The 7 Mistakes CrossFit Gym Owners Make that Irritate their Best Members
By: Cori DiDonato, Owner, CrossFit Silver Tiger and Silver Tiger Consulting in Wakefield, MA
There are a number of idiotic things CrossFit box owners and coaches do that unknowingly irritate their members. I am both a consumer of CrossFit and a provider of CrossFit, so I have seen both sides of the equation. I have been a CrossFit affiliate owner at a large box and personal training studio for 10 years and am currently a CrossFit affiliate owner at a small garage box, so a good chunk of my consulting practice is dedicated to working with other CrossFit affiliate owners. If any of the 7 items below happen at your box, please, for the sake of your best clients and members stop doing them.
#7 Cancelling classes the Night Before or the Day of that "Only" Have 1 Person Signed Up
I have seen this happen too often and it does nothing to help your gym grow or make your members happy. This is not the same as cancelling a class that has zero sign ups the night before. If no one is interested, or can't be bothered to sign up, that is different. If you do have someone signed up, however, you owe them the courtesy of holding the class so they can continue with your programming on their path to health and wellness. If you cancel, the one dedicated person that signed up the night before now can’t take their class even after they planned their day to include it. Affiliate owners that do this most often don’t have a strong model for pricing their memberships or paying their staff coaches, so they actually think they are “saving” money by cancelling on one of their most dedicated members. If this is happening, there are ways to transition your pricing and coaching compensation model. Until this model is fixed, however, just stop cancelling classes on your best member(s).
#6 Not Posting or Sharing Workouts Beforehand
We are too far along with CrossFit to think that “surprising” your athletes and clients with a WOD when they show up is preparing them for the unknown. CrossFit training is what prepares your clients for the unknown. The training itself, however, should have a plan behind it and be "known". Often, the underlying reason that a WOD (workout of the day) doesn’t get posted the week before, the night before or even by the day of the class is that the programming isn’t done. Athletes (especially the ones that are really into your programming and community) want to know what to bring for the class (lifting shoes? speed ropes?), what to wear (rope climbs = long socks), and most of all they want to be able to look up their past performance on that WOD or a similar one to figure out what their goal is for that workout. Having to see the workout for the first time when you walk into the box just isn’t cool, so get your programming done ahead of time and stop pretending that your lack of preparation is preparing your athletes for the unknown.
#5 Changing the Class Schedule, the Coaching Lineup, or the Types of Classes Being Offered Too Frequently
It is one thing to change a class schedule seasonally or as one coach leaves and a new coach is being trained. This is often good practice and helps keep the box “fresh”. Adding or rotating specialty classes on a seasonal basis is often a huge win- especially if members of your box play an outside sport seasonally.
It is an entirely different story, however, if your schedule or who is coaching what class is changing on a monthly (or surprise) basis. If the underlying problem is coaching turnover or simply not understanding what your clients want and when, then start by addressing that issue. If not enough people are taking a particular class at a particular time, you may have a marketing issue (not enough clients) or you may simply not be offering the class at a convenient time (you’ll never get enough clients). This is especially true if you have a few classes that are overcrowded. Boxes that tend to have one or two overcrowded classes tend to have schedules that are awkward or inconvenient for their markets. Take a look at your competition- if they are offering a 5:30 AM, 6:30 AM, and 7:30 AM, but you are only offering an overcrowded 6:30 and then a 9:30 with only 1 or 2 people, add the 5:30 or 7:30 before you take off the 9:30. Box owners often make the mistake of only surveying their existing members when coming up with schedule changes. This is a huge mistake. Your existing members are already there because some aspects of the schedule work for them. To get more members and referrals from existing members, you need to find out what works for the clients that aren’t coming to your box. One of the easiest ways to do this is to check out the competition’s class schedule. I’ve frequently seen an uptick in the "dead" class time slot after adding another convenient class time. This happens because you are bringing in more new members who naturally help get the word out about your box and this brings in new eyeballs to your schedule.
#4 Saving the “Good” Programming for the Coaches and “Competitors”
When you have completely different workouts going on for different groups at your gym (and not always based on skill or interest), you are going to have a problem. Sometimes the “good” programming is called competition programming, or sometimes the “good” programming is your coaches running around making up WODs for themselves and skipping the main box programming. Neither one of these should be happening at your box. If the majority of your Rx members never get access to competition programming, how are they going to improve to the elite level? If your members know your coaches aren’t doing your programming and instead making up their own, what message does this send? When members and clients get the sense that there is “better” programming going on that they don’t have access to they assume that hidden programming is “good” and whatever they are doing in class is “not as good”. This needs to stop. If you don’t have a clear way to transition athletes into competition level programming if they are interested, you need to create this process. If your coaches aren’t buying into your programming you need to find out why and address it. When I talk to coaches who aren’t doing the owner or head coach’s main programming, sometimes they just don’t understand programming or the specific programming model the box is using. All too frequently though they tell me that the Rx programming is not really Rx. It is a “lite” version so more members can put Rx next to their name. If the latter is the case, you need to roll out a competition track or version of the programming alongside the “Rx” version and any other beginner/intermediate version you already have in place. Everyone that gets into and loves CrossFit and wants to compete in local competitions deserves access to programming that will allow them to compete at the real Rx standards levels found in their local competitions.
#3 Having a Dirty Box
Everyone wants a clean place to work and workout. Just because it is CrossFit, doesn’t mean it needs to be gritty and grimy. If you can’t find the time to clean the bathroom, the floor, or wipe down benches, wall balls, etc. at least once a week, start making it happen. Two reasons I am given by affiliate owners as to why their box is dirty are 1. lack of money to pay someone or 2. blaming the coaches/clients for being “slobs”. I find the second reason hilarious. It is one thing to expect clients to put their equipment away and clean up a drink they spill (they should), but seriously, your members are not going to scrub your toilet for you, and your coaches/staff won’t do it either unless you pay them to do it. You’ll either need to compensate them or get a cleaning service in if you can’t do it yourself. Usually there is an underlying problem with the staffing model & compensation model (how the box pays their coaches and staff) that causes a dirty gym, but until that underlying problem is addressed, a box owner should just step in and get the box cleaned themselves. A dirty gym turns off new clients from signing up and disgusts those clients that have stuck with you.
#2 Forcing Members into Contracts When Anything Above is Happening
A contract implies a commitment. It is a commitment a member makes to you and you make to the member. If you aren’t holding up your end of the deal by cancelling classes, changing schedules and coaches too frequently, or anything else I mentioned, this is just bad business. You as the owner aren’t keeping your commitment to the members. Get rid of anything other than month to month contracts until you get the above cleaned up and can keep your commitment to your members.
#1 Bashing CrossFit
And finally, the #1 idiotic thing CrossFit affiliate owners do is bash CrossFit. I am not talking about the venting sessions when Dave Castro releases an Open WOD that is almost impossible to do at your box. That has almost become a sport in and of itself and somewhat of a bonding experience for affiliate owners. Instead, I am talking about the complaining about CrossFit itself by CrossFit affiliate owners that spills over into their box’s community. A great affiliate owner knows how to work with and within the CrossFit methodology to customize, create, and build workouts, programs, athletes, and communities that have reached a new level of health and wellness not attainable outside of CrossFit. By coming up with and promoting different, yet sensible gender-based standards for Rx athletes to train with and compete with each other, CrossFit has done more to level the playing field for men and women athletes and by default male and female CrossFit box owners than any other sport or methodology. CrossFit’s business model creates inherent competition between boxes that forces owners to continuously improve to survive. This very same model allows those continuously improving owners to create real wealth. Wealth that allows others to have full-time jobs coaching, wealth that improves their lives and the lives of their families, and wealth that improves their boxes for the athletes they coach. As a CrossFit affiliate owner are you really going to bash CrossFit?
Cori DiDonato is the Founder and Owner of Silver Tiger Consulting and CrossFit Silver Tiger in Wakefield, MA and the former owner of Avalon CrossFit (now part of CrossFit Lando ) in Charlestown, MA.