- Kareem Mayan is from SocialWOD.com -
Here's a little-known fact about Steve Jobs: he never launched a product based on vision alone. He always tested his theories against reality. He used the products himself, and observed and talked to others using them so that he could improve the product before launching it publicly.
For example, when Apple was contemplating building retail stores, they built a prototype of the Apple Store in a warehouse near Apple's campus in Cupertino. For over a year they watched people walk through the store to understand how they shopped, and changed the layout, materials, and staff training to improve the retail experience based on what they learned.
After a year of testing, Apple launched two stores in Virginia and California. After two years, they had 70 stores. Nine years later, Apple's revenue from Apple Stores was $11.7 billion - about 15% of overall company revenues.
Testing Jobs' vision against reality was key to creating a great experience for his customers. He better understood his customers' world view, fears, desires, and problems, so he was better able to serve them.
Now, how does this relate to you? When you fully understand the way your customers look at the world, you're better positioned to help them - and be compensated for it.
Take this prescription and grow your box in the morning
The best way to figure out your customers' worldview is to talk to them. Partly inspired by Chris' athlete survey, the SocialWOD crew recently ran a survey of more than 200 athletes, asking them about their gym. We then compiled the results into a free report.
Based on the data from our survey about how the average CrossFitter sees the world, there's a story to be told about how to grow your box.
Ready? Here's the prescription:
- Focus on creating a great community
- Help your athletes reach their goals
- Encourage your happy athletes to refer new members
First let’s meet some athletes
I'll be referring to three CrossFitters that are representative of the kinds of athletes you'll find at a gym. You can read about them in our article on creating customer personas for your gym, but I'll summarize them here:
- Get Fit Britt: she wants to lose weight and get in shape
- Weekend Warrior Wayne: wants to up his fitness level to dominate at another sport
- Firebreather Fran: eats Paleo, breathes fire, and lives for CrossFit
Now, let's talk about growing your gym.
Focus on creating a great community
Find your "Pillars"
Most communities have so-called "Pillars". You know who these people are - they're friendly, charismatic, confident, social butterflies, probably organize social events for your members every so often, and people are drawn to them. Find and cherish these athletes - they help you set the tone for your gym's community and make others feel comfortable and look forward to going to the gym every day.
They may or may not be Firebreather Frans, but they bring it every WOD and are there encouraging athletes when they finish.
They come to most - if not all - of your gym's events and probably help out, they comment on your gym's Facebook page and blog, and post CrossFit-related quotes and photos to other athletes' Facebook pages.
These are your bedrock - the folks that, along with you and your staff, form the basis of your strong community.
Grow your community
Wayne loves his gym's community - over 50% of respondents cited "Community" as the single favorite thing about their box.
Most gyms excel at community building, and research shows that stressful events - like sweating, bleeding, and hurting together - bring people closer.
But there are little things you can do to encourage your gym to be a friendly place for people. Here are three things you can do that'll go a LONG way:
1. Set the tone
You set the tone of your gym. Back in the day I took my on-ramp classes in the morning while a regular class was going on. In the regular class, there was a super friendly tall guy who'd be doing the WOD who'd always smile and say hi to us on-rampers as he worked out. As a newbie, it was a welcoming gesture to have another athlete say hello and recognize me every time I went into the gym. It was only later that I realized he ran the place, but that only helped - he set the tone that the gym was a welcoming place, and it made me feel more comfortable when my instinct was to feel uncomfortable (painful exercises, new language, new way of eating, new people, etc)
2. Integrate new people
Going to a new gym is like being the new kid at high school. Institute a 5 burpee penalty if athletes don't introduce themselves to new people, and enforce it. At the very least, have your members and especially coaches introduce themselves to new members at the beginning of every class. Knowing someone's name is the first step towards bringing them into your community and keeping them coming back.
3. Organize a social event once a quarter.
Your athletes want to socialize beyond the 10 minutes they spend BSing before and after class every day. It doesn't need to be a big deal; meeting at a bar, organizing a BBQ, doing a paleo potluck at your gym will provide a space for members to connect socially. You may even be able to rely on one of your "Pillars" to organize this - making them feel special by giving them permission to organize a gym-sanctioned event gives them cred, and makes your life easier.
Once you've got a strong and growing community, you're halfway there. People will start to come to the gym to see their friends, and athletes will check in on each other if they haven't seen each other at the gym recently. We know this is true because 25% of members cited "Community" as the #1 reason they keep coming back to their gym!
Help your athletes achieve their goals
If I asked you about one of your athlete's goals, would you know it? (that's tough, I know) Would you have it written down so you could look it up if you didn't know it?
This is where you earn your keep. "Coaching and programming" together made up 33% of athletes' favorite thing about their box, and "Results" was the #1 reason for nearly half of respondents as to why they kept coming back to their box.
The awesome thing about CrossFit is that this stuff works. But every athlete has different goals. Identifying and tracking WOD progress and goals are key parts of providing a kick-ass experience for your athletes.
For some, like Brit, it's to look better naked.
For the Waynes of the world, it's to improve his performance in life outside the gym.
And for the Frans of the world - the military, firefighters, police, and competitive athletes - they’re devoted to their training for professional reasons.
When you care enough to help an athlete identify his or her goals, and help them reach them, they will both LOVE you and sing your praises to their friends… especially when their friends remark on how amazing your athlete looks because she's lost weight / developed a six pack / looks smashing in a bikini.
I'd suggest doing a goals review at minimum once a year. Do the first one when they start, and then on every year anniversary - give them a call or snag them after a WOD for a quick review.
This is the juice, and an oft-neglected part of the CrossFit athlete's experience. Help your athletes succeed and you've got an advocate for life.
Encourage your happy athletes to refer new members
Other than location, a referral was the key reason why people chose their gym - 25% of athletes joined via a referral. Referrals are FREE marketing that's dependent on you offering a service that works, and being liked by your members.
Odds are your athletes will refer their friends to you because a) you and your community are awesome and b) they want their friends to experience the life-changing potential of CrossFit.
You can help this process by asking your athletes to refer their friends and giving them a reason to do it. Incentivizing both athlete and the person they refer works even better (maybe a free month of membership to each?)
We're going to do a few blog posts on the SocialWOD blog on how different gyms implement their referral programs in the upcoming months.
Summary
Based on the data from the Athlete Survey, here's how to grow a thriving, successful box, in a nutshell:
- Focus on creating a great community
- Help your athletes reach their goals
- Encourage your happy athletes to refer new members
I hope this data our CrossFit athlete survey gave you a little more insight into how to grow your gym.
There's much more insight in the free report, and tips you can act on today to build your business. If you're interested, head on over to SocialWOD and grab it.
PS> We’re going to run surveys for 10 gyms for free. Details are on page two of the report.
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Kareem Mayan is a co-founder of SocialWOD, the only no-work, whole-gym WOD tracker for busy CrossFit gym owners. He's been CrossFitting for almost four years, and has Level 1 and Mobility certs.
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