Don't Buy Ads: Grow Your CrossFit Box

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.

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.

Our Debt To The Best

...or, "Why You Owe Jason Khalipa 50 Bucks."

If you haven't seen the movie, "Every Second Counts," you owe yourself the pleasure. It follows five favourites through training for CrossFit Games 2008, and it's a great story about the unpredictability of CrossFit, and the unlikeliness that we'll ever see a repeat champion at the Games (go ahead, discuss below.)

The last five minutes is the best: after spending 90 minutes building up Dutch Lowy, Speal, and Josh Everett and OPT, we're led to believe that the final event will be a showdown between Spealler and Everett. It's couched this way: will the little, fast guy win; or will the bigger, stronger, competitive OLY lifter?

Speal goes first (he has a head start via points earned from the previous events.) At around rep #15, he's caught by Everett, who picks apart reps like they're a pile of PickUpSticks. He slows a bit, but keeps moving; and with five reps to go, the judge starts counting backward to the foregone conclusion.  I'm disappointed for Speal, but then.....with two reps to go, there's a loud noise off-camera. The cameraman quickly pans, searching...and here's this guy, Jason Khalipa, with his arms in the air and a small crowd of fans slapping him on the back. He had won CrossFit Games 2008.

"We didn't know who he was," said Dave Castro in the post-interview. "We almost kicked him out of the briefing room, because we didn't think he was supposed to be there." I'm paraphrasing, but that stuck with me.

In 2009, Khalipa got off to a bad start. Again, we were told that we should watch the usual suspects: Spealler, Everett, Khalipa, and a couple of others. But we knew, didn't we? We KNEW that anyone could rise up from the murk. We were smarter. So when Khalipa faltered in the run, I wrote him off. He lay, collapsed on the tarmac, dehydrated and semiconscious; I left the computer to go outside and get some work done, disappointed.

Over the next two days, I followed every Twitter feed I could find about the Games. It was obvious that Khalipa was making a comeback, but without high speed internet in the Valley where we live, it was like awaiting Morse Code from the battle Front. In fact, in the last event, where Khalipa capped an amazing competition with a huge effort, the last Twitter feed of the Games read, "Khalipa's heading to the finish line!" I thought he'd won.

The best thing you can do in your Box? Tell the stories of your Family. But there's a macro-story, too; it's about your Tribe's place in a larger counterculture movement. THAT story tells us about carrots, not sticks; it shows us what's possible at the upper end.

Imagine yourself, at age eight, playing basketball in your yard. "Michael Jordan fades....time for one last shot...swish!" You put yourself in those huge shoes. When Jordan was at his peak, David Stern (NBA Commissioner at the time) was touring eastern Africa. In nearly every city, town, or remote village, kids would have hats and t-shirts with "23" or the famous 'Air Jordan' logo on them. The kids didn't know how to play basketball, but they knew who Michael Jordan was.  And when Stern showed them how to take a free throw, they willingly picked up the game over soccer, the perennial favourite. That was Jordan's reach.

I have a three-year-old. He's stocky. He likes handstands, tag, and building forts with our plyo boxes. Five years from now, can you imagine him doing pullups: "Khalipa's got 3 left, now two; he's going for the finish line!" .......

Here it is: the final from 2008. Just because I love it.

 

"Now-That" Test One

Two weeks ago, I posted on an interesting observation from Dr. John Ratey: "Now-that" rewards go farther than the old "if-then" type.  We decided to put it to the test during our largest event of the year: Catalyst Games 2010.

After we closed registration, we announced our 'Grand Prize': a cruise for two to the Bahamas.  A member had donated the cruise as a prize for the Games, and we'd hinted that we had something awesome to give away, but we didn't tell anyone WHO would win, or HOW.

As soon as registration closed, we announced, "NOW THAT you've taken the bold step, we're going to reward you: everyone who finishes all four events is eligible to win a cruise." Participants had 1 chance in 53 - pretty great odds - as long as they followed through on their commitment to try. 

The feedback was immediately positive, and had the effect of underlining our predominant message: we want our folks to go where they're uncomfortable, do what they fear, and emerge on the other side.  Yes, someone's going to come first, but everyone's going to win, and not in the ridiculous "everyone-wins-because-there's-no-loser" way that schools now think is useful.

In fact, when a small issue arose afterward regarding the rankings, the participants didn't even blink. Here's the story: at the last minute, in an attempt to keep participants shooting for the highest level, I threw out a concept that I called 'dynamic scaling': you could do event #1 as Rx'd, then drop to Scaled for event #2, then go back up to Rx'd for event #3, and so on.  At the end of the day, you were ranked according to your lowest scaled level.  The mathematicians in the crowd are wincing already, I can tell....

Our third-place finisher in the womens' Rx category should have been dropped to Scaled #1. She had the good sense to not balk, to jump onto the podium and accept a bouquet, and then discreetly mention to our scorekeeper that there was an error. She was embarrassed, but it wasn't her fault. No big deal; the actual third-place finisher was Catalyst's own RMT, and she declined flowers anyway.

There were other, smaller points errors, but they didn't affect the outcome, and there were no complaints, even from those directly affected.  With one exception: a participant would have liked perfection in the scoring, and made it known.  Realizing that a rehashing of all events would require days of work by an exhausted volunteer staff, I asked a few of the judges for their opinion. They agreed unanimously that we'd correct errors if requested by the athlete directly affected, but not by others.

NO ONE asked for correction.  Surely, people spotted errors.  But they GOT IT. We'd put our money where our mouth was by reinforcing the notion that participation in competition was the goal AND the reward. In return, we received six emails stating that we'd changed the life of the participant; we received 2,000 pictures on facebook (and dozens of conversations with strangers,) 7 new members the following week, some great media footage, and a warm afterglow that, frankly, hasn't worn off, 8 days later.

I think we've got a winner here....

How We Did It

 
I advocate doing regular (but not normal!) events to keep interest high and training intense.  That's no secret.  Our lineup, over the next 12 months (insert 3 Virtualmeets, likely) :

November 20 - FranFest (partner challenge.)

January - No Grains - All Brains! Eating challenge.

March - Murph 2011 - in the snow. Hugely popular.

April - Fight Gone Bad (Good Friday)

May - BaseLine Week (Angie, Michael, Grace, Kelly, and Fran, plus a deadlift meet, over 6 days.)

July - Midnight 5k - with bands.  A fundraiser.

September - Catalyst Games 2011 (our annual championship.)

Yesterday, Cody asked how the heck we got all these people to turn out; it's no secret that FGB V is seeing declining enrollment, sadly.  I don't have the answer to increasing turnout for FGBV (it's more awesome than ever!) but here's what we do:

1. Add the event on our site.  Build up to it for a few days.

2. Don't release event details or rules all at once...or add a twist, in the case of Murph.

3. Stress, in all your posts, that you're encouraging competition of self.  As one beautiful email read today, "I now consider myself a competitor, but on my own terms." Loved it.  Our grand prize - a cruise, donated by a sponsor - went not to the top male or female Rx finisher, but was randomly drawn from every person who finished all events (ie didn't quit, or 'tap out.') 

4. For the big stuff, use a venue outside your box.  We used a giant waterfront Pavilion, right on the river.  Absolutely gorgeous.  Sound system, lots of room, bleachers....well, you can see for yourself on our Catalyst Games 2010 site.  Can't do it? Change your box around.  You have to let people know they're not just paying for another workout.

5. Despite having a time cap on every event, don't award a DNF; instead, make it clear that every rep counts.

6. Have scaled categories, right down to the very lowest level.

7. Pump up the kids.

8. Hold a 'best photo' contest - we had 2000 entries submitted on facebook for the Games last weekend.  Of the 7 new members gained so far this week, 6 saw pictures on facebook before calling.

9. Invite media.  If you have to, make it a charitable event (winners of the Catalyst Games 2009 got to donate $250 each to any charity they wanted.)

10. Build excitement at the venue.  We let anyone who owns a business and trains at our Box put up a banner for free. Lots of colour.  And most wound up kicking in a prize anyway.  We feigned surprise when the offered.

11. Build the family all year. YOU can't talk 50 people into participating; but their friends sure can. Our cruise winner was dragged in, kicking and screaming....but as soon as we said "3,2,1...go!" on the first event, she tried hard.

12. Create souvenirs that won't be duplicated.  We gave away cowbells with Catalyst Games 2010 logos on them.  They make a lot of noise.  They also look great on people's mantels.

13. Drag out the suspense.  We build things up to a fever pitch.

14. Reassure folks that there won't be anything they can't do. We trickled out all four events early....but the last was only released 48 hours before the competition.  Everyone knew they could finish, at least.

15. Offer online signups. We use MindBodyOnline.  Pretty easy to commit to something online that you'd never do in person, and if there's money involved, they won't back out.

16. Set a rate instead of having each person fundraise.  I hate asking people for money, and if you took a poll, I'd bet that most people pay the minimum themselves instead of asking for help from friends.

17. Keep putting out philosophical articles, stressing the value of completion v. competition. Remind the most nervous that it's in YOUR best interest to make THEM look good on Games day.

18. Feature the athletes individually. Put up athletes' profiles for ANYONE who will answer a few questions. Use these to demonstrate the huge spectrum of athleticism that will be present; to build up the family by telling everyone's stories; to show who's endorsing your program with their participation.

19. Instruct referees to keep everyone fair, but when in doubt, to give it to the lifter.  To that end, it helps not to have a high degree of technical difficulty; we use "ground to overhead" instead of "snatch," because we don't want to have different judging standards for different athletes.

20. Keep reminding people that they're a part of something bigger than themselves; that they're not alone out there.  We had lots of 'Catalyst' banners; we also had some awesome 'CrossFit' banners.

21. Get some high-level acknowledgement. When Lisbeth posts our pic on the A-blog, everyone hits 'like.' When we did FranFest last year for charity, Jason "Rhabdo" Kaplan wrote a nice paragraph on strategy.  The guy holds the world record - 1:57 - and all I had to do to get him to contribute was to ask. No one's asked my opinion, but wouldn't it be amazing if we had a CFHQ trainer at Ontario Sectionals next year, running a WOD for spectators, or doing the first event with the competitors?

22. Get some graphics work done. Our shirts were great (we printed the poem, "Invictus" on the back; last year, we used Jon Gilson's "Don't Quit.")

23. Build continuity between events.  We release the next event a few days after each event, because the afterglow effect is still big. We'll als be adding a points series in January, and a 'league' system at the same time.  More to come on those ones.

24. Include the spectators, if possible. Our photo contest is one way; these are the most likely 'next CrossFitters' around your Box.  Grab them.

25. Give people a common place to reflect and share memories. Facebook is great, but if you're not friends with everyone, you'll miss stuff. So I opened up the Games blog to comments, just for one day, for people to share stuff.

26. If you have athletes with special needs, GET THEM IN THERE. They need competition. And you need to deliver it to them.

27. If you see anything 'cool' in other sports, steal it! For instance, motocross - a growing 'fringe' sport - uses 3-digit race numbers instead of the standard two.  So we did, too. They just look cool.

28. Standardize the judging as much as possible.  Miss a rep? Yellow card - repeat, please.  Miss another one? Red card.  Do 3 reps over. Take the subjectivity away as much as possible.

29. Use a microphone.  Mention everyone by name during each and every heat.  If you're comfortable doing play-by-play, that's even better.

30. Sponsors - if you want them, remind them that CrossFitters are an extremely loyal group.  Mention to 50 CrossFitters that Dr. Chiro supports the program, and he's got far more value than in any other possible medium. Charge accordingly.

31. Use off-brand, 'insider' logos to maintain the sense of group differentiation.  In the pictures from the event, you'll see a lot of 'Green Army' shirts.  That's us...but there's no mention of Catalyst on there.  Also, everyone here knows that anyone wearing a 'Sport of Fitness' hat has puked during a WOD.

I'm forgetting things, I"m sure. I'll add more; please add posts to 'comments' if you have ideas!