WODs & Wisdom Part 4: Longtime Affiliate Owners Talk What Has (and Hasn’t) Changed in Business
Editor’s Note: This is the third part in a multi-part series highlighting longtime CrossFit gym owners, their experiences over the past decade, and some advice they wish they had at the start. Catch up on Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
Former CrossFit London owner Dave Henry remembers 2007.
He used Facebook to personally invite random college students to his gym at his parents’ garage and would collect $10 cash from each of them. And then he’d shove the money into a pencil case.
When I joined Henry’s gym as a college student in 2009 — then a 900-square-foot facility filled with a homemade rig, sandbags, boxes, and two beat-up old rowing machines — I didn’t have a credit card yet.
- Each month, he would chase me down for a check that he’d take to the bank to deposit manually.
In many ways, the affiliates of those days are in no way recognizable to the affiliates of today. Now, they’re often 10,000-square-foot facilities with an entire fleet of Concept 2 rowers, bikes, Ski Ergs, and coaches with credentials well beyond the CrossFit Level 1. Not to mention well-thought-out marketing and social media plans, sophisticated software that nurtures leads through automated workflows, and a business mentor guiding the gym owner each step of the way.
Evan Derv, who has owned CrossFit Rustin in Ruston, LA, for the last 12 years, says, “The newness of CrossFit has long worn off.” Today, having a successful business is about so much more than administering hard workouts like in the early days.
- “We must now actually be good at training, great at retention and advertising, and fantastic at hiring and training coaches,” Derv added.
Mike Tromello, the 12-year owner of Precision CrossFit in Agoura Hills, CA, has a similar perspective.
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- “Ten years ago, it was about Facebook, a quality programming blog, Pukey the Clown, and loud music. Now, it’s all about social media from many different angles. It’s about CrossFit health and longevity over CrossFit competition. It’s about coaching expertise and knowledge,” he said.
Further, prospective clients today know what CrossFit is and are much more educated about training in general.
- “People know what they’re looking for now. They have multiple options. You have to stand out by offering what others can’t, and you have to be worth what you’re charging,” Tromello added.
Finally, for long-term success, it has to be more than a hobby gym today.
- “I think that at the beginning, it was feasible to own a gym as a hobby or side hustle. Now, I think you have to be clear about what you want from your gym. If you want it to support you and your family, you have to level up and run it like a true for-profit business,” Robyn Alazraqui, the 19-year gym owner of CrossFit Oakland in CA, said.
When you talk to gym owners who have been around for 10-plus years, like Derv, Tromello, and Alazraqui, you’ll realize that as much as things have changed in the last decade and a half, the things that really matter have largely stayed the same.
Commitment to the Methodology
Ehren and Lindsay Vaughan became affiliate owners in 2013 when they purchased CrossFit Ballina in New South Wales, Australia. Ehren insists their values and beliefs in the CrossFit methodology “have remained consistent over the last 10 years.”
The same is true of their dedication to the CrossFit founder Greg Glassman’s concept of pursuing excellence, Ehren said.
- “We worked to become very clear on our values and then make business decisions that supported those values,” he said. “Where we are today is a culmination of thousands of small business adjustments over 11 years. Every time we make a business decision, we [consider] that change side by side with our values.”
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Vaughan also said the biggest change in the fitness industry in the last decade has been how much more competitive it has become, as the market is much more saturated with CrossFit and other functional fitness gyms today than it was 10 years ago.
All this has done, however, is ensure that he and Lindsay look even more closely at their values to ensure they’re “doubling down on the things that are important to us,” Ehren said.
- “We have spent heaps of energy and time working to truly understand what differentiates us from the other gyms in our area,” he said. “This allows us to target the demographic who we feel will truly value our services, which means we are never feeling like we are competing with these other gyms.”
The same is true for Tanya Wagner, the 2009 CrossFit Games champion who opened her gym — CrossFit Apex in Souderton, PA — in 2008. As much as the climate is different today, what she and her husband, Josh Wagner, are doing today in their gym has largely remained the same.
- “The biggest difference is people didn’t know what it was back then,” Wagner said. “Other than that…we do the same things. We’re still teaching the methodology.”
And while other gym owners today are focusing hard on their social media presence and digital marketing campaigns, Wagner said she still doesn’t concern herself with having her finger on the pulse in these areas.
Instead, her focus is still largely on her in-person connections with her current members, just like it was in 2008.
- “I’m not good with technology. But I will spend an hour after class talking about whatever in life you really need to talk about, and we’ll get to the real stuff. That’s what I’m here for,” Wagner said.
She added: “We just focus on giving energy to people here, and they spread the word.”
Constantly Pursuing Improvement
The gym owners we spoke with opened their doors in the hope of a lifelong improvement of fitness, both for their members and themselves.
While this is still true today, Justin VanBeek — the 12-year owner of CrossFit Hydro in Omaha, NE — said things look a bit different than they did a decade ago.
VanBeek started CrossFit at 29 years old, and his gym’s atmosphere and programming reflected that, he explained. Twelve years later, while he is still competitive and striving to improve, he has to be smarter about how he does it.
- “It has become more of a battle with my former self, rather than just trying to beat someone on the leaderboard,” VanBeek said. “It’s a battle of age and time to try to keep a solid strength foundation along with a good level of fitness to avoid the perils of aging.”
Embracing the Rat Race
For Marco Tan, the owner of CrossFit Overdrive in Richmond, B.C., running a gym has always required hard work, no matter how many time-saving technological tools exist for owners today.
- “You have to keep working hard and adapting to changes, never letting your foot off the gas pedal,” Tan said.
Brett Wilson, who has owned CrossFit Mill Street in Vienna, VA, for nearly 10 years, put it this way: The work never stops.
- “Open the doors, greet people, old and new, clean, repair, update, rinse and repeat,” he said.
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Mike Corcoran, Wilson’s business partner, said despite all the hard work, you need to find a way to ensure it’s still a fun place for the members.
- “Running a gym is a serious business, but the stress that comes with it has never been placed on our membership,” Corcoran said. “The atmosphere we have created allows for people to be comfortable, open, and just happy. That’s the goal, I think, and we have done that from Day 1.”
The Community
Finally, when you talk to any longtime gym owner about why they’re still doing it today, the answer is always the same: The people and the community.
Tromello, who opened his gym when his son was six months old and his wife was pregnant with his second child, explained the power of his community this way.
- “The Precision community has helped raise my children. Their hard work, dedication, and love have shown my kids the definition of work ethic,” Tromello said. “My daughter has watched strong women all her life that have empowered her to be strong.”
He added: “I don’t know if [my kids would be who they] are without CrossFit Precision.”
Alazraqui added: “The community still rules. This is a key component and is what truly makes CrossFit so special. Having a group of people to do this with day in and day out is so much a part of the success and the reason so many can stick with it for so long.”
More CrossFit Stories
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- From Dancing to CrossFit, Australia’s Emily Cairns Takes Center Stage at the Adaptive CrossFit Games
- CrossFit’s New Athlete Council – Learning Lessons From the Past
Featured image: @crossfitballina / Instagram
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