The Sevan Podcast - CrossFit Affiliate Discussion | The Day After
Episode Date: December 2, 2023Welcome to this episode of the Sevan Podcast! Register for CrossFit for Health Summit HERE - https://www.crossfitforhealthsummit.com/?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossfitforhealthsummit.com%2Fa%2F214771978...8%2FezYHjNhB 3 PLAYING BROTHERS - Kids Video Programming https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers/daily-practice ------------------------- Partners: https://capeptides.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE SHIPPING https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://swolverine.com/ - THE SUPPLEMENTS I TAKE! BIRTHFIT Programs: Prenatal - https://marketplace.trainheroic.com/w... Postpartum - https://marketplace.trainheroic.com/w... Codes (20% off): Prenatal - SEVAN1 Postpartum - SEVAN2 https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS https://www.vndk8.com/ - OUR OTHER SHIRT https://usekilo.com - OUR WEBSITE PROVIDER 3 PLAYING BROTHERS - Kids Video Programming https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Bam, we're live.
No CrossFit Games Update show this week uh there was one not one last week
either we will resume the regular scheduled friday shows across the games update shows
i believe next week uh susan what's up dude hey how you doing just getting home from work
yep actually uh yeah i will just because we're setting up for our holiday party feels like we
just had a party and we're gonna have another our holiday party it feels like we just had a
party and we're gonna have another party you did just have a party um so you're staying affiliated
yeah yeah yeah i don't have to make the decision until december 16th and i got another year before
my increase so oh oh so this so you'll pay for sure and then you got a year yeah exactly the
only people that really got that super short notice is if your dues were up in january so january has one month to decide february has two months march
has three months i'm in december so i got 12 oh yeah that's awesome um asymmetric ears uh 25
dollars for 25 000 subscribers milestone oh no shit no shit. Thank you. Congratulations on 25K, Sevan. I now also hereby pledge in front of all the Sevanistas $50 and $100 when we reach 50K and 100K respectively.
Who else is in with me? Dang.
Good to match.
Good to see you guys. Vittorio, what's up? Eric Weiss, what's up?
Sabir, what's up? Sabir and Kelly. Isaac, Miss Kroom, you're always a pleasant one to see. Bring your humor tonight. Rambler, good to see you, buddy. And StreamYard, hi. No.
Um, so yesterday, the day before, uh, there were the fee hikes.
There were some, basically some changes in the structure of how you can become a CrossFit affiliate, a place where you can create the fittest human beings who've ever walked the
planet and where you can also cure the world's most vexing problem.
Places that I think that we all agree are, uh, I was going to say so important, but let me say something, if I can
say it differently. They all have profound impacts on the communities that they're in,
just like a nuclear reactor might have a real negative effect. If it collapses in your community,
a CrossFit gym pops up and you have this kind of center of health, the center of wellness,
the center of positivity, all the stuff you want to attribute to what happens inside those doors. And it's always been a crazy low barrier to entry.
It's a very, very unique community. Um, who the fuck knows if anyone really understands how this,
uh, this being moves around and exists, but at the helm of this ship, uh, is, um, the leader
Don fall. And then his boss is what people call venture capitalists or private equity or a board of people who bought this thing from Greg.
Owners.
Owners.
And so this thing does need to make money just like you guys need to make money, and I personally like to see as many people make money as possible.
The mas greenbacks mas bueno. as possible. The, the, uh, MAS, MAS Greenbacks, uh, MAS Bueno.
Um, and so the increase has gone from, uh, let's, these are the general spirit of it has gone from $3,000 a year to fly the CrossFit flag to $4,500 a year, depending on where you live on planet
earth. And then with a, a requirement, uh, an additional requirement in order to open the gym,
which we discussed about yesterday.
And, and Susie dropped some pretty important tidbits on us of why he thinks the L2 is
important and why he supports that. And maybe Susie, you can just give us a recap of that.
I wanted to fight with them yesterday because I, cause I'm, I just want to fight. Cause I just
liked the super low barrier to entry, but it has sat with me now for the more and more it sat with me.
I was just on the phone with someone and we were talking
and they were pushing back against it too.
And I realized, oh, I think my position has shifted.
I didn't realize it had shifted because I sounded more like Sousa than myself.
Sousa, let's start there.
Just why do you think it's important that you get your L1, you open a gym,
and then you have a year to get your L2?
Why do you think that's important, the highlights? I think it's just important because the L1, you open a gym, and then you have a year to get your L2. Why do you think that's important, the highlights?
I think it's just important because the L1 gives you the methodology.
The L2 gets you to really understand the flow of the classroom and actually coaching the class.
Like the hands-on work you're going to be doing every single day in the gym.
And so as the owner, I think that you should at least have exposure to what that professionalism and standard looks like in the ideal setting.
And then you're still free to go do your own thing,
obviously,
but to have those tools.
And I like the fact that you want the people that are going to own and
represent a CrossFit to be able to always want to take that next step and
elevate their education.
And if I go,
well,
it's just a fucking money grab from HQ.
You can be like,
well,
that's irrelevant.
You're not arguing my point,
money grab or not.
It doesn't diminish your points.
Correct. Yeah. and what i liked um one of the things that really stuck with me that you said was is that if everyone has their
l in the l2 you learn how to teach classes you learn how to turn learning the push press and
into an entire class um and once you if we can get and that will add to continuity between all the
gyms which has always been sort of not a nagging problem but just it's been a little bit of a but
it's a steady buzz that there's not continuity between the gyms so you get everyone into the
level two and you might build some continuity between all the gyms which though does feel like
a franchise but the thing is is it's not enforced can still take, if you want to teach it back the way you used to do it,
better or worse, you still can't.
Yeah. And here's the thing too.
Like I have a process that everybody that comes into the gym goes through,
whether you're already been coaching and already have your L1
or whether you're brand new to, you know,
you don't have your L1 or anything yet.
And it's all based off of the standard that the L2 was taught
because I just thought that it was so well in the way it lays out the class and understanding the logistics and how to lesson plan and the deep understanding of running the day-to-day operation that it was good enough to teach to everybody before they got in front of our class.
And I'm going to read a bunch of DMs today we got.
I mean, hundreds.
I apologize.
I'm not going to get through all of them, but hundreds of the affiliates popped in.
And one of the most compelling DMs you get falls into the spirit of this. I have a gym. It has 80 people.
I charge $120 a month. It's in my back 40 of my ranch. I've built a shed back there,
and I'm not going to be able to afford this. And I'm really sad because I really want to fly the
CrossFit flag, but I'm not going to anymore. This really hurts me.
And I said that to you yesterday.
And with your business cap on, you kind of don't give a fuck.
You put on your venture capitalist hat and you're like, bye.
Yeah.
I mean, we talked about a story where I got hit with a much more massive charge that I had to have retroactive pay for the building that it got sold.
And then there was a cam increase, which is the common maintenance area. And I got hit with not
only a $125 a month bill, but a $2,200 a month bill. With that month notice, your rent at your
gym was increased by over $2,000 a month. A month. And by the way, that wasn't one month notice.
That was retroactive pay is due on your next rent.
So due now.
So I had to back pay to the first of the year,
which resulted in me having to cut a check for $15,800 right there.
So seven months, they retroactive paid,
made you pay seven months.
No, it was three months worth of camp.
Yeah, plus my rent.
That was due that month.
And, but in all fairness, I knew you at the time and you were like,
fuck, I might shut the doors. Yeah. I mean, that was like a dark time because also too,
my lease was running out. It got sold to, it used to be owned by one guy, very similar to CrossFit.
Then it got sold to a cop, a corporation after he passed, his kids sold it. And then they started,
you know, squeezing all the renters and that's what
happened with me i had to pay a retroactive pay cut a large check and then from that month
immediately going forward i owed another 2200 a month on top of that so it increased my overall
um um yearly by over 24 000 uh joel kelly uh joel so just so you know, so in a nutshell, the spirit of what, uh, Sousa is saying is the
government charged his landlord more and his landlord, like, look in the lease, it says,
if the government charges me more, I'm going to charge you more.
So when Greg sold the company, these guys are in charge and now they want more money.
So you can kind of think of them as the government in a way.
So Joe Kelly, I agree with vindicate.
This is soulless corporate greed.
It's what set Greg apart.
He believed in something more than business.
He believed in humanity and pushing life
for all people forward.
Here's the thing.
Let's say that is true, what you're saying.
I don't know what you want these people to do
if they bought the company and now they want money.
So let's say you're worth $400 million and you gave your buddy Eric Rosa $30 million to buy 15% of CrossFit.
You didn't do that because you believe in CrossFit.
It's because you want $42 million back, right?
100%, yeah.
Yeah.
I think we have to accept that at some point well
you don't have to but fuck it i don't give a fuck like you can be like fuck you i'm starting my own
it's just the reality now yeah yeah yeah yeah i was i was talking to a friend today who's about
to expand into um you know 27 new gyms and uh and he's like fuck it doing doing my own thing well at least well we'll see okay um so i'm
gonna start reading some of these to you and then and then we can we can discuss them feel free to
i'll even uh if anyone uh has the uh to call in you can even call in and uh and bitch it's it's a
pretty you know what's crazy is there's not really anyone who's, it's very tempered.
It really is somber.
It's like a lot of, I feel like it's a lot of emotional somberness.
None of the DMs I got were like, hey, fuck HQ or fuck, this is amazing.
Or it was just kind of this somberness like, oh, okay.
I think we all knew it was coming too.
Oh, here we go.
Just right off the bat.
Okay.
Oh, it's a regular caller.
Travis, what's up?
No, no, no.
Stand by.
And the point of the show is just a process.
The point of the show is to process.
I think we're too early to too early.
That's why I was fucking with Susan in the beginning.
I think the point of the show is to process. Hello?
Oh, maybe you can't
call in.
Maybe you're
not allowed to call in.
Hello?
There's no call in. There you go.
Now there's a call in. Go ahead, Travis.
Hey, can you guys hear me?
Yeah, are you an affiliate owner?
I'm not an affiliate owner.
My brother is, 10 years.
Okay, okay, fair.
Yeah, yeah.
Let's get this party started.
No, I just wanted to clarify that comment.
To me, the hard part right now is not knowing where the money is going
and not knowing that the people who are in charge actually care about CrossFit.
that the people who are in charge actually care about CrossFit.
To me, if Greg was in charge, and I think Greg would probably raise prices at some point,
if it was Greg in charge and the prices went up, there would be less of an uproar because we know Greg gave a shit.
Well, he always told you, hey, he told you where the money was going right he would say
hey i litigate legislate um educate uh litigate legislate educate there's one more so not
masturbate but something like that there were four and um and you knew here's the thing dude
to be frank with you to respond to that tra, I don't care where the money goes.
I just wish you would be honest.
I listened to the meeting they had today, and they said that they gave a lot of talk of how they were going to drive more people into the gyms.
I basically didn't understand so much what Dawn said, what Dacoon said, or what Dave said.
I did understand what Nicole said because she was pointing at some tangible things that I could get
my head wrapped around. The other stuff was just like,
hey, we're going to make things better.
That wasn't enough for me. I needed to hear,
we're going to start producing media every day.
I needed some tangibles. We're going to give
everyone a sticker they can put on their car.
I need that. Me personally, I don't like
the 200,000 foot view, but I'm
also okay if Don goes, I'm really
okay if Don goes, Hey motherfuckers,
it's three grand. We're only raising it to 45. It's been 11 years. Shut the fuck up.
We're giving all the employees here a raise. I'm also very cool with that. Very cool. Very cool.
I don't need them to tell me. I don't need them. And then you can decide whether it's worth it for
you or not, but this whole, you know, what's going to happen in one year. It's going to be very, yeah.
Anyway, go ahead, Travis. Sorry. Go ahead.
I think there's just a lot of the timing of it is a huge thing too.
With all these hires, we don't know what the fuck they're doing.
We don't know who these people are, why they were hired. And now, Hey,
we're going to throw another $1,500 a year on top of everything.
There's just, there's, I don't know what they're doing.
Did you feel bad for Dacoons today at all, by the way?
Like, oh, dude, you just got.
I didn't hear any of it.
He did okay.
The problem is, is like, we're the hell's angels.
We've all delivered meth.
We've all killed people.
We've all fucking rode motorcycles.
We've all been to jail.
And so we got this new guy. And like like he's really put into a really tough situation he's addressing
the fucking hell's angels and the rest of us are like dude what's your like we don't even know his
fran time yet yeah you know what i mean we like we haven't seen him do a month like you know what i
mean i mean we're yeah it's weird has he done like catholic church has he done communion if this was
greenpeace has he has he has he uh stopped aolic church has he done communion if this was greenpeace
has he has he has he uh stopped a japanese whaling boat like what are his creds it's hard
we're a tough group it was weird seeing him like trying to address all of us who who uh
who got our stripes yeah like olivia said we got to jump him in but but i don't think he did like
i don't think he did bad i just just... It was tough. It was awkward. It was tough.
Yeah, I didn't hear any of that.
I just wanted to call in to clarify that comment about knowing
that it just feels soulless and corporate
because there's just long-winded emails with, like you said, nothing tangible.
We don't know where the money's going, what it's going to benefit.
Nicole crushed it.
She basically said, whether you agree with her or not, she said, these are the problems.
This is what we're going to address.
This is how we're going to do it and when.
I mean, she laid it out.
She went at it.
That's what they need.
Yeah.
So I like that part.
Good.
All right.
Thank you for calling.
Okay.
Makes it seem like a real show.
Okay, here we go.
I'm going to read these, and here we go.
Good afternoon, Sevan.
In regards to raising affiliate costs, we have been an affiliate for over eight years.
In eight years, we have increased our rates for members three times in response to rising costs of goods and to add value to our product.
There has always been a tangible value added.
That's an interesting line.
Over that last few years, HQ has added the affiliate playbook, affiliate starter kit, affiliate roundtables, affiliate summits, free cap programming.
The only extras that you consume is the affiliate summits and cap programming.
In my opinion, it is value added.
Cap as long as it stays included in affiliation.
The timing of notification could have been better.
We have one month notice
and owners learned about the cost increase
at the same time as everyone else,
which now puts owners in a reactionary stance,
reassuring members as opposed to an offensive posture
for reassurance we could have been in
if we were notified sooner.
The price increase is understandable.
So this is from an eight-year affiliate saying, hey, I'm good, and that there's value added. We could have been in if we were notified sooner. The price increase is understandable.
So this is from an eight-year affiliate saying, hey, I'm good,
and that there's value added.
Timing, not so much.
The timing's never going to be perfect.
I'm just going to say they're never going to win that battle. It's best to see how everybody's spread out.
Someone's going to get the short stick.
That's a wash.
I'm going to give HQ 100% pass on that.
Giving $500 credit for L1 and L2 is beneficial.
Another good point.
Offsets a little of the extra cost as well as waiving the extra $600 a year to be in the payment program.
Yeah, that's probably a pretty smart move that they did too, right?
The extra $600 for the payment program?
Yeah, they used to have a payment program, but it increased your affiliate dues by 20% over the year.
Now, you can still be on the payment program, but you don't have to pay the 20%.
Yeah, and I imagine that that will probably shift over the year. Now you can still be on the payment program, but you don't have to pay the 20%. Yeah.
And I imagine that that will probably shift in a year.
I think they'll probably go back to charging you for spreading it over the
month time.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Back and forth.
And it's not going to make,
so I would take advantage of that this year,
guys.
If you're going to those ones who's on the fence,
take advantage of that this year.
Good.
Well,
that'll give us another show to do to be mean to them.
I'd pull the rug out in another year.
If the goal is consistency in the delivery of CrossFit methodology to improve the health, fitness, and experience for this within and who may come into our community, L2 requirements for ownership is a good start.
Okay, so she's saying, yeah, that she likes the L2 because it's going to help all these things.
Teach the methodology, improve health, fitness, and the experience.
For now, trust the process. I don't know why i think this is a woman maybe because it's just the same
letter for now trust the process patience to see what value will be added to change
lives and stay the course to positivity changes people's lives through crossfit
a eight-year affiliate been around a while. Sober.
Yeah. Do you want kind of thoughts on that or do you want to do this?
I mean, no thoughts. It's up to you.
No thoughts. Next question, please.
I mean, there's so many, dude. I can.
I know. I know. And everybody's kind of processing it the same way.
I just think that a couple of the things that we already talked about is that the sequencing was already off right like with these new hires with the lack of communication around that with the lack of trust that's already happening at hq and then you kind of drop this
bomb that sequencing was jacked from the get-go they couldn't foresee that i mean well they knew
they were hiring those people they knew they did or didn't tell like they knew what was coming down
their own pipeline they walked out of the house with their pants down and they didn't know their pants were down.
I'm not saying that they should be absolved of walking outside with their pants down.
They walked outside with their pants down and now their message is and now they're like telling us they're delivering a message and we're all staring at their naked.
They're they're high. Right. I mean, the hires are the metaphor for their pants down.
Right. OK, so we'll give it that. And then I think the other big mistake was,
um,
the,
the,
you know,
what was said around the town hall with the lack of what was said around
town hall.
I missed Nicole's portion of it.
I really wish I could have heard that because I heard that it was great.
Um,
but the little bit that I did catch at the end of it,
where it was,
uh,
Dawn and the coons and stuff like that.
Uh,
again,
it was a lot of just kind of fluff.
Like there just wasn't anything tangible,
you know? Yeah. I, I want them to say, But again, it was a lot of just kind of fluff. Like there just wasn't anything tangible.
Yeah, I want them to say, we're going to take the money and we're going to buy ads.
We're going to take the money and we're going to hire a person who's just going to work on our Instagram and it's going to be better.
I want to say they're going to use the money to do a film contest.
But there wasn't like that.
And in defense of Dave too, Dave was not on there long.
He was the shortest. I think Dave was just kind of paraded out to be like, look, but there wasn't like that. And in, in defense of Dave too, Dave was not on there long. He was the shortest.
I think Dave was just kind of paraded out to be like, look, there's Dave. You know what I mean?
Like you're a Mickey Mouse.
You don't see Mickey Mouse.
You're kind of pissed.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
I completely agree with that, but here's the deal as the owner, as a CEO, um, and those
executives coming out of the company, like it is their job to walk around and just talk
about the vision of the company all the time.
You have to keep the excitement.
You have to keep the mission.
We have to understand the bigger picture of where we're going.
And I think some of the best owners do that.
Literally, I was just talking with the coaches yesterday, and we were getting fired up about the future of the gym, what it can be, the different things we could evolve to, how we can make a bigger impact on our community and things around us. And that everybody leaves like fired up about that.
Right. And there's, of course, a couple of tangible things. This is what we'll start with
first. And this is how we'll do this. And so when you don't really have the meat and potatoes of
like the vision of where we're, where we're going out into the long, the long shot. Um,
and then you couple it out with the fact that there's nothing really tangible that they're pointing at where it's going, that's where it gets lost.
Without someone banging we're the cure for the world's most vexing problem,
we are sliding back into the meathead universe.
Eric Wise, $1.99, bring Justin Berg back.
Easy, easy, easy. Don't get crazy.
Let me ask you this about every time you
were around greg when you guys were working specifically in crossfit and let's take it back
to a throwback a golden year if you will like 2014 2013 right just unstoppable force that's coming
through how often was greg talking about the vision 2017 and 18 those were don't get those
were huge years those were our biggest years after probably 13 and 14.
I don't know why people don't point that out more.
17 affiliate growth, like with new net affiliates was like.
It was so strong and stable in 18.
The games were massive.
The open was massive and all metrics were up except retention.
So there were, we did have a pretty big churn rate,
but all metrics were up. People signing up a journal. We had the journal. The journal was, we did have a pretty big churn rate, but all metrics were up
people signing up a journal. We had the journal, the journal was making $2 million a year.
Yeah. And more importantly, what was inside that journal, right? That was making CrossFit
affiliates multiple millions of dollars a year across the world. 95% free. And it's probably
99% free 90. So, so you didn't have to even sign up. Greg always just considered paying – the stuff he told us to put in the journal was just make the game stuff cost money.
Everything else is free.
All core content is free.
Yeah, he taxed what he wanted more of.
It was nonstop vision to the point where you would be kind of scared to engage him.
Like if you saw him come down, you're like, oh, shit.
Five in the morning, I'd see him.
Fucking it's on.
Yeah, exactly.
And he's just going toward the ch's just the chasm the business the methodology does this add years to your life what's he think about you always it was not i mean before my relationship that i have with greg now i
remember when i would see him out on stuff and all you'd have to do is ask one or two questions
about what was going on and what's cost of in like boom he's off you know and then you left
the conversation like fired up you're like yeah that's what that's what this is about um uh patrick clark uh heidi i'd rather
have lifelong executives that grow with the company than a revolving door like we've had
dude i couldn't agree with you more like i'm so ready to give anyone a chance who just wants to
stay there and just like the rest of us take our ass poundings and grow around us but but i don't think we're gonna get that dude i think it's like
a two or three year cycle um continuity is crucial in growth and change unfortunately
crossfit hasn't had that yeah we need continuity so bad we need it to let yeah we need continuity
so bad okay um here we go number Number two of 6,000 DMs.
I've ran a gym since 2010 and took over ownership of that gym at the end of 2018.
I could barely make payments on the current affiliation requirements along with rent, housing, and life.
And this year also had to renew my credentials.
I actually had my facility poached from me and were forced out last year by my landlord. A bunch of CBD companies came into our town and did this
to businesses giving more than asking prices for the warehouses, people with deep pocket and
government funding in New Mexico. This changed the market forever. We weren't able to relocate
into another facility because things got out of reach and expensive and no warehouse space was
available since those companies took them all. I had to go to my parents and my entire family is now in an endeavor to
build my future gym. These changes along with everything for the past couple of years, I listen
to you regularly, makes future affiliation questionable and worrisome. That's my story
and opinion anyway. The big picture, I wonder what percentage of gyms are in this situation.
Just big picture, the spirit of what he's saying.
Just in some method or another between the so-called pandemic,
between the shakiness of CrossFit and the economy,
that they're just like, oh, fuck.
This is the straw that broke the camel's back story, right?
Yeah, 100%.
But still sober, right?
He's not even mad at HQ.
He's not like, fuck these bitches.
He's just like, dude, this is it. Well, I think the reason why you keep using the word
like these things are coming in sober is because they're actual affiliate owners. And if you're a
business owner that's been around for any length of time, you have to realize that you can't be
super emotionally reactive to decisions because it'll put you out of business faster than the
actual problem will. So you have to learn to kind of take it with a grain of salt and take a step back and try to logically work through the steps and start working to solve the
problem. And by the way, just to cap that last story that we said about the rent increase for
my building, those were the options at the time. It was either like, fuck, I'm just going to hang
it up. This is the straw that broke the camel's back. Or I started problem solving, did the
necessary things that we had to do, and we were able to survive and grow and become stronger because of it.
We just need a new sexy name to rebrand.
All right.
Interesting.
Heidi Kroom.
Patrick, there's nowhere to grow when the execs are probably starting at 300K a year.
Way better people to raise up with in the company.
uh way better people to raise up with in the company so i made way more than that way way more than that and i fucking murdered and uh i i killed and um and i deserve twice as
much as i got and i don't think it's how much that they're paying those people um so i i don't
i don't think you can be like hey they're paying those people. So I don't think you can be like, hey, they make $300,000.
First of all, $300,000 a year if these dudes are living in – I think one guy was living in downtown Seattle or something.
It's like – he's got a two-bedroom condo that cost him $1.8 million.
They need people who – let me tell you hillar's worth four hundred thousand dollars a
year all they have to do is pay hillar four hundred thousand dollars a year and be like
hey don't attack people inside the mothership and they got them and the content will start flowing
it's worth it it's worth it it's worth it it's worth it but but you got to find the right people
i i don't i don't think uh i i i don't i didn't i don't think that that's um
i don't i don't think that that's a uh i don't think that's an issue uh ryan uh sansam uh
someone have you talked to greg about this in depth his thoughts i haven't talked to greg in
two days i think he's just laying around by the pool and boning.
Working on kid number 10.
It's a good ass life.
That's how all of you were made, by the way.
I don't know if you know that.
Anyone have any questions, DM me on the side.
Unsporty Beth.
If Dawn is serious about having...
God, look at those arms on that dude.
Looks incredible.
If Dawn is serious about having 30 million members by 2030, charge affiliates on how many members they have, $10 a member generates $300 million.
Dude, I think that's a horrible idea.
You're punishing people for having successful gyms.
I think Greg would hate that idea.
And let me tell you, you're also encouraging people to lie.
Jay Hartle, I pay pay more to hire Hiller.
Yeah, if I was running CrossFit, I'd pay him $500,000.
I'd bring him on board.
I'd get a team of like two or three other people.
He'd be a slave driver.
No one would have to do blackface, but he'd be a slave driver.
Okay, here we go you guys ready number three of six thousand i understand making affiliate owners require the level two to be an affiliate
owner by the way these are all affiliate owners i'm not reading anyone who's not an affiliate owner
i understand making affiliate owners require the level two to be an affiliate owner i think it's a
bit of a joke that they don't need any experience do a two-day course and then open your own affiliate the level
two goes into more depth of the coaching aspect and also by doing it it shows you're committed
to crossfit as you've had to have had your level one for at least a year in coaching experience
i agree with 89 of that that's kind of cool get your level one open a gym and then a year later get your level
two it's kind of cool right yeah and i mean so therefore like did it even really increase the
barrier to entry that much because you could still get started you could still start to make a little
bit of revenue and make it yeah i like it and you got your 500 towards it yeah um the 1.5 times
price increase is a farking joke i understand that they haven't had a price increase is a Farking joke.
I understand that they haven't had a price increase in 11 years But to bump it up by 150%
In one go, come on. They could have done it
Slowly over the next 3-5 years.
That's my two cents.
Oh, it says my two Bob.
Is that English money?
Maybe this is an English affiliate.
Imagine if I increased my, oh that's why they said Farking too.
Imagine if I increased my membership rate For my members by 150 i'd lose half half of them i reckon
um jeff baker why is uh suza so nasally no he's always like that what are you talking about
because since you've been in the geriatric ward for the last six months and came back you forgot
what he sounded like uh what do you what do you think um what do
you think about the increase this guy agrees with you on the level two i mean nobody wants to pay
more than they already do but again i just think like this is just an just it's just part of
business like if you're in business as long as like you know most of these affiliates have five
eight years like these guys are saying you're just kind of used to it right like you just got hit
with the pg&e increase in bill we just got a hit um and so you're kind of yeah you're kind of just used to it
i think they also did steps for people that were uh grandfathered right
actually you know i did hear that in the meeting today that it's one it's one year there's going
to be a step for a year yeah and then full later on. I did actually hear that today. That was
the first time I'd heard that. Yeah. And so some of the arguments that were coming back were those
really early gyms that paid like next to nothing. And they're saying, well, what about them? That's
such a huge increase. Some of them are $400,000 more now. And it was basically just like, well,
now you're going to pay half that for one year than the other half. So they kind of,
you know, solve that problem.
Which seems fair, right?
It does.
I think that maybe what they should have done is just given people a year.
You know what they should have done?
Wow.
They should have given all the people one year at the same price. That had given them a year to emotionally fucking chill out.
So then you would have gotten two years.
Oh, I see.
But the thing is,
is like if this really is a revenue play
and we don't know how bad they actually need cash,
they might not have that much runway to do that.
You know, we don't know how.
Okay.
They're like, hey, we're doing this
and we're just going to step this up
because we need that revenue right away
to do whatever it is they're going to do.
They would get the new, they would get more revenue from any
new gyms yeah but i'm not as much though right okay and i mean how fast are affiliates opening
and coming in now and hey uh in defense of hq here um the people who are having their affiliate
fees reduced i bet you that's not going down in steps those guys aren't like oh don't reduce us
all that much all at once do it in steps the guy in fucking nambia or wherever he's stoked
he's like about time i'm a crossfit here we go i'm a crossfit gym owner in new jersey
i'm coming up on 10 years congratulations i understand the need for increasing pricing
we're implementing a price increase ourselves in in January to support the plans and expansions we have planned for 2024
and 25 and beyond. It would be hypocritical to do that, then criticize another business for
increasing prices. My barber's increasing his fee from 23 to 28 in January. Not a word from me.
And listen, the barber's not giving you more value. He's not like, dude,
got these scissors. You're going to be twice twice as good looking blow jobs up 1.8 it's not like that right my barber's increasing is free from 23 to 20 in
january not a word for me on it because i'm in it and i understand see that's what i want from
that's what i prefer that from don yeah that's what i would prefer from HQ. Just like, just, yeah, hey,
price of haircuts gone up.
Not a word for me on it because
I'm in it and I understand.
The question owners can ask
is whether or not they trust the leadership.
If you do, trust this will make the product better.
If not, then just leave.
For some of you, this would be the second time.
Oh!
Shot at the end there.
Shot at the end there. Whoa, shot at the end.
I've seen, I've seen, I've seen it.
God, I can't believe we're in the CrossFit community.
What a great life.
I've seen increased effort and quality from ownership under Don Fall
when it comes to support and communication.
I, that is true.
I'm not a big fan of how much crossfit communicates if you like
communication yeah like they do all sorts of communication i just think it it's it's um a lot
of it is just chatter that confuses shit but our our motto at a crossfit was don't talk to the
affiliates and just make content like like don't spam them don't send emails like they're like we
haven't do this this and this. Greg's like, fuck you.
We're working.
Like, you know.
But this guy likes the communication and ownership under fall.
Good on him.
I hope this money can go towards a real quality CrossFit app.
We used to have one.
That alone would be worth it.
Thanks, Sevan.
So I like that.
Like, that would be awesome if they could say that.
Hey, we're working on this app and
you're going to get notifications when new media comes out and you're going to get notifications
about the open and when stuff's due and you can pick what notifications I mean I love notifications
from the people from the apps I have that's my favorite about apps yeah I mean we're just going
to sound like a broken record here but I would rather just I would rather just see CrossFit
everywhere I think that they would if Don came out and said,
hey, we're going to make the investment into getting 30 million people a fit.
By the way, my name is Matt, guys.
I'm a 10-year affiliate owner.
I'm your new chief marketing officer.
Thank you for the opportunity, CrossFit.
And here's what we're going to do.
We just raised everybody's rates,
but we're going to bring media back in such a huge way.
Our job is going to be publishing and distribution of the media.
We're going to be jacking it up across every single platform three times a day, just posting crazy content. And the development of
that content is going to come from you. We're going to open source it. We have a lot of awesome,
talented creators in the space. Start sending your guys' stuff in. We'll start paying you guys.
We'll start finding other ways to elevate you in the space. And then affiliates, we want you guys
to tell the stories of what's happening. Other companies would die for the testimony that is
happening every single day in your CrossFit gym.
So whether you're making an impact in your community
or you've just changed a member's life
that walked through your door,
make a story we want to hear about it.
We'll be elevating those stories.
Secondly, we're going to get back to America's heroes.
We're going to be focusing on our base,
our first responders, our law enforcement,
our firefighters, and especially those of you guys
that are doing CrossFit that are in healthcare.
We know that that system is broken
and it is our job as CrossFitters to make a difference
in a huge impact there and disrupt that like crazy.
So we're going to really be reaching out, leaning on our doctors.
That way, if you guys go on February 3rd to the health summit of CrossFit, this is going
to be kicking off the new vision that we're going to bring back, which is going to be
harpooning healthcare because we know we have the cure to the world's most vexing problem. So creators, pick up your cameras. Affiliate owners, pick up
your cameras. By the way, everything in this is going to be shareable and for free for anybody
else to distribute however you see fit. And furthermore, please join us on February 3rd
in Austin, Texas. That's a real thing, by the uh the suzer is really not the uh chief marketing officer but
besides that the only edit i would put is we're raising affiliate prices and you said but i would
like to just check that and put and and yeah brilliant i like by the way that's your strategy
repeated back to you oh thank you i joined crossfit when it was another affiliate uh dm
i joined crossfit when it was three affiliate DM. I joined CrossFit when it was $3,000 to affiliate.
There's more tools than there was when HQ started.
It's just a matter of taking advantage, going to the summits, roundtables, Zoom meetings, et cetera.
There's also an affiliate toolkit.
I like that there's a requirement for affiliate owners to have an L2.
It will help professionalize CrossFit. And honestly, I'd spend at least $500 on a coach to get certification anyways which they're
giving each gym for 2024 and for every gym owner that is successful they know they have increased
their members rates CrossFit only only mistake was not doing it little by little as they rolled
new additions once again the timing thing but I'm going to give CrossFit a pass on that even if you
have a very small membership base increasing prices by five or ten a month will more than cover the cost of the new affiliate fee i'm 28 and there's a few
other young gym owner friends that i have that feel the same we want high quality crossfit so
if you don't have your l2 peace out oh dang hey they're a fan of it I got nothing I mean yeah that's my money that person's saying take my money hey and what if
what if there was an option um and I don't even know if this would work but I'm just throwing
this out there where you could almost do like a type of thing where you affiliate your home
and they would do it by square footage to where it was very obvious you weren't running full
CrossFit classes and if you had your L, you could apply for a home affiliate.
We send you a banner.
You get to hang it across the gym to let all your neighbors know you do CrossFit.
And your space is small enough to where you can impact a few of your neighbors and teach them and have some friends over and maybe make a little crash.
Dude.
But not enough money to where it's going to go bigger to an affiliate.
Then when your square footage changes, we elevate your rate because you're a big affiliate now.
A garage gym affiliate thing would be huge. make it super low barrier to entry there and then you could potentially have both um uh aaron uh shy bell uh suza
matt suza matthew suza owner of crossfit livermore can you have a high quality gym without someone having an l2 have you ever seen that
oh absolutely yeah i agree too yeah i mean even when you go to both those courses like all your
learning is going to happen out on that floor you got to get reps in with the class you got
to get reps in with the with seeing and correcting movement for a long time yeah i'm mike mccaskey
what if i have an l work out in my garage and
already have a crossfit banner there you go don't pay thank you for getting the banner out front
make some content send it our way we'll post it up if it's good uh why isn't uh crossfit hiring
suza um jay hartle suza has a degree in the aerosol arts i'm'm not an NBA from Harvard.
He wasn't right for the fit.
Hi, Sevan. I met you once at
CrossFit HQ back in 2018.
What the fuck happened
there? As an affiliate owner, I sure hope
you and Greg are cooking something up because
HQ just shot itself in the head.
That's a kill shot.
Raise in fees. I hope you are doing well and I love your work. Keep it up. just shot itself in the head. That's a kill shot.
Raise in fees.
I hope you are doing well and I love your work.
Keep it up.
I hear that and I wonder if I'm still not convinced that person is going to de-affiliate.
I think a lot of them too,
depending on how soon your new rate is,
there might just be that emotional reaction and you could say I'm going to de-affiliate and you might not have to pay for
another eight months. So are you really just saying that out of a knee-jerk reaction because
you can, because you don't actually have to make the change yet? Or are you one of these that are
paying right on January 1 and you're actually making that decision that shortly, that short
of a window? If you if you or jim and
you're paying five hundred dollars a month and you make forty thousand dollars a year and they
increase it to forty five hundred and then you also have to take your l2 this next year it's
going to be five thousand dollars how much i say make you make forty thousand a year yeah that is
um uh what is that it's just twenty of your, more than 20% of your income.
No, sorry.
10%.
It's more than 10% of your income.
They just took.
So I kind of understand that.
I mean, I'm going to understand that.
If you're that 10%,
if you're a $40,000 a year guy.
And here's the thing I'm going to say,
at least you got away with it for 15 years,
however long you were paying that rate.
I wish I was paying $500 for the last 10 years.
It would be a big upset.
And here's the thing,
we said it last time about the hobbyist, right?
Like the people that have the nine to fives
that are still trying to pull off this cross-stitching,
that's who this is going to affect the most.
That's what's going to be really troublesome
because it might not be worth it for them.
But if you're in your business every single day
and you're solving these problems all the time,
it's just going to be another one of those.
It's another price increase.
How could we add value at the gym
or what do I need to do to make the adjustments
to survive and move on?
You're keeping, as of now,
you don't have to decide for another 13 months.
As of now, you're saying you're not going to de-affiliate.
You're going to deal with it.
What – is there any world where you could see yourself not – could you see yourself de-affiliate?
Like, can you see that world?
Like, you went through three or four – you went through five years of –
Yeah. Yeah. Funness. through three or four you know you went through six five years of yeah yeah um funness um is there
any world where you see you do de-affiliate um yeah give me an example well let me wait before
you say that do you see a world do you see is there any gyms that you would recommend de-affiliate
right now yeah the ones that are going to break them and they're going to go into the negative and
accrue debt for this yeah yeah you need to de-affiliate because you can't afford it
what as opposed to just close down yeah as opposed to close down but then again i'm like i'm thinking
to myself man is that if that really breaks the bank then there's a lot of other probably issues
within the business that if we drew some attention to we could solve that would help make this problem a lot easier for you do you think
that it would be callous if hq were to say uh hey dude if this breaks you you don't belong in the
space anyway get the fuck out of here it would it be callous to say that yeah but
you know yeah
you have a little bit of that sentiment
you have a little bit of that sentiment
no because I empathize with him
it's not a justification for raising the price by the way
it's just a it's that's not something
maybe HQ should say let me rephrase that
it's kind of like the bible like don't point
that shit at other people point that shit at yourself to make
yourself a better person like you need to ask yourself that that maybe that's how maybe i just answer
my question that's not something hq maybe should say to people although maybe greg might say that
to them yeah yeah yeah but you said it because they made the price oh they okay right so they
made the price okay they said it in their actions right you can't
knock out you can't go to hq and knock on the door and be like please cut me some slack and
cry it that's the price here's the thing i hope that they do make exceptions like that core city
crossfit or something like that let's say you're doing like a non-profit deal and you're making
really big impact you're the last gym in detroit and you have 20 fucking kids working out there
free your scholars your
scholarship didn't and we're sending somebody with the camera right like that would be the deal or
we're gonna you know work that rate some other way um again with uh my new initiatives as a cmo
here i'll say it in corporate speak so that way hq understands as well here we'll bridge the gap
my new campaign is going to be called america's heroes so also if you're in law enforcement or a
firefighter or you're an md or health care provider your affiliateship is also going to be called America's heroes. So also if you're in law enforcement or a firefighter or you're an MD or healthcare provider,
your affiliateship is also going to be dramatically reduced
because you also are active in those jobs
and maybe don't have enough,
but you're the type of people that we want to highlight.
And then by the way,
I'm going to send somebody over there with a camera.
How much do you think we should charge HQ
to run commercials for the L1 and affiliateship at a yearly cost?
Like $100,000?
Like $50,000?
Yeah, just right here.
Like if we were to run a commercial here.
Like if I was HQ, I'd be like, fuck, I'd run a commercial on that podcast.
Yeah.
Charging $50,000 for an L1 commercial and $50,000 for an affiliate commercial a year.
Okay, so here's the… You're the CMO. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So here's,
here's what I would do. And then you probably get me to fucking dance a little, like, you know,
dance a little. Yeah. So I would have, I would have two options and I would say, number one,
Hey, we're going to give you $500,000 in resources to make this commercials on this,
but to also use your network, Sebon,
of talented creatives that we know you have in the space and other people in the media.
So that way you could give resources to them to highlight your stories more in depth that you see
fit. And then we're going to pay you. You'd give me money to grease. I didn't say that. I said,
we're going to find people within your network that want to make positive changes and give them
a camera. Or if again, I was in this and that would be offer number one and then offer
number two i would say hey no uh we're going to not pay you that much i'm only gonna pay you 100
grand so it's basically personal salary for you to give you a little scratch but we're going to
elevate everything you do give pedro ten thousand dollars to give away uh 12 free l1s to give one away a month on his coffee pods and wads.
Yeah. So many, so many cool things to do. Okay. Here we go.
Next one. Affiliate owner of 10 plus years.
I knew it was coming due to the survey I got about a month ago.
I'm really on the fence about continuing as an affiliate.
My local community knows our gym for what we do,
not because we are a CrossFit gym. Clearly leadership has been an issue since Greg's departure. On one side, I do see them trying to do more things to help the affiliate
owner, mostly targeted at new affiliates, which doesn't help me at this point as I sought out and
paid for that help on my own. That's a pretty strong, valid point. I have time to decide,
but to say I'm disappointed overall is an understatement. A 10-year-plus affiliate,
to say I'm disappointed overall is an understatement, a 10 year plus affiliate.
Um,
uh,
they're basically saying there's been struggles with,
uh,
HQ.
I mean,
since 2018,
or it's,
it's on a roll.
Um,
Don's,
I think the most stable thing that they've had there and for sure in four
years.
Right.
Yeah.
Um,
and,
uh,
this person definitely has their feelings hurt 10 year plus affiliate
do you think that there's any desire
do you think that that was in the equation
they're like fuck maybe we don't want to burn the old affiliates
or do you think that part of them is like
fuck let's get these fucking Greg Eastas out of here
maybe both
you know
maybe they again I think they kind of drew the line like hey we'll just do this
now and we'll we'll see how it shakes out and the naysayers that are already on the fence like
okay they're gonna go that's fine we're comfortable with that and the ones that stay we know are like
ready to continue the fight right but that's them out do you know what else i think don knows
i think don knows that if they fucked up and people left,
that he has the ability to woo them back.
I mean, he wooed Kalipa back.
That's exactly what I was going to say.
We've already seen him do that.
Yeah, he knows he's capable of that.
Yeah, big people in the space, right?
Someone leaves, they're not leaving forever, maybe.
They go out on their own, they're like,
fuck that, I want the name back.
Yeah, and then again like i
feel like the gyms that are most suited to do that where they could drop the crossfit name are usually
already the big really established ones with like stable revenue and things like that so it's like
you kind of get into this place of like the ones that really could afford to easily do that with
no skin off their back um probably aren't going to do it because the extra money isn't going to bother them that much.
Zach, me adding one member to our gym gives us $2,200.
Two members pay for the affiliation for us.
Blue Cord, CrossFit.
If CrossFit said we were going to do a national Super Bowl commercial with all the extra revenue, would people have a problem with that?
113
million viewers i would be happy with any media but yeah i would i would have a problem with that
strategy because i think that with the stories that we have and the amount of talented people
in the space that we have with the camera that we'd be far more better just open sourced media
and just using us as a distribution platform for all that media than to take all that money and hone it into one
commercial.
I,
I,
I hate it,
but,
but,
but I like,
I like the sentiment.
I like the sentiment,
at least then blue cord.
Then you,
at least you know where the money's going.
So I like the sentiment.
You could point at it.
There's our commercial.
Uh, Allegra, our, uh, You could point at it. Where's our commercial? Allegra, NC Fit re-affiliated when Don took over.
Yeah, I think that there was a courtship process there.
Yeah.
And Don and Jason, I think Don was a member of Jason's gym early on or something.
I think they had a previous relationship potentially.
The deal, Sergeant.
Commercials don't get clients coaches who give a shit do.
Okay.
Here we go.
You guys ready?
Big one.
This is a big one.
Dear Sevan, thanks for what you do.
I'm an affiliate owner for just over 10 years.
The affiliate fee is not a huge part of our budget even with the increase.
But I've been questioning renewing for the last few years before the increases i don't see the value in the 300 a month we are paying i think there is a
negative public perception around the brand that is causing injuries and that you need to be in
great shape to start by the way nicole uh addressed that today i i i finally i think i find that as
part of the what's interesting is i find that as part of the charm of the brand.
That's why I like the brand, because of the reputation.
I like a Harley Davidson because it's loud.
I like a shotgun because it makes big fucking holes, scattered holes everywhere.
I like a sledgehammer just because it breaks shit.
So it's interesting that he doesn't.
But what is HQ doing to change this perception of the
brand question mark what is hq doing with the tens of millions they get from affiliation fees
and don't we have a right to know uh i don't know if you have a right to know but since you're
paying into the pile it sure as fuck is fine to ask okay to ask nothing wrong with asking that's
for sure and if that's a deal breaker for you i get it i ain't hating most affiliates will tell
you that they're struggling to find any coaches.
That's a good point, right?
Finding good coaches is really hard right now.
Yes.
Much less quality coaches.
What is HQ doing to address that?
And finally, what is the plan for this additional revenue?
If this actually results in a revenue increase after how many gyms cancel
the email has a bunch of vague buzzwords and nothing of substance yeah that's how a lot of
the talk was today unfortunately too yeah i don't know if buzzwords or substance it's just so
fucking high level it's like um i have to use my imagination to figure out what he's saying what
people are saying i've never gotten even a single lead much less a member from crossfit.com despite completing our gym profile including coaches photos etc starting
in 2024 we will be spending 450 on google ads and getting every search for fitness in our geography
sent to our website instead of an affiliation and hq can keep their affiliate playbook so this kind
of is the same sentiment the other guy had all the had. He feels like the new tools are for new gems,
or the tools are for new gems.
Yeah, and I think they are.
I mean, you're not going to hand a 10-year affiliate a playbook
and be like, hey, I understand your lease.
You're like, yeah, dude.
Have you gotten any leads from the affiliate map?
No.
Have you ever gotten an email from the affiliate map?
No.
I wonder if it works.
Has anyone tested it out?
I think...
Did I test yours out one time?
Maybe you did.
Maybe that was the only one.
Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm like, shit, maybe you're right.
Maybe there was a...
I think I tested mine out one time on the air.
I wonder if Grace did one time when we were traveling.
Yeah. Oh, listen. Athena, I get several a week. time on the air i wonder if grace did one time we're traveling yeah oh oh listen uh athena i
get several a week well no shit fascinating really yeah i mean several weeks crazy if you
get one a week that's crazy yeah i mean if you like if you get yourself like an actual like
engaged lead which a lead is yourself like an actual like engaged lead
which a lead is someone you could contact an engaged lead is someone who's interested in
your stuff that you could contact like that's incredible yeah because that's each one of those
is probably worth between 40 and 60 bucks uh adam blakesley affiliate maps for people on vacation looking for drop-ins that's 100 true uh mike they if you mike mckeskey says how do you understand
track that if you go to the affiliate map i you and you click on a gym that's on there
it just sends them an email and the email i'm guessing looks like it comes from hq
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I mean, I think she's speaking to kind of what i was saying earlier it's like when you're
in business that doesn't justify raising them though i get it it's like if you can't look
go ahead go ahead okay so i don't like this argument that you guys are saying i mean i get it
i get it you're just if you own a business you're used to just fucking having to deal with the shit all the time.
I mean, that's all you are as a business owner.
It's like you're just going around and solving problems and putting out fires and like dealing with shit coming at you all the time.
That's why it's so freaking hard.
And here's the deal.
I mean, I just got my trash pickup, Live More Sanitation, raised their rates.
Not by like 50%, but they raised my rates on me.
Am I going to now like go to them and be like,
hey, what more value are you adding?
You know, like spray something when you leave.
So it doesn't-
You don't have a choice.
You have to pay for that.
You don't have a choice.
You don't have a choice.
You got to pay.
And as a business, it's just like that type of stuff happens all the time.
And, you know, you just have to be able to adjust to it.
I think this is different for us as a CrossFit community
because we always felt so connected to HQ.
Like we had a relationship with HQ, especially affiliate owners and the messaging.
And I just think we've been drug through the mud with poor leadership, poor communication.
Trust is pretty much broken.
So now when we're putting, now you did all that and then you ask us to put more money into it.
You cannot be surprised that some of us are just like, fuck off.
Like, I don't, you know what I mean?
There's a little bit of like, hey, they put their thumb in your butt.
And then ask you for money.
Yeah.
Miss Burns from Sabbath Essentials.
That's where my wife gets all of her products.
Sabbathessentials.com.
Mrs. Burns.
I can't afford – this is like some good hippie shit, by the way.
Go over there and check out the website.
Like if you want like –
Yeah, my wife really likes the like oil thing.
Like this isn't for people who like spray Windex on their dining room table.
This is like the other shit.
Holy fuck.
I go to this sushi place and they spray the tables
while I'm in there eating
why?
no spray when the restaurant's open
just a moist rag, no spray
nothing scented, I don't want to smell anything
when I'm eating
Mrs. Burns, I can't afford
the $2,000 a year increase
in my homeowner should I not own a home
I mean yeah I guess that is it homeowner should i not own a home i mean yeah i guess that is it yeah you should not own a home
i mean susan did say something interesting i said hey do you think crossfit should just say
hey fuck you if you can't afford it it's your problem well there is that component to it
without them saying it if they just raise the rates this isn't like cvs where anyone can go in and just rob and steal anything
you don't get to pick your price yeah yeah yeah this is crock fit uh hairy pair of testes um uh
if or if the 4500 doesn't make sense as a figure did 3000 ever make sense what exactly were you
getting before that you're getting more or less of now seems like a descaling of the eyes for some hey um i thought i was getting my garbage for free
for like four years i lived in berkeley and i thought i was pulling one over on the city and
then one day i looked at my like um uh property tax from the city and it was in there i've been
paying it you know i mean so they got on this emotional high for four years yeah i'm pulling
over a fast one they pick up my garbage everything i'm like motherfucker i pay for that they just
built that into the property tax they'll get you okay um ready yep hi steve when i took over as an
owner of at my affiliate just over a year ago it has been the hardest but most rewarding year of
my life with a lot of low points, but ultimately an infinite.
I'm infinitely stronger sense of meaning and purpose in my life.
I get to help people every day become stronger physically and mentally.
Following along with you and Susan Hiller and the gang has helped stoke my passion even more through this tough year.
We've turned our affiliate around doubling our revenue, increasing our membership by roughly 30 percent and providing an amazing service to our community through CrossFit.
I feel more bought into the methodology than ever before. I have no plans to de-affiliate in light of the fee increase. I'm grateful that our gym is in place where an extra $150 won't affect us too
much. I would have been totally different story a year ago. Oh, this is a great, this is a great
DM. The delivery of the change was not ideal Given it's never going to be ideal
But Susan made great points yesterday
I know Susan kind of took the cobweb
Out of my brain too
CrossFit is clearly trying to select
Dot dot dot
I don't know if I didn't copy the whole thing
Okay so here's a person who's
Last year they had been fuck you
And they're like dude we've doubled our revenue
And she's still saying the timing's bad she's already stated the timing's perfect for her
i don't know why i think these are all women i know so do i have that it's weird oh it was
thanks for reading my message select their customer she finished oh okay all right there
you go yeah felt a warm and fuzzy okay good okay rebecca faye right. There you go. Yeah Felt a warm and fuzzy. Okay, good. Okay, rebecca faye. Yeah
Yeah, there you go
And she and rebecca's even like yeah, like even though she said the timing's not good
The timing was great for her actually. Yeah, rebecca. I'm gonna edit that and the timing was perfect for me
And we were lucky enough to be able to shoulder it at this time. Yeah
Yeah
All right, also too like I think rebecca just said it right like the the the answer is is
like what did she do to turn her gym around and double the revenue right right did somebody from
hq did the coon show up from hq and start greeting members at your door like no like you implement
asking him to do that either let's be clear you're just saying like hey as an affiliate owner you got to do your own shit yeah a certain part of it's going to be your, like you implement asking them to do that either. Let's be clear. You're just saying like, Hey, as an affiliate owner, you got to do your own shit.
Yeah.
A certain part of it's going to be responsibility.
Like you really want them to just completely just shower everything in content.
So that way, everywhere someone looks, it's just like around, around, around that helps
push, make them, you know, make that decision to walk through the door.
But even once they come in through the door, it's still your, it's still your job to like
figure that out, to keep them to add value, everything.
Right. Oh, right here. She said it. Absolutely. Very fortunate.
Tons of free resources from two brain affiliate you and you guys. Wow. Two brain. There you go.
Two brain. Yeah. She says he rolled her sleeves up and got to work and made some changes and
implemented some stuff. And that's great guys. I don't have the link here, but since there are so
many affiliates watching these shows, if you haven't received one of these you should get one you can download the pdf
um it's uh the two brain business state of the industry fourth edition uh two brain is a company
owned by chris cooper it's the largest um gym mentoring consulting service uh on planet earth
chris cooper's been a guest on the show several times you definitely want to look through this
this thing is you you'll love this it's like candy and the letters are big and the
writing's big and lots of pictures it's good it's a great resource and you guys could use that qr
code on the screen right now too unless you're listening to this on your phone i apologize you
have to oh thank you go back and do that later but there it is right there so we'll leave that
up for a second um but yeah this is by the way athena just sent me this oh cool and this is this is what it looks like uh it's this person wrote
i'm a drop-in uh prospect found your gym on the crossfit map and it says the person's name and
their phone number and their email it says hey uh i'm new to the area i'm looking for a gym oh i'm looking for a gym to send patients
can we jump on a call dang okay yeah
crazy okay thanks athena yeah so she's getting them
and she's a small gym i think she's a small gym yeah that's awesome like a like a one or
two three clients at a time she's like a personalized like a um um
uh one-on-one gym one-on-one she's at 400 square feet oh yeah it's as big as the house uh
i had my kids work with large bodies
congratulations you know you would uh qualify for the uh gym uh the garage gym package we're
going to be lowering your affiliate rate and uh sending out a flag and a banner for you and uh
keep doing the good work but if we ever see you have more than five, four clients in there, we will send the execution.
We're going to tax that ass.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Here we go.
I'd probably pay a lot more than that.
To be honest,
the brand name still holds so much power.
People are acting like this is the biggest assault to the viability of their
business.
Try doing 300 days in lockdowns,
then a $14,000 fine for being unvaxxed then come
talk to me uh let me guess australia or canada uh okay uh that person is uh suck it up quit being
a pussy uh okay they have other hardships that's like what you're saying you're saying you're numb
you've been tossed up a little bit yeah. You've been tossed up a little bit. Yeah, man.
You've been tossed up a little bit.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
When they raised your rent last year, the state, you have a tax passed on to you that's $2,000 a month.
You're like, yeah, okay.
Another speed bump.
Dude, I mean, I don't think I got into this even when Pedro asked me about it.
But you know the story of right when I took over my affiliate
and signed on the dotted line, I'm like, I'm a sole owner now.
I owe this money back now to the people that originally went in with me.
And I called up my landlord because I knew my lease needed to be renewed.
I had about an eight-month runway.
I called him up and he goes, wait, you don't know?
I thought we already had talked to all the owners and everything else.
We sold this building.
And now I had just accrued a whole entire gym, a bunch of debt, and I had nowhere to go.
And I had to find a new building.
And at that time, we weren't making any money either.
Someone told you a gym without telling you that the lease was up?
Well, that might be a little harsh, but I don't think we were aware of how short that runway was.
We've been able to kind of keep getting a year at a time out of
this guy and everything else.
And then all of a sudden it just went to like,
Oh no,
you don't know.
Yeah,
I sold it.
You got to be out.
Uh,
international affiliate implications.
You mean that we can't even start an affiliate now?
What's that mean?
I don't know.
I think she was referring to,
I thought I saw Heidi's comment,
say something about that.
No,
but I think they were going to look at different areas
and make price adjustments per the area, internationally speaking.
Isaac Abad did a perfect enunciation of that.
I live in a mountain town that is super expensive to live in.
Good coaches are hard to come by.
Not sure what coaches make,
but you can't rent a place for less than $6,000 a month.
What do you do?
Run the gym and use the CrossFit name and don't pay them.
Yeah. Can we have a Jeff Bakos comment real quick? I was going to bring that up because
usually he says a bunch of BS, but that is actually the very truest statement ever.
I was young. I was super excited. I didn't care. I wanted to do it. It took the
affiliate and I just dove in headfirst. Jeffff bako got his first uh three venereal diseases yeah so he knows he
knows yeah to his point and that's what you know that's that's how you that's you learn the hard
way right stupid as a tax and i definitely paid it uh okay here we go uh i know this news came
out yesterday but i am not heartbroken over the price increase.
It does suck, yes, but I'm upset about the L2.
I got my L1 in June and wanted to open my own affiliate within the next six months.
Now I need to get my L2 sooner than I had planned.
Just changes things.
I don't think that's true.
You can still open the gym with your L1, right?
Yeah, and you have a year.
Okay.
We have that correct, right?
We're not the official we're not the official uh affiliate team we're the official marketing team okay yeah yeah you
got y'all got a year okay here we go people uh next one ready here we go a reaction to increase
it's hard to see something i love so much floundering continue to make moves that seem
to hurt the community that stands it up increase won't end us doesn't hurt the bottom line I say yes because CrossFit has not shown
the affiliates the value the current regime is still riding off the coattails of the original
message coach put out CrossFit was run by a man we all called coach because he continued and
continues to coach us that presented the value and made the brand fuck hq for this move side note massive props for the
l2 move interesting right just fucking eight sentences of just you douche nozzles and then
it will be completely overshadowed by the affiliate fees i
i'm curious what greg would say i can't when greg comes on here on tuesday i'm gonna ask him what do you think about the l2 requirement i'm really curious what he would say. When Greg comes on here on Tuesday, I'm going to ask him,
what do you think about the L2 requirement?
I'm really curious what he says.
In the past, I think he would say it's bad,
but part of me thinks that maybe things have changed.
I mean, the thing's spread all over the world.
Like, it's spread all over the world.
Here we go.
Next one.
We are literally finishing the building that was going to be our garage-based affiliate,
massive detached garage just waiting on drywall and power hookup.
We planned on trying to affiliate.
I believe in Greg's vision and lost my previous co-ownership and an affiliate
because I refused to turn my back on him or ask for vaccine passports.
Oh, I like that.
I still believe in CrossFit.
I want to advertise that I'm a CrossFit gym, but this is too much money for a garage-based gym.
We are running on nothing but pure love for CrossFit as a methodology.
Before and after working regular jobs, I just don't see how we can swing that much every year and it sucks
so let me just take this back one second crossfit is going to lose
the mom and pop passion community is a piece of the community going to die?
How did you get to there?
Let's say 20% of the gyms are just garage gyms,
mom and pop gyms, just these gyms with 40 or 60 people or these passion projects.
I'm trying to think who we had on who had one like that.
like I'm trying to think who we had on who had one like that are those going to go away is like we agreed yesterday that it's going to professionalize
god I hate that word it's going to professionalize and – there was another word we used.
Bring a certain continuity maybe to these, maybe standardize the gyms a little bit more.
Is that going to be bad for the brand?
Is that like we've gone from – I wish I could think of a parallel.
Is there some intangible we're going to lose?
What is the –
It's got that monster energy drink and those like
strippers that come and pour the energy drink on people i mean people you know whatever those
girls are you know what i mean their bodies don't look like our girls bodies you know what i mean
yeah yeah yeah raps and shit they look like girls don't look like dudes like our girls
hey let me ask you this out of that percentage of the people that have their gym in their garage
what percentage do you think is also hoping one day that they could do this full-time and it's
their dream to move it out of their garage into a larger brick and mortar location so all of them
all of them but the problem is they have a job that pays 222 000 a year at the ship plant in
their city you know what i mean they work at like the sewage plant making 225 000 a year
and they're three years away from retirement and where they're going to get 60% of their pay and they have health insurance.
So they don't want to pivot to their gym, but they're dying to do their gym full time.
I think there's a shitload of them, like five or 10% of the gyms, maybe more.
Fuck 20%.
20%.
Wow.
That'd be.
Yeah.
What do you think?
What do you think?
I don't know.
What do you think?
I don't know.
When you... All the gyms in my...
All the gyms...
There's no gym in my town as big as your gym
and there's a lot of fucking gyms.
That's interesting.
I would have thought there would have been one at Lisa's.
Our gym at HQ wasn't as big as your gym.
Hmm.
Give a...
Craig Howard's gym
is as big as all the
gyms in santa cruz put together yeah
yeah you know okay so i i look at this in two different ways and people are probably going to
hate it because it's just a dichotomy that i'm going to like bring up here but the business side
of me says like like okay that's fine and i hope they go and find affiliates and i hope affiliates
bring them in to offer them coaching jobs and i hope some of those coaches that are moving out of their
houses go search other affiliates that are around, find one that suits them and then shows up with
their, you know, a dozen members, right? You could add a ton of value to that affiliate.
Well, walking members that sign up that day is something you could leverage to kind of get in
there. So hopefully there's some collaboration.
And then on the business side,
again,
I'm still here.
I would just say,
you know,
what we want to do is we,
we want to do,
we're going to be doing a massive media campaign that just push CrossFit
everywhere.
And we want to make sure that they're being pushed towards big gyms that
are easy to find.
And they're not,
you know,
being pushed towards these small.
So there's going to be a cultural shift.
And then I go to the emotional side or like the OG side of me. And I said,
yeah, that, that sucks that we should find a way to keep all of them.
Uh, extra sloppy. Um, yes, seven, you're on it.
That's exactly what's happening to me right now. My garage means a lot,
but only to a few people in comparison to many, they're saying goodbye to me.
Meaning they HQ is saying goodbye to him.
in comparison to many they're saying goodbye to me meaning they hq is saying goodbye to him yeah that's probably going to be the uh biggest you know tragedy that comes out of this the price
increase and again you already know my thoughts i would have figured out figure out a way to uh
to somewhat regulate that due to like square footage size or something or your intention with
it or the hours or the like you know different ways to like you know regulate that due to like square footage size or something, or your intention with it or the hours or the web,
like,
you know,
different ways to like,
you know,
regulate that.
And then I would give them a,
a reasonable price to stay.
And like I said,
I'd send them a banner,
make sure they,
they could raise the flag in front of their house.
Uh,
Jeff Baco,
uh,
from a business standpoint,
uh,
Susan sounds like,
uh,
Sean Woodland.
I think it's,
uh,
E A N not that it matters.
Uh,
Jeff Baco, uh, from bako uh from a uh media
consumption standpoint it sounds like you listen to the lone ranger podcast
you see uh not where you've been jeff for the last six months over at the lone ranger podcast
jeffy uh can't you still run it just not be affiliated yeah that's what but then you're
out of the community dude yeah and that's the part that sucks.
Yeah.
I do agree.
That's the worst part of this,
is to try to preserve that piece of the culture somehow.
Okay.
So, yeah.
So that guy was building a garage gym
and kind of like his dreams have been stopped.
Affiliate fees are a joke.
Announcing it one month in advance is as unprofessional as fuck.
I'm disappointed and there's basically no support in Germany.
And I don't know how that looks in the motherland of CrossFit.
I like the idea about the L2 and 12 months of ownership.
But again, this is the very first time that I consider to say I'm out.
There's nothing left of credibility of the brand.
The changes are made all against uniqueness. and Greg's idea doesn't exist anymore. My gym is going
to be called Community Fitness and I really hope that Greg comes up with some new shit by the end
of the year. This will probably never be read, but it felt good to blow off some steam. Our country
managers are simply hand puppets with no real opinion and it seems like no one is allowed to
talk openly or state their opinion.
I've been in this for 12 years.
My gym is non-competitive, yet I fulfill the spectrum as a coach.
I have international weightlifter and games athlete,
and then they say the games athlete.
I mean, that's some fucking crossfit.
That's some passion. Dude, yeah, that's some fucking crossfit that's some passion
dude
yeah that's some passion
international people
speaking out I wonder if their
sentiment is different than
the US or it's like the
percentages are the same
he was okay with the L2
the L2 thing seems to be like
a like a everyone's kind of cool
with it yeah I mean
if you've ever taken every like everyone
yeah like of course
it's so good everyone's like
fuck you fuck these guys I'm out L2
is good idea yeah
that's
yeah we literally got one of those a few weeks ago right i mean i
joked around with you guys i was like hey i'm gonna start my own fucking affiliate program but
i'm still gonna make you take the level one at crossfit a seven affiliate you what you're gonna
get it with from me is media yeah it's crazy okay um um hey seven i've been listening since the
josh matt and seven days you made a comment uh on the Jethro Cardona show wondering how many people started an affiliate because of your affiliate series.
I just wanted to share with you that I opened my affiliate three months ago because of your show.
Thanks. That's cool.
Yeah, and by the way, that's because you just highlight and talk about all the stories that are happening inside the affiliates.
And that inspires people to want to either do more of what they're already doing or go and start doing it themselves.
So we also have our proof of concept for our media too.
HQ.
We have the proof of concept.
We know it works.
There's not – I've told this before.
There's not the humility over there.
They don't have possessed that.
To understand that.
At all.
Zero.
Although I used to think that they lacked the humility.
Now I'm thinking maybe it's the mental horsepower.
I don't know.
I don't know.
But I'm going to say the humility.
They would rather go down with the ship. Than bring on the guy who can plug the hole.
Kind of weird, right?
Which is crazy for private equity.
Feels like gym owners are lobsters in a pot of water and HQ is slowly turning up the heat.
How much longer will they stay in the water?
Do you agree with that?
Is $4,500 turning up the heat?
It's definitely, yeah.
Yeah, and they're going to
want the people that could stand it.
Judy Reed,
my husband registered me for L1
at Mayhem because of your show, Sebi.
I love hearing that.
Hope you use the code CEO.
Yeah, you can use code CEO.
That will give you a 50% discount on your L1.
Don't tell anyone.
Okay, here we go.
I'm an affiliate owner.
I just passed my 11-year anniversary.
January 1, we went up.
We raised our monthly rates, but we're also in a small market.
Price increase over the course of a month isn't much,
but nothing has been shown of much value these past few years.
Hard-pressed on if it's really worth it.
When they haven't shown us much backing,
then to require the L2, yeah, that's great.
But it's really just another money grab.
Very on the fence about this and where we're heading.
Like we said, whether it's a money grab or not is a totally different,
it doesn't diminish the value or what value taking the L2 does.
Yeah.
That's cool that everybody got behind that.
Affiliate owner said this to me.
I've literally been coaching for 20 years.
Now they're forcing me to take the level two.
LOL.
LOL.
Okay, that's the first.
That might be negative.
Yeah. okay that's the first that might be negative yeah uh as a three location gym we are out
we've watched crossfit as a brand buffer
and all the people who wanted greg out i hope they like what they got
god that that is a fucking interesting
Thing some of you have left twice I hope
Those of you who fucking
Shat on hey hey I'll tell you what
Half those people
Who shat on them they're not even around anymore
Yeah their
Shits gone right and the other half
Are two years away from their games career ending and we
Never fucking talk about them again.
Except to fucking smash their face in the ground, talk shit about them.
Man, can you imagine, though?
I always think, like, in an alternate universe, if Greg, you know, didn't sell
and it changed the other way, like, how popular Greg would be right now?
7,000.
If even half the gyms left because of the pandemic, he'd be like Elon.
He'd have just been walking around like this.
Lawsuits everywhere.
And we'd be winning the lawsuits now.
All the lawsuits of...
You know how Rosa wanted to make a deal with the government?
Greg would have fucking law-suited,
and now they're all winning.
Everyone's beating the government down.
You can see what's happened with the U.S. military.
They're having to give everyone back.
New York City had to give people their jobs back.
Holy shit. He would have buried the U.S. military? They're having to give everyone back. New York City had to give their people their jobs back.
Holy shit.
He would have buried the NSCA.
Not the settlement and the numbers, but the actual organization,
which then would have made us the largest shareholders of the certification courses in the health and fitness space.
I'm not – it was great.
Nicole's talk was great today.
One of the things she said and someone else said about the perception of CrossFit being dangerous, that all came from the NSCA. And that's the damage that did and and and the the original leadership of this company before dawn fall um but let that slide that was a huge fucking mistake and that was
greg's whole plan the whole time that's why he never settled that he wanted that case to always
be public so we could always point at it and say that would have been that was the ultimate tool
crossfit could have had you guys understand that i think think it was the University of Ohio and the NSCA had a case.
They forged 16 people in the study who said they were injured.
Greg sent lawyers to their houses and deposed them and none of them were injured.
And to this day, CrossFit could be parading that around, being like, look, we're the most potent thing in the world, and they know it, and they're threatened by us, and we can't do that now.
You can't really do that because the fucking case was sealed.
Settlement was sealed.
Huge fucking catastrophic fucking mistake.
And so in defense of you who are kind of upset about that, that's what happens when you're just about the money.
Yeah, that was a fuck up.
Hey, and that also was the first tell and then make it gives less tools to poor nicole way less tools for nicole she could have used those sorry go ahead and and i just think it shows that
they didn't really understand what they were doing by settling that case and oh you went like i think
that they were way too focused on the shiny object that was the clown in the parking lot to sell the cars and forgot that they were selling the cars.
Yeah. He had no idea what he was doing.
Hey, you know what I just heard the other day for the first time? I didn't know this, but I heard that it was the social media attention that Rosa got that broke him.
I had no idea. I thought it was just some personal shit. He was like – I don't know.
Like he fell into the clout?
Like he was too focused on his likes and his comments?
Yes, yes, yes.
Yes, that he couldn't handle the heat coming from our community because our community is savage.
And he came into it thinking he was going to be the golden boy, and he got destroyed.
And I think I heard that broke him.
I'd never heard that before.
I thought he just had some mental health.
I thought he was a crackhead or something.
He smoked a bottle.
He smoked weed and lost his shit, spun out of control.
Yeah, I mean, he was obviously fucking up.
He fired Dave, and then the board fired him.
Yeah, that's what I heard.
I heard that from someone for the first time,
that it was just fucking the onslaught of social media pressure.
Like, what broke Mal O'Brien or Haley Adams or he got broke too.
Wow.
Too many Reddit threads.
Damn.
Too many.
And Hiller wasn't even big then.
No.
God.
Hiller would imagine now.
Oh,
what he got.
Fuck.
Uh,
bam.
You and I are live. I own and run a CrossFit gym X and consider myself a Glassman disciple.
He can have all my money because he earned it by giving me a blueprint for efficacy and no other could.
Corporate CrossFit has given me a playbook programming I won't use in platitudes.
Don't forget the platitudes.
I want to join Greg's new gym program when his non-compete is up and have a vastly superior, even more efficacious group training experience.
Thanks for reading this.
Yeah, interesting.
To be completely frank, I wonder how many people
would stay with CrossFit if Greg did start something
how many people would stay with CrossFit just because of the games
not many
well let me throw this to you
out there there would be times of
the year
where people would you know a thousand
10% of affiliates would be behind
on their affiliate
payments and we roll up to the open where people would, you know, a thousand, 10% of the affiliates would be behind on their affiliate payments.
And we roll up to the open.
And Greg did not like the affiliate team collecting money from the affiliates, right?
He wanted to leave them alone.
Like, hey, don't be, like, he didn't want, like, bill collectors.
But he would roll, they would roll up and they'd call people and they would say,
hey, open's coming.
If you want to participate in the open, you should pay your affiliate fees because you're going to have to register your affiliate.
And fucking A, that people would pay their affiliate fees.
It was a crazy carrot.
Was it the open or was it the call?
You went again.
Because he did not call. He did not call.
He did not bug.
So I,
you're right.
You're right.
God,
you're like a real scientist.
Initial reaction on price increase is always negative.
No matter how big or small.
I agree.
If an affiliate owner can keep two members at $150 a month price point for 15
months,
it pays the affiliate fee.
I think having L twos to be affiliate owners will only give those attending that affiliate a better experience and the coaches and that affiliate will be better
for it too the general community seems to be flipping out i think the sting will wear off
people react emotionally not logically i i agree with the last part of this completely
yeah i think people are just crazy emotional yeah they just need they're just processing
yeah i mean anytime you get some news
that's like that like what i mean even with like uh going back to my sanitization increase there's
the opening of the mail like fuck fuck that we're just gonna cancel it i'll dump the trash over
there right yeah but then all of a sudden life takes place you're doing some other stuff and
the bill comes and you're like oh damn that hit oh yeah there's a little less in there okay and
then you just kind of move on jeffrey birchfield I've done the Open for the last four years and never was part of an affiliate
Weirdo
Interesting
Bruce McLaughlin
The open generates energy
In our box the games does not
Or just indirectly yeah I really
The opens dope okay here we go
I agree with this increase and honestly think it's way overdue as gym
owners.
We raise our rates all the time.
Why can't they?
Yeah,
I have one that that's interesting.
Okay,
let's go.
I'm amazed that owners are bitching at this price increase.
It's a hundred percent worth it.
Add one extra member and over the year,
it pays for the increase.
Any owner that's ever increased their monthly membership fee has no right to complain about this this is part of business
i mean i just go back to it's theirs and if you don't like it leave and you were kind of saying
that too i'm like hey do you think crossfit hq should say if you can't handle it get the
fuck out and you're like they don't have to they raise the price. They'd said it. Yeah
Paul Sebastian curious if it she would rethink this if Big Jim is like mayhem threatened to de-affiliate dude They don't even know that the fees went up over there
seema did uh did uh seve just call himself a weirdo no no jeffrey birchfield's a weirdo i'm cool i'm normal because i said sanitized i'm normal as shit that's annotation
he's on it he's on he's on the case. My brother and sister-in-law will most likely de-affiliate. They have a very small CF gym in the rural eastern Sierras of California, about 50 or 60 members. The $3,000 was hard enough. We will continue to work out, but there seems to be no direct benefit of these fees to the affiliate. This is not what the CF community needs. The extra money can go back to the gym directly for upgrades and equipment. All the coaches are volunteers, and it's a strong community that will continue whether it has cf name next to it or not so this is the gym how
many of these this gym nails it 50 or 60 in the mountains somewhere and they'll continue on and
they'll just use that money that they were spending um this is this is so is this what
is this what you mean it's not professional all the coaches are I mean, there's volunteer fire departments probably still in Tennessee.
No, I mean, I have coaches that would categorize under volunteer.
Like, no, I don't.
Okay.
Yeah, that's the tragedy of this.
That's what I'll say.
Okay.
That sucks.
So you do think that's a little bit of a tragedy?
Because part of me is not feeling that you actually think it's a good thing
because it ups your brand value by those guys going away.
I don't know if it does or if it doesn't i i think if you're in that rural like mountainous town and there's only a you live in a small population no i think it just unfortunately
like a like a like a leaf dries up and withers away in the wind and nobody notices i unfortunately
think that's more like those those locations and that's why i think it's a tragedy because i i
would love to be able to,
and again, I don't even know logistically
how you would do that,
or like some of the other stuff I mentioned,
Sleeky, I wrote in here,
she was like, well, then how do you keep track of that?
And it's like, yeah, that's really great points.
So that's why I think it's a tragedy.
Because if those gyms ultimately go away,
in those small little pockets like that,
that sucks.
in those small little pockets like that,
that,
you know,
that sucks.
Um,
thoughts on Dom fall,
getting his L two soon,
leading from the front.
Uh, I don't know if Don has his L two or not.
Uh,
but yeah,
he should get it for sure.
Yeah.
They shouldn't announce that he's going to get it though.
He could just go get it. it though he should just go get it
no he should just go get it right i mean i i think he i think he should be visiting a lot of them
a lot of l2s a lot of l2s i don't think he needs to sit in front row and like go through all the
notes but i think he needs to do have you ever taken your l1 all the way through maybe four
maybe four or five times oh okay but i was gonna
say even if you didn't like just by being in there by interacting by watching it by doing that over
thousands of times like you have like yeah yeah you know you're right you're right and probably
only two or three times now that i think of it yeah but you could walk into an l1 and you could
watch it for a minute and you go something's off this flowmaster is not as sharp as we should be
i've sat through them from beginning to end 50 times but holding a camera yes and and so exactly
but you know the feel of it you know what it should feel like how everything should run and
you know if that standard's slipping even though you're not directly you know hey i took it one
time so i think you know sam walton who started wal, his famous thing was he would just show up and always go walk through all of his stores.
And I think the equivalent of Don Fault showing up at these random certs all the time is huge.
Not only can he interact with the up-and-coming culture that's going to be the new wave of CrossFit coaches, so it's a really good PR move on his part.
But at the same time, he's showing up and he's watching how these things are going to making sure they're up to
the standard do you know who does do that dave yeah hey you know what i used to use for my coaches
back in the day what this is kind of disingenuine a little bit but i would joke around and say like
actually i wouldn't joke around i didn't say it's serious and i'd be like yeah dave um dave's doing stuff where he's touring in this area they let they let the affiliates know
he's gonna most likely be here within the next month or two so make sure all this stuff stays
on point because you don't want to be the guy whose class he walks into and it's not up to what
what the level that we know we could be at and everybody be like oh and i like obviously had
no idea if he was ever coming i looked. I looked at his story yesterday and he
was at two separate affiliates yesterday.
Yeah, well, that's why it was believable.
Yeah, damn, I can't get a story to play. I don't
know if
what's going on.
You guys know we
I shouldn't
I shouldn't dog him.
God, I think my Instagram account is gone forever.
Hi there. My name is Josh. I'm a five-year affiliate owner here just west of Atlanta.
Honestly, I have mixed emotions about the email. I'm not 100% against an increase in rate, but I definitely believe they need to put their money where their mouth is.
Media is key.
No doubt about it.
I want to feel the CF name means something.
Bring back Forging Elite Fitness.
I'll stay for now.
I believe in this shit, but unfortunately many won't because many don't.
Origin Elite Fitness. I'll stay for now.
I believe in this shit, but unfortunately many won't because many don't.
I think that's
probably like a pretty, that's
the general assessment. Like when someone asks
you for more money, you're going to be like,
and then basically you could
have your head down working and then all of a sudden you
could look up and just like basically
by doing this, Don knew he was going to, like we
said, he's going to get 65,000 opinions
on the subject
yep yep and a percentage that are gonna leave and they knew that um i think this is um
a a pretty good oh let me read this one uh 15 year affiliate here someone not happy at all about
the rate hikes we just moved into a new location at the start of this year and our expenses increased by 40 i'm personally so sick of this one step forward one
step back life i'm here on this planet to help people and raise a family and i've had to launch
a second career just to maintain a gym that feeds my soul instead of my wallet i could have opened
a gold or planet fitness and become a salesperson and made a killing but i was drawn to the mission
crossfit created this is just ridiculous again they I was drawn to the mission CrossFit created. This is just ridiculous.
Again,
they're talking about the mission,
right? A lot of these things are saying the mission or what
Greg started or what Greg did and the
methodology and stuff like that. That's
the unfortunate messaging that we're not seeing
from CrossFit right now that they definitely need to
get back to. I think you'll win
a lot of these people over, especially if they don't have to
de-affiliate for a really long period who would do that there how would they do that
yep that's the problem huh i mean
like you're asking me like if i had like what's the strategy i would have because i i i thought
of one yeah tell me which one you had i i i thought of one that i would do what's one that
you would do in terms of turning around I would do. What's one that you would do?
In terms of turning around the messaging?
Yeah, like that message that you keep saying you want to hear, I have the cure for the world's most vexing problem, nuts and seeds, little starch, no sugar.
We need to be in every hospital. We need to talk to doctors. Just this vision of what the company is about and where it's going who would you have drive that who there is going to drive that as of right now as it stood
out as i could pick the characters that are there yeah it would definitely be it would definitely be
nicole um here here's what i would do i would and i sound like a broken record i would just go into
the l1s since that's all Greg's material.
And I would be filming those like crazy and posting shit from there every
single day. Yeah. It's a, such a successful model.
There's so many gems in there.
You posting from there every single day. Yeah.
Content from the L one,
because at least then you're tapping into the vein of what Greg's saying.
I mean, I think the internal message to my team, and then number one,
this would definitely ruffle some feathers at HQ,
but I would basically say,
hey, we're going to build the CrossFit headquarters
and here's where it's going to be.
This is what it's going to look like.
If you still want to be a part of the company,
you have X amount of time to move
because we're not doing the remote shit no more.
Yeah, that would be good too.
And then I would say the next piece would be
the health of the L1 is directly would be the health of l1 is
directly related to the health of crossfit as a culture in the health of a company the company
as a total that's our focus boy bringing everyone together would be smart um okay so what god there's
so many i know i'm trying to find a little bit it's there's hundreds i so appreciate you guys
sending me all these it's crazy um uh what what what do you think that general i want to go um
my family's like out doing tennis and and it's like they play tennis and then they they eat at
the tennis club and it's this big party there i want to go be with the kids what do you think the general sentiment is i think that that was a pretty
i'll say this but you tell me what you think the general sentiment was from what i read do you
think that it's a quality sample and um are you surprised by it those three things what do you
think about the sentiment are you surprised but do you think it's quality sample and um oh are
you surprised by it yes i think it's a quality sample no i'm not that surprised by
it and i think everybody's reactions are relatively fair and also what what we would expect um uh do
you think crossfit's uh lost its way do you think crossfit's going to be gone in two years this
price right rate is going to break the community and crossfit xq is going to go bankrupt
i think that um we've kind of been in this wait and hold pattern for a long time.
And I think after this increase that if we don't start to see something like massive from them,
that speaks to the message of the L1 that, yeah, that could be a serious potential in the next, you know, 24, 36 months.
Do you think that this was a brilliant business decision that Don has made
and that the revenue at CrossFit is going to increase and the quality of service is going to increase?
And that the revenue at CrossFit is going to increase and the quality of service is going to increase.
From the outside looking in, I have no way to understand that.
If I was, let me put the CMO hat back on as hello, CrossFit affiliates. But what about just from these emails?
My feeling is from reading all of these DMs I got, hundreds of DMs, is that his bosses are going to be really happy he's succeeding in
his mission he's going to um do a very subtle standardization of all the gyms revenue is going
to go up and um and the and uh and quality is going to go up it's i think it's going to be a
win-win on three fronts from from what i'm reading here yeah i mean i i think so as well too but we still need to give that time to see how it shakes right but i'm asking what you think do
you think that this was if if like if you're if you're don's buddy and you're out drinking with
him tonight are you like dude you fucked up are you like dude bold move i think you got this i
i would say dude bold move i think you got this i can't believe we booked nicole carroll on so many massive
platforms to be on podcasts to spread the mission the way you did how'd you get all those awesome
contacts especially in the health and fitness space it's nuts having her and rogan's gonna be
incredible i love you all right uh if this backfires don is done yeah for sure uh no seven
you are losing no seven you are lose no seven you are
losing people from this you're losing um members at gyms you think or you're losing affiliates
here's the thing i hear what you're saying i'm talking about um i'm talking about if you're his boss, do you like the books better after this decision?
Yes.
And I think for Don, he scored.
I think so too.
Yeah, because I don't think these fucking guys are leaving.
This guy's not leaving.
And the ones that are leaving aren't the ones that i think that the the don's bosses are
worried about uh it wasn't just his decision that's true definitely was i that's the interesting
thing did these strategies come directly from the board or is don how much autonomy does don
have are these strategies is he just there to implement the strategies um i disagree with sarah cox here i hope this won't affect my bottom line i think
this decision was his and people below him no no i don't think so i don't i'm in that camp i'm in
the camp yeah no i don't think that they're i don't think you think nah i don't even think
they know what the fuck's going on over here i don't know nope i don't think they got one
crossfitter on the board i agree with that yeah i don't think i don't think they know what the
fuck is going on here yeah i mean i think they know how to listen these guys that are in the
venture capital we don't know who the board is, but we know
that they got a lot of money and you don't make a lot of money by being an idiot like
that.
So they have some idea of what they're doing.
Newport.
Damn it.
So again, so sorry.
We know the board guys have a lot of money.
What?
Yeah.
And I just think that you do that you you make that money and you have success in business because you're able to process
and make better decisions and so you know were those will those decisions apply to crossfit
because crossfit is very unique uh time will tell but i think that um i think that the board knows
what knows what they're doing in terms of trying to create more revenue and business opportunities as they look at it you know as they look at crossfit as
a total stay high on your paper street coffee people use code word seven make sure you get
your peptides if you want to be yoked like me if you're gonna have a baby go to birth fit
you can have a baby if you want to make a baby go to birth fit if you have a baby, go to BirthFit. If you want to make a baby, go to BirthFit.
If you have a baby, go to BirthFit.
Be smart.
Go to Vindicate and get your CEO shirts.
Great Christmas gift.
Susan, thanks for being here.
Oh, God, please tell me we have no guests tomorrow.
Please tell me we have no guests tomorrow.
No guests tomorrow.
Oh.
Yeah.
Oh. guest tomorrow please tell me i have no guests tomorrow no guests tomorrow oh yeah oh we had
like a kind of a bigger one in there i think in terms of like stuff you want to talk about but
they got moved so oh you and i will be hanging out tomorrow morning again oh that's awesome
there is one i want to finish you guys this video.
It's not a country manager tonight.
This is at a supermarket here in Santa Cruz.
And I think this is apropos to the thing we're in.
You can see this as depressing or you can see this is that you guys have tons of, as affiliate owners, tons of opportunities.
Here we go.
I think the people behind us are about to get soda. She's tapping the can. She's literally
tapping the can of the soda. Excuse me. Are you down to quit soda for 30 days for $100 right now?
It's still doing soda because it's required right now because my son has to be-
Has to drink soda? What the hell?
They're trying to get more get more people to drink soda.
Well, what if you went back home and you went, hey, this crazy guy at a grocery store came up to me.
And he said he's going to give you $100 if you quit soda for 30 days.
What do you think he'd say?
And if you didn't have the soda?
If you don't give the dollar.
I have the dollar.
What if you go home and you give him this $100?
I'm taking a challenge for my son because he doesn't know about this challenge.
I will give him the $100.
No.
Right now?
No.
You're going to get the soda.
Okay.
That is fine.
We tried.
Common occurrence where they're like, I'm not really drinking the soda.
But we know from what he was saying, he slipped up.
He said, I do drink the soda.
My goal isn't to, you know, rip people away from their habits, but to gently guide them with cash cold hard cash and approach so uh you guys are in the business of selling people
personal accountability and personal responsibility you want 150 bucks a month from people this guy
can't even give someone 100 bucks stop drinking coke so you have an uphill battle crazy i'll leave you
with that the good news is there's tons of unhealthy sons of bitches out there go get them
love you guys have a good day i will see you tomorrow morning peace