a good coach. Passion for CrossFit is obvious, but you really do want to help people. You do want to, on a Saturday afternoon at 3 o'clock, text someone to see how their knee's doing. It's not something I gotta do, it. No, you want to and you can't fake that. What? No, you want to and you can't fake that.
23:13
You know what sam's talking about is trying to reach out to someone and be like hey, um, I'm gonna reach out to you and make it blatantly obvious that I'm only doing it so that you can become a member at my gym, you know. But and I, you have to know sam, to know that and maybe an uh, a member out there would be like the only reason he's reaching out to me is to is because he wants my money. He wants to. But I think it comes down to the most basic element of coaching and owning across it Because, again, it's not glamorous at all. In a lot of ways it sucks. You seriously are doing it just to help people out and that's it. There's nothing fancy about it. There's no angle, not trying to get rich on this. You want to help people out and you know you have helped people out and you know it will work.
Sam RheeCo-host
23:52
but part of that work is the affiliate owners and the coaches really staying on top of hey, showing them that you do care about them I think there is a reason why the numbers are actually what they are, why gyms sort of start foundering, you know, kind of getting stagnant around 250, and I think there is a real psychological, human reason.
24:16
You've heard of Dunbar's number at least some people have where it's the concept that humans can maintain stable relationships with about 150 people or so. Social media maybe a little bit more in this day of iPhones and whatnot but that's why the average gym is around 165. That's probably where an owner can actually almost directly contact those people. That's a good point. When you get to 250 plus one person can't really do that, and so now you're relying on more than that in order to make sure you're touching base and maintaining that community focus, because your brain can't actually handle reaching out to 250, 300 people and sort of making a personal contact well with each and every one of them. Which is why I think these gyms that hit 400 plus members and if they're doing it the right way, I assume they have multiple people that really care about their members and are really sort of working to keep that group focused.
David SyvertsenHost
25:17
Yeah, I've had some uncomfortable conversations with people in recent years where they left and you have the conversation with at some point, and some of them everyone has their own reason, but some people really felt like they just weren't appreciated, no one cared about them, no one liked them, they weren't part of the crew, and that can be hard to hear, because that alone could be a 24-7, 365 job and at some point it's just not possible because you're not going to put those people in front of your family. I'm not going to spend all my free time at home with my family texting you to see how you're. You know how you're doing. I'm not going to. I will not do that and that's something that maybe that does limit the growth of Bison long term, and I think that's that can be a two-way street. But I think that trying to find the line of getting more members and keeping on to members but also staying on top of the performance of your staff is a key part to why some gyms don't do well.
26:16
Here's the reason why I struggle with this. I'll admit it. All right, I don't like saying this on a podcast, but I do struggle being friends with people that technically work for me and I don't even like saying it like that, I just don't, because I think mixing friends and business is really, really difficult. I thought you were friends with everybody who I am and I struggle with it Because there are times where I kind of want to grab some people and be like dude, what are you doing? But we're friends, so I don't. And it's like, hey, I see, when I say struggle with them, I do. I want to be friends with all of them, I want to hang out with them, I want to be around them. I love it when our coaches get together a few times a year, but does that cause a coach to get complacent and comfortable, like he's not going to fire me, we're friends or he's not going to come down on me too hard, we're friends. I don't think you've ever.
Sam RheeCo-host
27:07
You've always erred on the other side Too friendly. I don't think you've I 100% agree. I don't think you've ever really sort of took the hard line on anyone Right, so much so that, yes, you struggle with that a great deal, I agree.
David SyvertsenHost
27:22
I've never really been close to ever firing someone ever. Like, have I thought about it? Yeah, I'll be honest about that. I'm thinking about the future all the time. Who that I'm thinking about the future all the time? Who's going to be coaching here in five years? I don't know, Is it going to be the same staff, Maybe?
Sam RheeCo-host
27:38
maybe it won't be. It's not the same staff as it was four years ago. I like provoking you, because then I get the honest answer from you so. I'm poking. And then you're like Sam, you suck at this, you suck at that, you're annoying about this. And then I'm like oh okay, I got the real feedback.
David SyvertsenHost
27:50
Well, even I think even like what someone like Liz or any head coach can struggle with because she's kind of new in this role of running the staff. It's like you know, if you know someone like Liz well enough, she is like she's so nice, like too nice sometimes, but if you piss her off, watch out, like seriously watch out. But that's kind of what you want to be. It's like a parent, right, I always want to be Brock's buddy, but I do want him to be afraid of me. Now do I want grown-ass adults in our gym, on our staff to be afraid of me? No, I take zero pride in that, but I do want there to be a feel of and this is why I want to bring this up to gym owners that feel like they get to a peak and they start going down.
28:29
That, I think, is a part of the reason why you can't separate. I try my best to separate business and personal and I think I can I'm not sure others can and I feed into it. I kind of tailor myself around that. Some people will say, Dave, that's bad leadership by you. That's fine, to each their own. I don't think it's bad leadership, but at some point, if that happens year after year, I think the quality of the staff goes down. I think.
Sam RheeCo-host
29:02
I understand what can go down. I understand what you're saying because let's suppose you went the other way and you were too blunt, yeah right, these people Right, a lot of them would be offended and hurt and that could bring down the gym the other way. And I know that because I am often blunt with people and I often rub people the other wrong way sometimes, and so I can see that. So, finding that balance where you can be very honest and direct, especially with the people that are responsible for helping you grow the gym, and not being too lenient and allowing them to not do the jobs that they're supposed to do in terms of growing the gym this is something I know you wrestle with every single day.
David SyvertsenHost
29:48
Oh yeah, no, it's an everyday struggle. And for the record, because I have to know, we're on a podcast right now. I love everyone on our staff. I love our coaches. If I had it my way every coach that's been here I'd bottle them up and we'd be doing this forever.
Sam RheeCo-host
30:04
It's okay, you can tell me my criticism off air, I can take it.
David SyvertsenHost
30:10
But I do think that's a part. I'm just trying to find other reasons. It's not just Bison stuff. I talked to an affiliate owner because I'm trying to reach out to more affiliate owners about coming on with us.
30:22
I have a cool one coming up. I'll tell you after and she was telling me this is like one of her biggest struggles as well. I know it's not a bison thing. This is a gym thing where relationships change. In 10 years they just do you change, I change, a lot changes and that can get in the way of running the operation the way it should be run to constantly grow the gym. And I always say I put pressure on coaches Everything falls down from you guys. If what you guys do, they will do good and bad and coaches and owners get a lot of credit for building something up, but they should also feel blame if something goes down.
Sam RheeCo-host
30:58
You know we've always gone back to the service mentality and I know we've said that over and over again and I think the people that are around you, the your coaches, the affiliate owners, whomever if they are not thinking service mentality not just to their owners, but to you as their boss, as their, as the leader, as the person who's sort of running the show, who's sort of running the show they need to get on board with that. And that's the problem is that, if you know, think of yourself as an affiliate owner or someone with all your coaches, do they have a service mentality towards you, your gym, your members, or is it just like punching a card, checking in, making sure I'm doing enough so I don't get my ass fired? Get paid, right, let me get paid. Then I'm only here for the check. Then I mean, listen, I don't think any of us at our staff, anyone in our staff, feels that way.
David SyvertsenHost
31:58
But I do but a gym that really starts to struggle, that's somewhere where you should look.
Sam RheeCo-host
32:02
I think so, and I think that that's why the decisions that gyms make in terms of who they hire as they get bigger is even more critical than at the beginning of growth.
David SyvertsenHost
32:13
That's a great point. You're looking for different things as the gym gets bigger.
Sam RheeCo-host
32:17
That's a good point.
David SyvertsenHost
32:18
Yeah, does HQ leadership? Do they dictate how much a gym starts to struggle after they hit that peak? And again you could also say does it help them grow, because we started off this podcast with the rise and fall of a CrossFit gym. Does CrossFit HQ help someone get bigger? And then are they a part of the problem if it starts to crash down.
Sam RheeCo-host
32:41
I mean, they organized this affiliate meeting that you were participating in, yeah, so what do you think?
David SyvertsenHost
32:47
I think and the guy that ran the call the other day has been in the game a long time too this current leadership is doing more than any CrossFit leadership has ever done to help affiliates. Now the affiliates need to go do their thing. It's like creating a good program, a good workout program. You still got to go the work right. You know it's um. I think they're doing a great job getting gyms off the ground. Their affiliate toolkit is legit like I went in there.
Sam RheeCo-host
33:13
It is legit like you think affiliates other than you believe this though.
David SyvertsenHost
33:18
I think people are victim mentalities, so if something doesn't go wrong, they're always going to point fingers. I'm a victim, I'm a victim, I'm a victim. They don't look inward. I think that's a bigger problem. I see that's a life issue, though I don't want to go. I don't want to go, I don't want to make, I don't want to throw any like innuendos out there. I do think that's a big thing. People, when something's going wrong, they always point the finger. They don't look inward.
33:39
I think cross it is doing everything they possibly can to make an affiliate successful, but that in and of itself is probably not 20% of the work that is required. So there's been a lot of changes. I think one thing I could see this current leadership do a better job of is the loudest voices in CrossFit media are naysayers, the truthers. Yes, they like Hiller or Savant. They crush leadership all the time. I wish these guys would puff their chests out, have a freaking CrossFitcom podcast and Don Falls on there, sometimes JD Kuhn's on there, austin's on there they have guests on there and they combat it and not say hey guys, andrew Hiller said this about me, so I'm going to say this about him. No, no, just, I think it's pretty easy. I think it would be a pretty easy thing for them to do to take every negative piece of information that is hurting their brand and hurting their reputation and have someone that is good at talking to go out there and be like hey, x, y, z, almost like turning into like what we're seeing with the political, with the election coming up. It's like this person says that and that person says no, it's not true, this is that. And then they play this game back and forth, which is hard to watch. It's like watching a car accident but at least it can help you save face in some ways or expose your side of the truth to a certain situation.
34:56
I think Cross is doing a really good job. I really do with the leadership, and it's not because we're about to see Don Fault, it's not because we're a part of this affiliate summit. I really do think I've been in this a long time. I saw with Glassman, I saw with Rosa and all these different CEOs. I think there's more stability at the top now than there's ever been, but I wish there was more communication from their side saying we're doing this, we're doing this, look at this, look at these numbers, look at those numbers but but they don't. And I think that's the science can be damning sometimes. I agree, and I think that would help affiliates.
Sam RheeCo-host
35:25
I think they're trying, but Hiller always gets more views when he says CrossFit sucks and this you know. They banned me from the open and all this kind of stuff. Well, get off.
David SyvertsenHost
35:35
PEDs. Seriously, you're not allowed to compete if you're on PEDs.
Sam RheeCo-host
35:39
I hate that, but I'm just saying like that's what the people eat up. Is this controversy?
David SyvertsenHost
35:43
people love negative stuff, conflict yeah, it's not about kumbaya and getting together, because that that doesn't draw eyeballs yeah, no, I, I wouldn't even say the kumbaya is going to get the numbers of negative, negative media attention gets more attention. That's why steven a smith is great at what he does with sports broadcasting. He just pisses people off. Skip bayless like yep, I know those get more numbers and maybe even in some cases more influence. But there are a lot of affiliate owners like me, a lot that don't like they. I don't feed into that stuff like I don't believe in that. I don't believe in the way they run their operation because I know they're just trying to get clicks and make money off it. But from my eyes it's a failed affiliate owner telling cross that they're doing a bad job. It's like I don't think I've ever really heard him expand further on, like why he does not still own an affiliate and he loves crossfit so much. Why don't you open an affiliate and help more people out? And I? That's the kind of messaging I would love to get from crossfit. It's like, all right, we're not gonna match those views and those downloads, but we're gonna give something for the dave cyrstens of the world to be like all right, cool man, like I'm still behind you because I like what you're putting out and I think that can help improve the brand. Now, does this help a gym grow or not? I don't know. I personally don't think a Hiller, a Savant, these guys that like to crap on new leadership I don't think they have any impact on CrossFit affiliates worldwide. I don't. I personally don't. I think they have loud minorities that will just be very vocal about what they believe in. But I believe that CrossFit can do a better job of putting messaging out there and communicating with us as affiliate owners to really say like, hey, we're in this together. I do think that does dictate the rise and fall of a gym fit, how volatile it can get.
37:22
Last thing here okay, crossfit, at the end of the day it's really hard. It's a hard fitness program. Can that lead to a fall of a gym? Because I will say it took us I don't know, eight, nine, 10 years to get to 300 plus members that are coming here, 300 plus accounts, whatever you want to call them, and you do cross it for a long time there. But at some point there is a growing group of people that get to 40, 45, 50. You're like, dude, it's too hard. I mean listening to Tim talk about it. Stuff like they the squat snatches going upside down, the ring muscle-ups, the constant scaling, the constant feeling I'm losing Everyone's RX, I'm scaled my my times. It gets to a point could that eventually where people just get sick of it and it's a big group of people and that's what leads to the demise of across a gym. What do you think about that?
Sam RheeCo-host
38:14
because I think that's the biggest thing yes, but uh, I go back and forth on this. So so for a while we've been talking about this, especially after Tim like, how do we capture those people who don't feel like they're winning, because CrossFit is hard. Your performance numbers may not look as good as boost for them. Those are the people that I admire as much or more than the people who have left. Oh, 1,000%, so like, for example, I was thinking I was sitting next to Matt Aquino in class the other day.
38:58
Guy's had a blown pec, had surgery, microdiscectomy for his back, and he's in the gym every day that he can possibly be in there. He's scaling some stuff, some stuff he's killing, and he is so mindful of what he's doing and sometimes his numbers look pretty good. Sometimes they don't look good at all, but you know what? He's in here every day working out, and so when I think of the athletes who have been great athletes, worked out a lot, did a lot, got injured, didn't or just felt like this was too hard or didn't like it because they weren't winning, and I can think of at least five people off the top of my head who I still have respect for. Yeah, right, but I'm like dude, listen, this isn't about your like. You can figure out how to make this work for you.
39:45
You can stay tough, like those who stay will be champions. I wonder who said that. Maybe it was Jim Harbaugh, or no, it was before that. It was the coach at Michigan before that. This is a hard program, but that's because it builds both mental and physical toughness, right, right.
David SyvertsenHost
40:03
And so resilience, resilience, yeah.
Sam RheeCo-host
40:05
And so sometimes I'm thinking well, how do we bring in all of the people who find this too challenging, who are worried about injury, who don't want to do this, that or the other thing? And then I'm like you know what I'm doing CrossFit. I'm 55. I've gotten injured every which way possible and I scale a bunch of stuff. There are certain things I don't like doing, but you know what I'm pushing myself because I don't know of another program that does this better, at least for me. And so I'm like well, maybe we grow at the expense of sort of compromising a little bit. But you know who would not want to hear that?
40:41
Adrian Bosman, like those guys, the purists and sometimes I'm completely on their side Pat Sherwood, these old CrossFit guys, I'm completely on their side, and we saw Adrian Bosman work out. He is not who he was. He scales stuff, he's careful with what he does, but he brings a lot of intensity. We don't define him by it. No, we don't. And so I go back and forth Do we grow our gym by catering to the people who find CrossFit too hard? Or do we say, listen, we are who we are, crossfit is what it is, and maybe by compromising we actually lose our focus and we get smaller.
David SyvertsenHost
41:21
I mean that's one of my fears. That's one of my fears. Here's a practical example. Here at CrossFit Bison I know some of you guys do this as well we use an old-fashioned whiteboard and marker and we write down everyone's score. Here's a really cool question. Answer it, Don't answer it Whatever you want. Sam, If we did not write down one score on the whiteboard, we just wrote thing, Would that make people feel better about themselves when they come to the gym?
Sam RheeCo-host
41:55
I think it's a litmus test. I think the people who their ego doesn't define them, who come in to challenge themselves, who want to see their number, regardless if it's good, bad or indifferent, they want to see that and I respect them more than the people who are like, oh, this is, everyone gets a participation trophy, everyone's above average, everyone is doing great, like you know what. Some days and some days I lean one way. I know you do. You go back and forth. Right now I'm leaning towards you know what. Forget those people, listen, put your number up, see what it is. If it's not good, work harder or work smarter, work differently. Accept it, live with it. You're doing the best that you can. That's okay. I think that that is one of the key components of CrossFit.
David SyvertsenHost
42:32
If you like having your score up there when it's a good score or it says RX next to it and that made you feel proud. If you like that feeling, you are not allowed to say that score should not be up there, period, you're not. Because that's where you're starting to make an operation like this about you. It's like, yes, on my good days, put that up there, putting caps lock, right in a bigger marker, right in the only color, so that everyone sees it, but on the other days, no, let's not record scores. It's not going to make me feel good about myself.
43:04
I hate saying this. That's a massive you problem that needs to be fixed and it will go into other areas of your life and you can run and hide. That's fine, and I think this is what happens with a lot of CrossFit gyms that they grow and then they come back down. There's 30 reasons. We just talked about a lot of them. The one thing I would say that, hey, it's on the athletes, it's on the members and coaches and owners. I want you to not stress about it and not change who you are and what you're trying to do is, and I don't want to say, forget about them, but I don't want you changing your operation, because someone's self-esteem and their inability to not compare themselves to others is going to dictate your business that you've been building for 5, 10, 15, 20 years.
43:52
Because the second you accommodate that. You're going to start accommodating everything else. Oh, I don't want to squat anymore. It hurts me, so we shouldn't squat. Okay, so these eight people, they don't like to squat, let's not squat. I don't like to deadlift. It's not very functional. I hurt my back, so, okay, so the whole gym's not going to deadlift. Okay, running really beats up my joints and it's kind of dangerous down here, so I'm not going to. Okay, all right, we won't run anymore. It's going to carry over.
44:27
Bit, screw into, like, really like, screw into. What do you want the gym to be? What do you think it should be Right? And and try to be as unwavering as possible in that regard, because the second you let go of that. I guarantee within a year you're going to be wavering on something else. You're going to be called that pushover.
44:40
And I think one thing that's really hard to accept as an affiliate owner it's not going to be the same people 10 years from now. It's just not. But they will have the same quality, the same quality. Yes, that's what you should be striving for. Yes, that's a great way to end. It is really find out what you want your gym to be and then, if they lack of a better term, if they don't fall in line with what you truly believe in and again we're talking about the rise and fall of across the gym you got it up Like it rose and if it starts to fall at some point, like that doesn't mean you're doing what you're doing is wrong. It just means that those people are no longer into that kind of mindset. But you should be able to find others. So that's one thing. If the business ever failed and we might fail at some point, sam I don't want it to be because I was inconsistent with my personal beliefs on what we should do it would just. You know, that is something I wouldn't be able to live with for the rest of my life. All right, thank you guys. That kind of sums up.
45:33
That's a little bit of a heavy podcast for coaches, owners and members of Across the Gym. Things go up and down and I think it's really important for you to take note on this podcast episode to say like why do they go up, why do they go down, and what is your response to both? I think that's really important. I think you get a lot out of what we just talked about. Thank you, oh, it was Bo Schembechler, michigan coach Bo Schembechler, most of us weren't born yet. Okay, bye, see you guys. Thank you everybody for taking the time out of your day to listen to the Hurt Fit Podcast. Be on the lookout for next week's episode.
