WTF Gym Talk (Stuart Brauer)

If you contribute sweat equity to your business - how do you value it and make it fair to all partners??? Many gym owners have found a 'cash partner' to help fund their business in the start-up phase. While their cash partner is laying down real money, the 'sweat equity partner' is relying on their unpaid labor within the business to create an equal contribution. Here's how you would calculate this for this specific case study: Partner A is the cash partner. They are contributing $100,000 in exchange for 40% ownership. Divide their $100,000 by .40 and you'll arrive at an initial valuation of $250,000. Partner B is the sweat equity partner. They have no cash to contribute but can perform the role of General Manager and other roles within the business at no cost to the business to create their equity in the company (aka sweat equity). Partner B's sweat equity valuation can be found by taking the current valuation ($250,000) and subtracting Partner A's investment ($100,000). This leaves Partner B (60% ownership) with looking for ways to contribute his fair share of $150,000. Both partners agree to a 4-year employment agreement for Partner B, to perform 30 hours per week of unpaid labor in the General Manager role is equal to at an annual salary of $37,500. This would save the company $150,000 over 4 years. This particular partnership agreement allowed Partner B to 'vest' his equity immediately, which is pretty generous of Partner A to agree to, but if you can match the following 4 criteria, you can have it within your Partnership Agreement: 1. You can think it. 2. You can put it on paper. 3. All partners agree to it. 4. It's legal. That's it. If you can achieve those 4 items, then you can have it within your PA. Want to learn more about sweat equity valuation, vesting schedules, and how to create successful partnerships - then you need to enroll in Microgym University because I just dropped a whole new course on this topic. Grab the link in bio or visit www.microgymuniversity.com

We get it. Opening up your first or even additional locations is exciting. You're hungry and anxious to get the doors open and introduce your brand to the marketplace. But this is typically where we see owners skip over the details of their lease, that later can become a detriment to the business. Knowing if you're paying the right amount in rent or how much should you pay based on your revenue projections... How to negotiate free rent or get the landlord to spend their own money to clean the place up (Tenant Improvement Allowance)... Determining how long of a lease you should sign... Understanding the practical obligations that a Personal Guarantee (which most landlords will want you to sign), come with... All this and more, my good friend and colleague Mark Fisher @businessforunicorns and I will be discussing during a fireside chat on Thursday, February 6th at 11am EST. This live webinar is completely free, and if you attend, you can get your specific questions answered. Grab the link below to get registered, and we'll see you there! https://lnkd.in/eRnT7jAQ

Every gym owner can share who their ideal customer is, but what about their ideal employee?

This clip is from a presentation I gave a few years back, but it couldn't be more relative today. Please, please stop being a lazy fuck with your organic marketing. It's one of the most critical aspects of your client acquisition system and the easiest one to do right. If you know your gym's marketing messaging, content, and copywriting needs work — send me a DM or head over to www.wtfgymtalk.com and let's get on a call. I can fix it fast and get you back to doing what you actually love about owning a gym.

In order to effectively communicate with anyone, you need to be able to turn the pictures in your head (what you expect of the other person) and communicate those pictures via words, leaving no details out. It's the missing details that end up becoming resentment between two parties who cannot effectively communicate.

If you own a microgym (group fitness), you are not a workout factory. Creating workouts is not your core service. Yet, there are gym owners who spend hours, every single week, programming (aka mental masturbation) the greatest workouts the world has ever seen. Not. Listen, I fell victim to it as well. I spent hours in spreadsheets coming up with progressions and periodization models - but that was for individual design clients. In that service, programming matters. But for group fitness, you simply need to do the following: 1. Batch create workouts for a 180-day period (6 months) 2. Execute those workouts. 3. Throw out the ones that didn't work as planned and make improvements to others. 4. Now re-run those workouts, in different orders over the next 6 months. I know what you're thinking - "But Stu, my clients demand variety!" Trust me, Sally will have no fucking idea that workout #4 in March was rerun as workout #172 in August. Let's reinvest your time better.

Why do gym owners often brag on their trainers, but you rarely hear them rave about their managers? Is it because trainers are easier to make "great", compared to the more complex roles of a manger? Is it because the owner themself lacks managerial skill sets, but excels at coaching, thus making it easier to duplicate great coaches?

Do you offer your employees Paid Time Off (PTO)? Microgym owners typically have a hard time offering above-average compensation plans, so that means we need to be as strong as possible with the level of fulfillment and benefits we can offer. PTO is a great place to start. I created a new course inside of Microgym University that walks you through every single aspect of creating a PTO policy and even provides a sample policy that you can use to tailor to the needs of your business. Get enrolled via the link in bio or www.microgymuniversity.com

This clip is from a presentation I gave a few years back, but it couldn't be more relative today. Please, please stop being a lazy fuck with your organic marketing. It's one of the most critical aspects of your client acquisition system and the easiest one to do right. If you know your gym's marketing messaging, content, and copywriting needs work — send me a DM or head over to www.wtfgymtalk.com and let's get on a call. I can fix it fast and get you back to doing what you actually love about owning a gym.

Do you offer your employees Paid Time Off (PTO)? Microgym owners typically have a hard time offering above-average compensation plans, so that means we need to be as strong as possible with the level of fulfillment and benefits we can offer. PTO is a great place to start. I created a new course inside of Microgym University that walks you through every single aspect of creating a PTO policy and even provides a sample policy that you can use to tailor to the needs of your business. Get enrolled via the link in bio or www.microgymuniversity.com