Q & A With CrossFit Elm

Brandon Garcia (CCFT, CFL3) owns CrossFit Elm, a 10 year-old affiliate in Thornton, Colorado. Garcia first opened his affiliate in his garage, and has learned a lot in his decade of affiliate ownership including the importance of treating a business like a business, and being intentional about every single decision. Keep reading to learn more about Garcia’s proudest moments and biggest challenges while owning his affiliate.

What is the best decision you’ve made as an affiliate owner?

Hiring a business coach. As coaches, we care so much about people that we often let the business side fade. We’ve worked with Two Brain, Affiliate Solution, and currently, Affiliate U. No matter what, hire one. We ask our clients to trust us as coaches for something we’ve become experts in; we should do the same with a business coach.

If you had an extra $1,000 each month in your budget, what would you use it for? If you had to reduce your expenses by $1,000 each month, what would you cut?

With an extra $1,000 I’d pay my coaches more and/or invest in their continuing education. If I had to cut $1, 000 — we run a really tight ship and don’t really have any “extras” so there’s not a lot to cut. But for me, I’d cut paying for programming. I’d take the Lesson Planning Course and the Level 2, and learn how to program well and stop paying for programming. (That said, we use CrossFit Affiliate Programming, and I’m not sure I’ll ever go back).

Tell me about one of your proudest moments as an affiliate owner.

Making it 10 years. We’re in a tough market (Denver metro) full of other CrossFit gyms, other micro gyms, personal-training gyms, etc. Most of them go in and out of business within a few years, and the other affiliates around us have been sold multiple times if they’re still open. We’re still here, original owners, and growing strong!

Do you have any tips for other affiliate owners?

Hire a business coach and run your gym like a business. If you treat it and run it like a hobby or a social club, you won’t make it and you’ll live in stress and burnout nearly the whole time.

Describe an important point in the growth of your affiliate. When did you feel like you had a good grasp of the business and were on a steady path of growth?

For me, it was during my first run through a challenge called 75 Hard. It made me realize that I needed to focus on doing the things that made the business thrive, all the time. We’d go through ups and downs, and 75 Hard made me realize it was inconsistency in execution of the small, daily tasks that put our name in front of people, helped us serve our current members well, and resulted in referrals, inquiries, and growth.

Tell us about an important learning experience. What’s been your biggest mistake?

Grandfathering rates nearly cost me my gym. We started in my garage. I charged people $70/month. When we moved into a commercial space, I should have moved everyone to a full rate. I had overhead at that point. Two years later, when I removed the grandfathered rates, it blew up in my face. We lost 90 percent of our members and nearly lost the business. Had I done it when we moved, it would have been easier to explain and more people might have stayed.

Can you offer any advice for new affiliate owners who are just getting started?

Be intentional about every business decision you make and don’t create policies you aren’t willing to enforce on your mom.

What has surprised you most about owning an affiliate?

How easy it is to take every interaction with a client personally. It’s not personal (even if they meant it to be); it’s business, and we need to adjust our emotional reactions and responses accordingly.

What excites you about CrossFit’s future?

I think COVID woke a lot of people up about how important their health is and how much better getting healthy is when you have a coach. I’ve been a fitness professional for nearly 20 years, and 10 of those as a CrossFitter and coach. No other fitness system on planet Earth changes lives the way CrossFit does. It is THE MOST powerful life-changing movement on the planet, and you can see the we’re (the entire CrossFit ecosystem) just getting our feet set. It only gets better from here.