Don't Buy Ads: Grow Your CrossFit Box

Contrast: The Marketing Fulcrum

Before YouTube was even rolling, Nike had already been beating the Michael Jordan horse for well over a decade. He'd been serious; sweaty; funny. He'd said, "Just do it" a million times....and it was getting trite. The most popular slogan the world had ever seen was becoming so ingrained in the lexicon that it was a cliche.  No longer did it inspire; now it was everywhere, watered down to the point of teflon. It wasn't sticky.

So Nike hired a different marketing firm, who came up with this idea: let's go the opposite direction. This commercial, called "It's Not The Shoes," reinvigorated the marketplace by casting Jordan in a role other than lead character. For once, he was the 'straight man.'

Does the commercial show an Air Jordan shoe in a closeup eight times in 31 seconds? Yes. Does "Mars Blackman" say the word, "SHOES!" nine times, mostly in the last five seconds? Yes. But the position: not the shoes.

When Jilly Bigboop visits McFit, what's their sales line? I'll tell you, because it hasn't changed in a decade: "We have lots of machines. More than anyone else." Why machines? The best sales staff will know to try to sink an emotional anchor: "Machines are safe and easy to use." In other words, you won't embarrass yourself by looking like a rookie, or injuring yourself in front of everyone.

In our struggle to sum up CrossFit in a paragraph - or, our Elevator Pitch - we often find it easier to explain what we're NOT: mirrors. Dress codes. No sweating. No mindless drudgery that makes you hate yourself, provides no Bright Spots or objective measurement for progress, puts you in ANOTHER windowless cubicle for SEATED boredom with a side of processed white flour for three hours while you're watching ANOTHER SCREEN and leaning on the handlebars to collect more irrelevant DATA about an ill-perceived notion of fitness....

Sorry, I got carried away. And that's what happens when I try to answer the question, "What's CrossFit?" about half the time.

When Lisbeth does her insightful "Affiliate Spotlight" features on the A-blog, it strikes me how many Affiliate owners provide the same answer to, "What word best sums up your gym culture?" The answer:

COMMUNITY.

CrossFit IS community. It's NOT the gym. It's NOT kettlebells plus Westside plus POSE plus a bunch of crazy acronyms. It's needing no mirrors, because your buddy knows to tell you when your shoulders are too far forward at the start of your clean pull. It's coaching, not easing. It's cheering, not hiding. And it's pride, not a dimly-lit hallway with an overdeveloped weight scale and a hundred pounds of judgment.

Held up against the pasty pale background of GloboGym (now open twenty-four hours!) CrossFit is a bright swath of crimson. Get to know the sales pitch of the anti-fitness, and do the opposite.

Illusive Predictability

A few weeks ago, in a small-group session, the speaker put forward the idea that your staff doesn't need you to be nice; it needs you to be predictable. This is also SuperNanny's position, for the record, and just about every parenting textbook's central theme. Your staff aren't children, of course, but you're in a position of guidance.

The CrossFit 2011 Open is winding up. Most of the initial fears about scoring, testing, and preparation were cleared up as we went along (including a massive new leaderboard, which appears to work the way God and Glassman intended.)

The last subject, and the hardest to address, though, is consistency among judges. While the credentials required (Level 1 Cert) DID set a baseline qualification, the actual movements selected required experience beyond what was covered in the Big Weekend. For example, I was comfortable calling a strict depth on Overhead Squats, having competed and refereed Powerlifting events for several years pre-CrossFit. Some weren't comfortable. Some were too comfortable.

We were graced with several visiting CrossFitters over the last five weeks (think the Open setup isn't great this year? Imagine how many CrossFitters pass through your area and DON'T look you up until they're forced to by the Open...). We LOVE having these folks in; we don't charge them; we referee them as their schedule permits. Most have done their WODs at three or more Boxes, though, and so they have unique insight into the judging standards. We're not all the same.

I believe, firmly, that CrossFit Affiliate Owners are GFPs. I think that every single person who volunteered hours to judge competitors did so with honesty in their heart and rigid adherence in their brain. But if John's on his last rep with 25 seconds left, and he's really great at muscle-ups....or Linda's just completed her first jerk at 110lbs, but her left arm didn't quite lock out, and the crowd is going crazy....it's tough.

The threat of punishment isn't effective, because the honour shared among CrossFitters is high, and no one's going to willingly cheat. Intent is not the problem here; carrythrough IS. Threatening to remove an Affiliate's license is too tough a penalty, because HQ will be loathe to enforce their punishment.

What's the solution? A refereeing standard. I'm not talking about another Certification. The investment by the potential referee is their TIME - as always - but that investment could be required of all participating Affiliates.

Consider, if you will:

For an Affiliate to participate (host) an event, they must have at least one CF Referee on site for each competitor doing the WOD. No referee? No validation.

To become a Referee, a coach (minimum Level I Certified,) must complete a two-hour course (online video) on movement standards, and score a 90% on a video-based online quiz. A participant may retake the quiz, of course, as many times as they like.

Referees who are guilty of cheating, or allowing short reps, etc. just lose their permission to Referee. Why not have a ranking system for referees - 5 stars? - that participants can use when they submit their scores? If a referee averages less than three stars, well.....maybe they can compete next year instead. It's not possible for HQ to 'referee the referees,' so why not turn the system back on the user?

If the Referee course costs TIME instead of money, you won't have a shortage at your Box. With athlete-rating systems, you'll weed out the inconsistent. Eventually, the largest hurdle to an Online Open will decrease its effect.

The sport is evolving. With 30,000 people competing, we've become the largest tournament on Earth. It's time for the judging to rise to the level of our athleticism. Comments warmly welcomed.

DropBox - The Drug Dealer's Secret

She had a Mac; I had a PC. She needed video; I had a slow connection. And somehow, we met in the middle....

....well, not somehow. DropBox. I was reintroduced on the weekend, and it's addictive. File storage. Addictive file storage. The mind boggles.

On the weekend, I signed up for DropBox to deliver video of our CrossFit Open Master's competitor, Ted Fryia, to the Canada East Media Director. Thinking about it on the weekend, I knew it would work well for collaboration on the Ignite! textbook. I edit a file, drag it into the DropBox folder on my desktop, and everyone else gets a little icon on their Programs bar. It's automatically updated to include the edits on everyone's sytem. Cloud computing at its best.

And so, I sent an invite to Tyler, the Director of Education for the Ignite! project.

Pop! Up came a little icon - "you've got 250MB more storage!" Sweet.

Now, I won't pretend to understand volume retail. When I'm standing in line for coffee, I'm calculating wage costs against the price of a cup, and the ends don't seem to meet. Giving a service away for free, then, doesn't appear to be very profitable.

Then, pop! Tyler signed up, and my wife, and I got another 250MB of storage. Sweet. Mango, mango, mango. They also got the little icon, like a food pellet in the cage of a hungry hamster. I started thinking about who ELSE I could sign up....

This is the drug dealer's secret: give a little. Find some GFPs, and hand out a little dust. Let them give a bit, and receive the thanks from their friends. Let them feel good - temporarily - about recommending you. Instant, addictive mango.

We sell CrossFit groups in two different ways: the monthly unlimited for $135; or a punch card. Punch cards come in batches of 4, 8, or 16. Rarely does anyone do the '1-month unlimited,' even though it brings the price of attendance down to HALF the rate of the 16-punch card. We advertise the 'unlimited' rate because we needed a size larger than the 16-punch, which is purchased by 99 out of 100 CrossFitters.

What if, though, at 3:41pm today, when you were fighting the late-afternoon blahs, you got a ping? How about a little 'pop' in your inbox? "Congratulations!" it would read, "You've got 4 free CrossFit sessions! Thanks for referring Angie!"

"Why," you'd think, "if I just keep referring people, I can go for free.....forever!"

Of course, you can't. But you can go, for free, for a LONG time. Just invite some others. Instant mango. Press the lever, and the food pellet appears. I'm proof that it works. After all, you're tracking your referrals anyway....right?

humans, being

It's always struck me that the art in the CrossFit world is outstanding.

 
It's not just the subject matter, either. The photography, the writing, the film...there's a LOT of really moving stuff out there.

With so much content, it's no wonder that gems are really easy to find. The conditions are perfect to produce diamonds, and while I really like mining for them, it would be great to just hold my hand under the chute at the bottom of the mountain.

The best way to promote CrossFit is through people. Not just casual mention, but stories that can be shared, remembered, imprinted, and repeated. It's not enough to "get your name out there!" - you need context. And art is nothing if not context.

Marriage of the art and the people of CrossFit, from a promotional endeavour, seems like a perfect union to me. And so, in May, we're going to start our Summer Project. And you can do this craft with us.

I'd like to call it 'humans, being.' We'll launch a blog, a facebook page, a twitter feed (for URLs,) and a Flickr Pro page; our GFPs will be invited to submit as many pictures, essays, videos, and drawings as they like. Our 'humans,being' blog will just act as a carousel for CrossFit art.

I'm inviting you to participate. Want to start your own 'humans, being at CrossFit Siberia" site? You're welcome to share the idea. We'll link our Flickr pages, and our blogs. Just let me know, please. Let's try this whole newfangled "internet social media" thing out.

Rules? Profanity is fine; obscenity is not. Edits allowed. Copyrights waived for use by other Affiliates. I'll link our media sites as soon as they're ready (late May.)

GFPs

Chances are, your Box has its own lexicon: a mini-language of slang, acronym, and inside jokes. Good for you.

There's a good chance that your staff does, too. In the insurance world, clients are usually identified during conversation by their initials only, and every single form has its OWN title that sounds like a random Captcha password. "Did you do the OCF-18 for MP yet?" Means something to me...but may not to you, if you haven't used HCAI before.

The beauty of slang is that it doesn't have to mean the same thing - or even anything - to anyone outside its intended audience.

We've been studying the effect of perception and PRE-ception for the past month. When we're doing Ignite!, it's important that we 'set the stage' beforehand. When you hear, from a friend, that Jim is a terrific guy; salt of the earth, really; well, you're willing to give Jim the benefit of the doubt.

This is another reason why advertising doesn't work: there's no context. A brain can't remember an ad for long, because there's no story anchoring the "Big!BIG!BIIIIIG! SALE" to the reader's memory.

How do you refer to the 'members' at your Box? I call ours 'The Family;' 'The Tribe;' 'members;' 'clients;' - almost interchangeably. Outsiders sometimes call us 'The Cult;' 'Followers;' etc. But 'member' and 'client' aren't words that carry a charge.

What if we all started calling our "members" GFPs? It would certainly change the conversation.

"Hey Chris - this member says there's something messed up with her account."

"Coop - I have a GFP here who needs your help...." - a bit different.

"Chris - can you print me off a new-client enrollment form?"

"Chris - we've got a new GFP in the house!"

Even if the GFP is angry, or posting sarcasm on facebook, or refuses to give you a reference on LinkedIn, you're still dealing with a GFP. And that simple trick of context changes everything about your relationship with that person.

Annoying clients .....well, aren't. Not anymore. How could a GFP be annoying? If a GFP has a beef, it must be legitimate, because they're a GFP!

Wolfgang Puck says we should treat each interaction as if it were our first and only chance to make an impression. The concept: "Every Night Is Opening Night." It's a common speaker's trick to imagine that you know everyone in the crowd, and everyone in the crowd is a GFP. When you know that everyone in the room is a GFP, conversation is easy. You're all friends.

You can deal with clients, or you can spend your days talking to GFPs. I prefer the latter.

***okay, you haven't solved it yet. GFP = Great F* People.

The REAL Cost of Service

Seven years ago, I was sitting in the heavily-curtained living room of my wife's parents. I'd just told them that I was going to take the summer off from my job - Personal Training at a One-On-One 'Studio'. I loved my job, and my client list was heavy...but I wasn't making as much money as my wife. And we had no house, though we owned the property. We also had a baby.

If I'm confident in anything about myself, it's my capacity to learn ANYTHING, given time and frequent error. The practice mentality was burgeoning then, and I was confident enough to buy a 'How-To-Build-A-House' book somewhere.

My father-in-law was skeptical; he'd seen my handiwork (questionable at best, dangerous at worst) but in one of his greatest moments of diplomacy, suggested that I'd better refigure the actual cost of building a house myself. He even gave me a hammer. But he asked me this:

"How much do you make an hour?" It wasn't much. But it was more than a general carpenter's labourer, at the time.

If you're doing your bookkeeping; your cleaning; your scheduling; your staffing; your shopping...chances are, there's someone better at it. You're a METCON king...but you're not very efficient at doing month-end, are you?

Your value to your company is, in this order:

1. CEO

2. Spokesperson

3. Trainer.

4. Bookkeeper.

5. Janitor.

Maybe you're going to the Games, but that's not WHY your business is succeeding. It's growing because you're managing it...not because you're winning at WODs. Personally, I'm lucky enough to finish a respectable 4th among men on our team for the Open...and that's good enough, because my true value during the WOD is not 'rabbit.' It's Cheerleader.

My bookkeeper costs about $125 per month. That's two hours' personal training time. If I did the books myself, it would take me twice as long. That's a $250 value. Are you telling me that you can't sell TWO training spots per month?

Trainers, even, are easier to come by than business leaders, who see the whole big picture, goals and warts and all. Trainers don't have to plan; they have to smile. Teaching the snatch pull is easier, sometimes, than balancing your payroll taxes.

When confronted with a time decision, do you cancel a client to finish your mopping? I'd like to put forward the idea that you try prioritizing tasks by the hierarchy above. Each trumps all below itself.

*exception: if you're JUST starting, your time ain't worth much, muchacho. But it's the only asset you have, so squeeze it dry.

The Sponsorship Lever

YOU, my friend, are quite a catch.

You are the leader - physical, often mental, and in some cases, spiritual - of your Tribe.

In 2008, while deciding whether to Affiliate or not, I was watching a lot of Greg Glassman speeches on YouTube. In one case, he was talking to a room full of Level 1 trainees about the nature of CrossFit coaches:

 "We get in there, man. People tell us stuff they don't tell their spouse, or their preacher, or their shrink. We get invited to their weddings. They celebrate with us, and they want to cry on our shoulder."

That's a paraphrase, of course, but it always stuck with me because it's true.

Maybe because of the 'war buddies' bond post-WOD; maybe because people learn to surrender their own life, limb, and safety into the hands of the Coach; maybe because your social status is so highly reinforced by the feedback of their social web. In any case, people trust you to the core. When you say, "Do me a favour, and go grain-free for twelve days," they do it. When you say, "A 200lbs deadlift is NOT something most people can do," and give them a huge Bright Spot, they believe it. When you shake your head and pretend to curse because they've achieved a double-under on their first day in OnRamp, and"....you know how many MONTHS it took me to do that!?!?" you've earned it. They trust you. You have a social contract.

On one hand, you have to treat that contract with care. Recommend a product, and they'll buy it. Recommend the wrong product, or for the wrong reasons, and that social contract is broken forever. Use that lever for good, and the bond is strengthened.

For this reason, I don't sell supplements in our Box anymore. I hand out some free tastes, from my OWN jars...but make it clear that I don't profit from their sale. I don't allow others to advertise their supplements, unless they're sponsoring our athletes or our events. I'm cautious not to endorse something in which I don't personally believe. And I'd bet you're the same way.

In turn, this makes your Family a powerful buying group: if, on the rare occasion, someone DOES find something they like, thirty others buy one, too. In January, this was Buddy Lee ropes in our Box; in March, it was Again Faster Speed Ropes. Last fall, a member of the Catalyst family donated a week's cruise for two to the Catalyst Games; I advocate his service every chance I get (real estate,) because he's awesome at what he does.  When Glassman settled on a title sponsor for The CrossFit Games 2011 - he had his choice - he chose Reebok, because they sent their CrossFitters.

Last spring, I was invited to a race called the Mountain Maple. I'd never done a 5k before, but I kicked the Lizard Brain aside and signed up. Of course, I invited my Support Group: about 40 other members of the Catalyst Family, several of whom had never done a running race before, either. This more than doubled the previous year's total race attendance.

This year, the Mountain Maple invited me to be a title sponsor. The price: bring all those people back! Because I loved the race, though, I offered to do more: a little cash to pay for the medals for the kids' race (featuring ribbons in Catalyst Green!); a facebook group to excite the masses; a dirt-cheap running group to 'train' first-timers for the race; and use of our MBO software to accept online registration for the race.

Now, I'm invested in the success of the race, because I've promised big things: a beautiful lawn; shady trails; a long climb, but an antique apple orchard at the top. I WANT my Tribe to have a great time. Could you find a better sponsor than one who depends on the success of your event?

Conversely, what I'm gaining is attention: not drive-by, billboard, blink-and-forget attention, but context. I'm gaining a story in which the Family is central. I'm gaining a memory to share with people. On the more measureable/objective scale, I'm also gaining about 50 newcomers to our newsletter (part of the signup process through our MBO setup); a part of the memory of the event (the bright green ribbons,) and access (an overfilled "learn to run" group.)

Given a long enough lever, you can move the world. Just be careful which ones you press.

How To Pry A Brain

"Mrs. Appleton! Mrs. Appleton! Misty says there are chicks in the daycare...and one is driving a TANK!!!"

This was the nine o'clock news yesterday morning at my daughter's school. The pageboy was a six-year-old with a cowlick, and the source of his excitement was a modified fish tank with a heat lamp. Down the hall in the daycare centre, chicks were hatching every day, and the younger grades were being trooped down long lines to see the miracle of new life. News travels fast in the hallowed halls of Elementary School...but maybe not perfectly accurately.

Our brains don't put information together in a linear fashion. They're associative and contextual, which means that data doesn't stick around for long unless it's perceived as relevant to other data. If there isn't an emotional connection, or if there's no contextual 'box' into which to place new little bits, they're quickly discarded.

This is bad news for the 'read-and-memorize' method of our education system. It's good news for your CrossFit box.

While the worst way to learn something new seems to be rote memorization, the best way is to put it in a story or joke. Create a picture, draw a scene, and it's sticky. And permanent. While the precise wording may not carry from one teller to the next, the story won't change. This is research derived from storytelling traditions of other cultures, and well laid out in Moonwalking With Einstein, by Josh Foer.

One example: the Pythagorean Theorem of Triangles. I learned it in the tenth grade, I believe, and promptly flushed it down the brain stem. Years later, when Homer Simpson has a flash of rare insight inside the nuclear facility where he works, he touches his head and blurts, "Thesquareofthehypoteneuseisequaltothesumofthesquaresoftheothertwosides!" Now, I remember the equation perfectly, because it was placed in a memorable context.

The best part for CrossFit boxes: the more lewd, randy, dirty, or disgusting the story, the better it sticks.

In our world, then, news is best shared as a story. A note at the bottom of your WOD page that says, "Congratulations Mrs. Appleton on a 325lbs deadlift PR yesterday!" would be better replaced with a paragraph about Mrs. Appleton's previous back problems; her struggles with motivation before she found her deadlift Bright Spot; her previous best; her skinned shins and chalky hands; the shakiness in her hamstrings as she pulled the big weight.

For more on the role of memory and spreading news, check into the Ignite! blog later today for a post on "Memory Palaces." This is big stuff.

Buying Vs. Leasing

I did a post on this a few months ago.  Recent experience has illustrated, though, that most tenants don't know how much they're paying in rent compared to the actual cost of the building they're occupying.

In one building, the current owners were more than happy to give me this advice: "Just rent the bottom floor! That pays the mortgage on the whole building!" The building was 3 storeys tall, with over 24000 square feet; I wondered if the tenants on the bottom floor knew?

In another building listed for sale, this was part of the description: "Tenant pays 100% of mortgage; owner responsible for property taxes and incidental building repairs as necessary." If the tenant saw the ad, why WOULDN'T they purchase the property?

Fear. That's why.

In business, the taker of risk is the earner of reward. And there's nothing wrong with that.  But let's take a really close look at that risk; let's drill down into the murky unknown here and get all the cards on the table.

Fear #1: Price.  "I can't afford to buy a building!"

Really? Interest rates have never been lower (6% for a commercial mortgage in Ontario this morning.) At that rate, here's what you'd be paying monthly (including interest) for your mortgage:

Building Value            Monthly Payment (10-year amortization)

150,000                            1665.31

200,000                            2220.41

250,000                            2775.51

300,000                            3330.62

350,000                            3885.72

400,000                            4440.82

450,000                            4995.92

500,000                            5551.03

If you're currently paying $3900/month for your facility, that means you can buy a building worth $350,000 for the same monthly cost.

Fear #2: "I could be stuck with the building if the business goes bankrupt!"

News flash: it's easier to sell a building than to get out of a lease.

Let's say that the worst does happen: three years from now, you're destitute. You will NOT go from $250,000 per year to $0 per year overnight, though, so you'll have a few months to sell a building before you're absolutely broke. Even if you sell it for only 40% of the purchase price(very unlikely,) you can still break even, becuse you've essentially just paid rent for the three years of occupancy.

Conversely, if you go broke on the third year of a five-year lease, you'll be paying out the remainder unless you completely bankrupt your company. If you're NOT an incorporated company, you'll be paying out the remainder with the earnings from your second job at McDonald's.....

Fear #3: The Building is a Lemon. "I don't know anything about real estate!"

Nope, that's not your job. Luckily, it IS the job of many others. Get help. In our Box alone, we have several contractors; electricians; roofers; painters; and a HVAC engineer.

Fear #4: You'll be house-poor. "All of my cash flow will go into paying for the building!"

Maybe...at first.  But probably not: between the two facilities, we're currently duplicating costs on telephone, internet, taxes, heat and lights.  And  ten years from now, all that cash that's paying for the building will be paying YOU. If you own the building, your corporation will still pay rent indefinitely, even when the mortgage is gone. You'll just be paying yourself instead of the bank. How's an extra $4000/month sound? To me, it sounds like a retirement plan.

Fear #5: Things will go bad very quickly, somehow, and you won't be able to make the payments....

You're wrong. They won't. You're GOOD at this, and it's not because you're lucky.

The Ontario government offers a program for just this type of jump, however: they'll insure 90% of the purchase price against business failure. Your responsibility is to provide a 10% downpayment, and they charge a small premium (around 0.75%) for the fee. But the ability to walk away with only $30,000 of debt on a building worth $30,000 is worth it for most.

Is a building purchase right for everyone? Well, if you've read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, you may believe so. In the long-term, it takes care of a lot of the things that worry entrepreneurs: retirement income, earnings growth, long-term space requirements....