Podcast · Business

Run a Profitable Gym

by John Franklin · English · Business

We've already helped 3,000 gym owners become more profitable, and we're the #1 gym mentorship program in the world. This channel (presented by Two-Brain Business) is packed with business tools for gym owners and CrossFit affiliates. We provide actionable, data-backed business advice for all gym own

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 20 min
Latest: 12 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

12 Oct 2026 · 42 minNew

How to Hire the Right Coaches From the Beginning

Is your gym ready to hire a full-time coach? Use our free calculator to find out. Hiring the wrong coach costs you money, and it costs you time you never get back. In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” John Franklin talks with Two-Brain mentor Brian Bott, who runs three gyms in New Jersey that bring in over $1.5 million a year in revenue, with coaches who have stayed for a decade or more. Brian explains what he screens for, how he onboards new coaches, how he pays them and what he doe...

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

S4 · E79 · 8 Oct 2026 · 37 min
How This Gym Owner Sells $300 Memberships in Rural Alabama
Is your gym ready to hire a full-time coach? Use our free calculator to find out. Tres Kennedy charged $150 a month for personal training plus unlimited group classes. He thought no one in his small Alabama town would pay more. In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” John Franklin sits down with Two-Brain mentor Tres Kennedy to talk about packaging, pricing and handling objections. Tres explains how he moved from giving away his on-ramp to prescribing coaching at nearly double the price...
S4 · E78 · 5 Oct 2026 · 7 min
Who to Hire at Your Gym to Pay Yourself More
Is your gym ready to hire a full-time coach? Use our free calculator to find out. Nearly 60% of gym owners say not earning enough is their biggest struggle, more than double the number who say staffing is the problem. According to Chris Cooper, the fix is hiring, but only if you hire in the right order. In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Chris explains why the order of your hires matters more than how many people are on your payroll. He shares the story of the first hire that taug...
S4 · E77 · 1 Oct 2026 · 18 min
How Top Gyms Create Raving Fans
Get our free guide, "How to Make $100,000 a Year While Working Just 4 Hours a Day." Why do some gyms have members who bring friends and stay for years, while others struggle to keep the clients they have? Every gym has four types of members: champions, loyalists, wanderers and critics. In this episode, Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper explains how to spot each one. Each group needs something different from you, and treating them all the same means spending your time in the wrong places. Chr...
S4 · E76 · 28 Sep 2026 · 18 min
How to Sell More Expensive Memberships in Your Gym
Book a free call and get outside eyes on your sales process. Every gym with coached classes says they sell coaching. But if everyone who joins gets the same unlimited membership, are they actually buying coaching, or just access to a class that happens to have a coach? In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain Business CEO John Franklin breaks down how to prescribe real coaching in a sales consultation, and what to do when a prospect pushes back. He explains why most objections...
S4 · E75 · 24 Sep 2026 · 13 min
The Real Reason Your Gym Stopped Growing
Grab our free tools to help you fix the most common problems gym owners face. If your gym has been stuck at the same revenue number for a year, you probably think you need more leads. You’re only half right. In this episode, Two-Brain Business CEO John Franklin breaks down why “I need more leads” is usually a symptom, not the real problem. He explains the two things that keep gyms stuck: not consistently doing the work that generates leads, or a bigger structural issue in your business tha...
S4 · E74 · 21 Sep 2026 · 39 min
Our Gym Revenue Has Plateaued ... Now What? (Live Coaching)
Their gym has been open 14 years, has over 150 members and pulls in around $30,000 a month. But growth stalled, and they wanted to know why. In this episode of "Run a Profitable Gym," Two-Brain Business CEO John Franklin sits down with Tanya and Meredith, longtime owners of a Sarasota CrossFit affiliate, for a real, live coaching session. John opens up their books and pricing sheet, which includes 15 different things a prospect can buy, and starts asking hard questions to find out exactly w...
S4 · E73 · 17 Sep 2026 · 54 min
We Are About to Open a Gym ... Now What?
This episode contains important visuals and is best enjoyed on YouTube. No amount of planning makes handing over your life savings feel completely safe. Today Two-Brain Business CEO John Franklin sits down with Steven Smith and Andreia Onofre Smith, who are 40 days from opening their first gym after nine years of planning. This is a real, live mentorship session: John and the couple walk through their SBA financing process, their build-out timeline and the founders club offer they’re using...
S4 · E72 · 14 Sep 2026 · 43 min
How This Gym Generates $700K Revenue With Only 190 Members
Grab our free tools to help you fix the most common problems gym owners face. A cheap intro offer brought in members who weren’t ready to commit—and retention that Dan Purington calls an “absolute dumpster fire.” In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain Business CEO John Franklin talks with mentor and gym owner Dan Purington, who runs a CrossFit affiliate doing north of $700,000 a year in revenue with fewer than 200 members. Dan breaks down how he rebuilt his entire onboarding ...
S4 · E71 · 10 Sep 2026 · 19 min
How to Hire A-Players and Double Your Gym Revenue
Listening to this alone won’t make your gym more profitable. A mentor will. Book your free call with the Two-Brain team. If you can’t attract good coaches, the fix probably isn’t your job post. It’s your salary cap—and that’s determined by how your gym packages and prices its services. In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain Business CEO John Franklin explains why gyms end up stuck offering $25-an-hour split shifts instead of real, full-time careers, and how to fix it by growi...
S4 · E70 · 7 Sep 2026 · 52 min
This Gym Owner Does $1M a Year With 7 Full-Time Staff
Listening to this alone won't make your gym more profitable. A mentor will. Book your free call with the Two-Brain team. Darren Thornton left his gym for 10 weeks to live in a van with almost no contact—and came back making more money than when he left. In this episode of "Run a Profitable Gym," Two-Brain Business CEO John Franklin talks with Two-Brain alumnus Darren Thornton, who built a gym doing over a million dollars a year in revenue with seven full-time coaches on salary. Darren walk...
S4 · E69 · 3 Sep 2026 · 26 min
What I Would Do If I Was Launching a Gym From Scratch in 2026
Fill out our State of the Industry survey and get a free report card showing how your gym stacks up. If Chris Cooper started a gym tomorrow, with no reputation, no members and no brand, what would he do? In this episode of "Run a Profitable Gym," Two-Brain Business CEO John Franklin puts founder Chris Cooper through a real-time thought experiment: build a gym from scratch using everything he's learned from 30 years in the industry. The pair work through six categories step by step: the co...
S4 · E68 · 31 Aug 2026 · 12 min
Why Most Gym Owners Never Reach $100K
Fill out our State of the Industry survey and get your custom Gym Report Card! Every gym owner thinks their problem is unique. In reality, it’s usually one of six. In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper breaks down the six problems that show up again and again in struggling gyms, and why most owners don’t realize which one is holding them back. Chris walks through each bottleneck: not having enough clients, not paying yourself first, not charging ...
S4 · E67 · 27 Aug 2026 · 15 min
How to Land a Gym Client in 15 Minutes
Turn more consultations into memberships with our free Objection-Handling Scripts. Can Chris Cooper close a sale in 15 minutes—even with a client who's trying to make it hard on him? In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Chris puts himself to the test with a live, unscripted consultation. John Franklin plays a deliberately difficult prospect: a busy parent with a recurring back injury, an unpredictable schedule and a strong preference for flexibility over structure. Watch Chris run t...
S4 · E66 · 24 Aug 2026 · 11 min
How to Handle Every Sales Objection in Your Gym
Turn more consultations into memberships with our free Objection-Handling Scripts. "I need to think about it." "It's too expensive." "I need to talk to my spouse." Sound familiar? In this episode of "Run a Profitable Gym," Two-Brain Business CEO John Franklin and founder Chris Cooper role-play the most common sales objections gym owners hear. They show you how to uncover the real objection hiding underneath the surface-level one. The pair introduce the PULSE framework for handling object...
S4 · E65 · 17 Aug 2026 · 17 min
Close More Gym Sales in 5 Steps
Fill out the State of the Industry survey and get a free report card showing how your gym stacks up. Most gym owners either avoid the sales conversation altogether or waste an hour giving a tour without ever asking for the sale. In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain Business CEO John Franklin and founder Chris Cooper break down the No Sweat Intro: Two-Brain’s proven consultative sales framework. They walk through it step by step using the COACH method: connect, open, amplify...
S4 · E64 · 13 Aug 2026 · 14 min
How to Sell Without Feeling Slimy (For Gym Owners)
Get the full resource kit for this series—the exact frameworks and scripts to help you sell gym memberships without feeling slimy. Ever avoided asking for the sale because it felt slimy? You're not alone, but it’s costing you clients who need your help. In this episode of "Run a Profitable Gym," Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper shares the three mindset shifts that changed the way he sells. He explains why most gym owners struggle to ask for the sale, why great coaching alone won't grow your ...
S4 · E63 · 10 Aug 2026 · 18 min
Why Your Gym Isn't Converting Leads Into Members
Steal our Lead Nurture Toolkit—the exact scripts and follow-up cadence to turn “maybe” into a booked consultation. Gym owners constantly say they need more leads. The data says otherwise. The average gym gets 420 leads a year, but only 84 of them ever book an appointment. Fix that gap, and you can add tens of thousands of dollars in revenue without spending another dollar on ads. Today, Two-Brain CEO John Franklin and founder Chris Cooper share proven tactics gym owners can use to transfor...
S4 · E62 · 6 Aug 2026 · 9 min
The 5 Biggest Sales DM Mistakes Gym Owners Make
Turn social media leads into paying members with our free sell-by-chat scripts. What if your gym doesn’t have a lead problem? What if the real issue is what you’re saying to the leads you already have? In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain Business CEO John Franklin presents the five common mistakes gym owners make in lead-nurture conversations and the exact fix for each one. John explains why sounding scripted and robotic kills trust, and shares a simple rule: If your messa...
S4 · E61 · 3 Aug 2026 · 25 min
How to Turn Online Followers Into Paying Gym Members
Turn followers into paying members with our free sell-by-chat scripts. You don’t need a huge following to sell more gym memberships. You need better conversations. In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper and CEO John Franklin break down how to turn Instagram followers, commenters, story repliers and even former members into paying clients using simple, word-for-word DM scripts—no pushy sales tactics required. John explains the “more conversations equals m...
S4 · E60 · 29 Jul 2026 · 10 min
The Gym Owner's Shortcut I Wish I Had 20 Years Ago
Get Chris Cooper's books free on Kindle this week: https://twobrain.co/4bitrbb Chris Cooper has written 10 books, and he says it's not because he loves writing. It's because he kept watching gym owners hit the same walls over and over, at every stage of ownership. In this episode of "Run a Profitable Gym," Chris breaks down which book he'd hand you depending on exactly where you are in your journey. "Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Chief": for gym owners who feel stuck and need to know their...
S4 · E59 · 27 Jul 2026 · 32 min
Why Your Gym Feels Stuck (And What to Do Next)
Get Chris Cooper’s book “Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Chief” free on Kindle this week (Jul. 27-31): https://twobrain.co/4gLvR5E If you’re a gym owner who feels stuck, you probably don’t need more information. You need focus. In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper joins CEO John Franklin to break down the four distinct phases of the entrepreneurial journey, based on his book “Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Chief.” Chris explains why the Founder phase is about narro...
S4 · E58 · 22 Jul 2026 · 35 min
Are the CrossFit Games Dead?
Want to run an in-gym event that brings in new members and keeps them around? Download our step-by-step Intramural Open guide. Are the CrossFit Games dead? And should gym owners even care? In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper joins CEO John Franklin to discuss the state of the Games, as it heads into its 20th year. Chris has been on both sides of this conversation. He worked for CrossFit HQ, recently interviewed the brand’s new CEO Bruce Edwards, and m...
S4 · E57 · 20 Jul 2026 · 31 min
How This Gym's Content System Generates 140 Leads a Month
Use our AI-powered Instagram audit to identify the biggest gaps in your gym’s social media and generate more leads: https://gymig.com/ Isaac Morgado’s gym content system generates 140+ leads per month. In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” John Franklin sits down with Isaac to break down his exact Monday-morning process for batching a full week of lead-generating content. Isaac explains why he shifted away from trend-chasing reels toward value-based, saveable content, and he reveals...
S4 · E56 · 15 Jul 2026 · 8 min
How to Know Exactly What to Charge at Your Gym
Calculate exactly what you should be charging with our Revenue Per Session (RPS) Calculator, linked below. Don’t set your prices by copying the gym down the street (and maybe knocking off $10). Instead, there’s a data-backed way to do it, using real numbers from thousands of gyms and one metric that tells you if your price is pulling its weight: revenue per session (RPS). In this episode of "Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain CEO John Franklin explains what revenue per session (RPS) is and w...
S4 · E55 · 13 Jul 2026 · 45 min
How to Add Small Group Training to a Large Group Gym
Semi-private training is one of the most talked about revenue plays in the fitness industry, but there’s rarely a clear roadmap for adding it to an already packed group training schedule. In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” John Franklin sits down with Jamie Warren, CEO of Iron Tribe Fitness, who took his gyms from nearly 100% group training revenue to a 50/50 split with small group—without blowing up his schedule or losing his culture in the process. Jamie explains how he made the c...
S4 · E54 · 9 Jul 2026 · 30 min
How HYROX Affiliates Actually Make Money
Some gyms are struggling to break even on their HYROX affiliation. Others are generating 15X or even 89X return on their affiliation fees. In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” John Franklin sits down with Lisa Palmer, a Two-Brain mentor and HYROX affiliate in London. The U.K. is one of the most mature HYROX markets in the world, roughly three years ahead of North America. Lisa walks through how she layered HYROX onto her CrossFit schedule, replacing low-attendance classes instead of ...
S4 · E53 · 6 Jul 2026 · 20 min
How to Run Your First HYROX Competition in Your Gym
HYROX is everywhere right now, and your gym doesn’t necessarily have to become an affiliate to cash in on the trend. In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain Business CEO John Franklin breaks down the “mini sim,” a scaled-down HYROX-style competition any gym can run without paying affiliation fees or buying new equipment. John walks through the exact blueprint: cutting the running volume, running it as a doubles event to build in referrals and setting a financial target (Two-Bra...
S4 · E52 · 2 Jul 2026 · 12 min
How Smart Gym Owners Beat the Summer Slump
Summer hits gym owners hard. Revenue drops, leads dry up and members cancel. In this episode, Chris Cooper shares five strategies gym owners can use to generate revenue during the slow summer months. Coop knows the pain firsthand. In 2009, he was juggling two locations and the summer slump almost put him out of business. He swore he’d never let that happen again. Now, after working with over 3,000 gym owners through Two-Brain Business, he knows exactly what works. The summer slump is...
S4 · E51 · 29 Jun 2026 · 31 min
From $300k in Debt to Millionaire Gym Owner
Braeden Cordts bought a struggling gym with $300,000 in debt, no marketing knowledge and everyone telling him it wouldn’t work. Today on “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain CEO John Franklin sits down with Braeden, who was just certified as a net-worth millionaire. They talk about Braeden’s five-year journey from a 28-member gym losing money to a 230-member gym generating over $55,000 every month. Braden opens up about a rough stretch in college and how finding CrossFit—and eventually buying...

About Run a Profitable Gym

Run a Profitable Gym is a English business podcast from John Franklin. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: John Franklin
Language: English
Category: Business
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 20 min
Latest episode: 12 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1050350101

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