How one CrossFit gym lasted over a decade

Hey Gym World,

We’ve got Nathan Black, Dana Black, and Kirsten Guilliams on the pod. They’re the three owners of BGB CrossFit in Fayetteville, a gym that’s been around for 12 years and serves all kinds of members.

From what we've seen in the industry, it's hard to keep a CrossFit gym open for 5 years, let alone 12. So Mateo sat down with them to find out what's kept them going.

Here's what they said 👇

A bit of a background

BGB mainly offers group classes, personal training, and semi-private sessions.

At first, they attracted a more competitive CrossFit crowd, but over time, they began seeing more people with injuries. And as wear and tear naturally built up across the gym, they decided to serve a broader range of members.

With more variety in who was walking through the door, it became really important to understand each member before they joined a class. That’s where the intake comes in.

How the intake process works

Every new member goes through about two weeks of onboarding, which includes:

• A no-sweat intro with one of the owners. They find out what the prospect wants to accomplish and recommend the plan they think is the best fit for their goals and budget

• One-on-one sessions with Nathan covering fundamental movements

• A nutrition consultation and injury and mobility screening with Kirsten

This way, members know what to expect before their first class.

How the team stays informed

Getting members through onboarding is only part of it. The other part is making sure the whole team stays aligned.

Here’s how BGB handles that:

• Anything coaches need to know about a member goes into a dedicated Slack channel that the whole team has access to

• That same information gets logged in the notes section of Gym Lead Machine, where it builds into a running file for each member over time

They also hold a monthly meeting specifically about members to keep everyone on the same page.

This is their biggest retention tool

Nathan said BGB retains members longer than most gyms, and he points to the intake process as the main reason, especially the injury and mobility screening.

When coaches already know what a member is dealing with, they don’t have to figure it out in the first few classes. That leads to better scaling from day one and fewer early injuries.

And when people can train consistently, they tend to stay longer.

How semi-private fits into all of this

Through the intake process, BGB started noticing that some members weren’t best served by group classes alone. Some needed more individual attention because of injuries, while others wanted to get stronger in a specific area or build a particular skill.

So they tested a semi-private program with one morning slot and one coach. It filled up, so they added another. Now they run 7 sessions a week.

Here's how the program works:

• 1 coach with up to 4 athletes per session

• 2 sessions per week, plus open access to group classes

• Members pick which 2 sessions they want each Sunday from what's available

• $70 per week

Semi-private is now what BGB prescribes most often to new members, and Nathan said it's moved the needle on both overall revenue and revenue per member.

TL;DR

Twelve years is a long time to keep a gym open. And after talking with Nathan, Dana, and Kirsten, a lot of it traces back to one thing—their intake process.

• The screening is why coaches already know what a member is dealing with before they walk into their first class.

• The no-sweat intro is why members end up in the right program from day one.

• And the semi-private program only came about because the intake kept surfacing members who needed something more.

Everything BGB has built started with understanding who was walking through the door. It's worth asking whether your gym does the same.

If you found this article useful, share it with another gym owner who could use it. 🙏

adios,

j