When Ashley’s top coaches walked out the door with 40 of her members to open a gym 2 miles down the road, she contacted Chris Cooper (of Two Brains) to figure out where she’d gone wrong.
We discuss:
– What mentorship is and how it can benefit you
– How to use extrinsic and intrinsic motivation to build and maintain a solid business
– What makes Two Brains special in the crowded, sometimes shady world of fitness business coaching
– What does “successful” mean now?
– A formula to help you determine how much to invest in mentorship
– How to manage big changes at your gym
EC Synkowski runs OptimizeMe Nutrition, a company dedicated to providing solutions for anyone to improve their weight, health, and overall wellbeing through sustainable diet methods. Thousands have used her #800gChallenge®, a diet free of restrictive rules, to eat healthily and have reported weight loss, increased energy, improved performance.
EC has a BS in biochemical engineering, a first MS in environmental sciences (with a focus in genetics), and second MS in Nutrition & Functional Medicine. She has also trained others since 2000 and holds the Certified CrossFit Level 4 Coach (CF-L4) credential. Her professional experience includes working as a Program Manager for CrossFit Inc (2011-2017) authoring their training course materials and serving as a subject matter expert for their certifications.
We’ve known her for a long time and have a lot of respect for her work.
In this conversation, we get into:
What we appreciate most about her #800gChallenge® is that it’s not about removing things from your diet — it’s about finding delicious ways to add colorful, flavorful yumminess to your plate.
The question that inspired her quest: How do we measure “clean” or “healthy” eating?
Her biggest pet peeve with some nutrition advice
Her answer to How do you get someone to want to eat better, or to care about nutrition?
How she starts by asking, What did you eat for breakfast this morning? and then meets people where they’re at with small, sustainable changes.
The biggest pushback she receives on the #800gChallenge®, like weight gain, eating “too much” fruit or binging on one thing (potatoes, avocados, etc.), and issues with gastrointestinal disorders (IBS, etc.)
When coaches can shine
One solid strategy that’s so simple most of us ignore it — “Don’t buy it, don’t have it around the house.” Boring. :)
How we sometimes need to heal our relationships with food before starting a nutrition program — Eating more fruits and veggies isn’t going to help you love yourself, and if that’s the reason you struggle with food, changing your diet isn’t an effective strategy.
Loved this down-to-earth conversation on food and nutrition. I’m feeling super grateful that EC allowed me to selfishly ask her for the answers to my biggest questions and challenges with food. It was like a free, recorded consult. :)
Additional Resources
EC’s Plug-n-Play #800gChallenge® package for gyms that includes email and social media templates as well as everything else you need to lead your members through the challenge. You can read more about the specifics of what you get with this package by reading how it’s delivered on platforms like Wodify and SugarWOD. You don’t have to use either of those platforms to take part in the plug-n-play, but those pages will give you a better understanding of exactly what’s included.
I am lucky to know many highly-skilled, hardworking people who’ve been incredibly successful in changing lives through fitness and movement. These folks also tend to be generous with their knowledge, paying it forward so others can share in the abundance.
With so many changes in the fitness industry due to COVID-19, and with so many of us considering hybrid gym models (running online and in-person memberships), I wanted to talk with people who knew how to offer that personal touch in an online space.
Mike and Adee Cazayoux lead the Working Against Gravity (WAG) community, which offers 1:1 personal nutrition coaching. They build a custom program around your needs to meet you where you’re at AND get you the results you want.
They’ve been offering their services through WAG since 2014.
What makes WAG so interesting to me is that Mike and Adee have chosen to run a premium-priced model, which goes against the typical volume-based membership service that relies on a constant turn-and-burn to keep afloat, like something that’s $20 a month.
In this webisode, the duo shares some of the mistakes and wins they’ve experienced while working with over 20,000 people and 35 coaches online. They offer up some great information on how they’ve built better systems for their program delivery, coach check-ins, and member tracking.
Some of the highlights:
All their coaches have to respond to messages within 24-hours.
All their coaches are former WAG members.
They have every member of their team take the Kolbe test to learn their strengths and weaknesses.
They believe online coaches need to be more patient because they don’t get that immediate feedback that happens naturally with in-person, face-to-face interactions.
They teach their coaches to build relationships with the FORD model.
Why they decided on a premium-priced model, and why they believe their product is worth what they charge.
How to determine what to pay a coach, how many hours it takes to coach x amount of people, and how many clients each coach can handle.
Why online services can be so valuable and deliver such great results.
What to do when a client isn’t responding to accountability check-ins.
This is a great conversation to listen to if you’re considering online memberships or a hybrid model at your facility.
If you’d like to learn more about WAG, here are some places to visit:
And, if you’d like to see how we’re using a hybrid model here at WUWO, here’s what our session plans look like. The link takes you to a 1-day preview, no email or info required. The “Partially Loaded” track is for people who work out at home. All they need are a pair of dumbbells (or objects from around the house) and a jump rope. We’ve found that providing at-home clients with similar or the same programming keeps them feeling connected to and a part of the larger community.
