[0:40] Fitness business churn

[1:31] Comparing churn in Jiu-Jitsu vs. CrossFit gyms

[3:37] What is the “Blue Belt Blues”?

[6:45] How “Committed Clubs” boost engagement

[8:20] Lessons CrossFit gyms can learn from Jiu-Jitsu

[11:10] Belt-tracking-inspired systems for CrossFit

[14:06] How PushPress aims to help gyms reduce churn

Dan Uyemura: [00:00:00] You can see it in the data. You pretty much bottomed out in your first six months. You burn off like all the tire kickers. Welcome to the PushPress Podcast, where gym owners learn to dodge bad advice, crush the competition and actually make money doing what they love. Let's get after it. And this episode of the PushPress Podcast is brought to you by the third construction crew that has decided to come outside of our recording studio today.

Uh, never ending work to be done in Orlando, apparently. Anyway. Hey, in this episode, pretty excited to talk about it. We got it. Uh, guest host here, Miguel from PushPress, uh, wanted to come in and talk about some things he's seen in the Jiu Jitsu space. We've been working a lot more with Jiu Jitsu studios, they call them studios?

Miguel: Academies? 

Dan Uyemura: Academies. Jiu Jitsu, pardon me. Jiu Jitsu academies. Um, and we're learning some pretty interesting stuff and stuff that we also see in the data as well. And that's, we're going to kind of talk through, uh, specifically on. The horse that I have beaten to death for the millionth time [00:01:00] churn. Okay. So anyway, the cool thing about this all is I think the jujitsu academies, um, are kind of starting to level up.

Like we're seeing a progression in the Jiu Jitsubusiness acumen that we saw maybe in the CrossFit space five, eight years ago. Yeah, definitely. So now they're kind of like paying attention to churn. They're trying to understand more of the mechanics and, and, um, mechanisms within their businesses and. Um, why don't you just tee us up, like what, what, working with Checkmat, like what have you seen?

What have they been talking about? 

Miguel: Well, we're working with a few of the Checkmat academies. You know, the biggest things that they're really looking into is trying to leverage data that we can, we can provide them to make their business a little bit more successful. Right. Churn is going to be an issue with most places, uh, as, as we've seen in the CrossFit gyms, but they want to find ways to keep or retain their, their students.

Outside of just, you know, the traditional belt tracking ways, which is great, but there's always going to be [00:02:00] two different customers there. 

Dan Uyemura: Yeah. Yeah. And so the interesting thing is like, I've actually had this discussion with somebody recently and, uh, when I mentally broke it down without having any of the data and with none of the antidote either, because I haven't been in any of these academies that Miguel has.

I was like, Hmm, I feel like in the belt tracking world, they've got a natural churn reduction system built in, but my gut would tell me there's a huge avalanche when you get your first, every belt level, it's just like, cool. I finally got it. Now I'm going to go rock climb or whatever, whatever it is. Right.

Um, and in the, in the CrossFit world, because they don't have, most gyms don't have that type of a belt tracking, except the ones doing like level method type stuff. Um, but in the CrossFit bootcamp strength conditioning world. It's just a slow, gradual burn. And so my theory at the time was one has like a pretty strong early retention and then a drop off, probably a drop off at every belt or belt.

Yeah. And then whereas CrossFit has this quick burn, like you can see [00:03:00] it, the data six months, you pretty much bottomed out like you're in your first six months, you burn off like all the kind of like tire kickers. And then if you can get past six months, they're pretty stable, like the rate of burn goes down, burn churn, whatever.

Um, Does that 

Miguel: seem right? Yeah, it seems, it seems right. Um, like what I've seen, not only from speaking with a lot of different academies, um, but from my experience as well, right? I've only, I've been in Jiu Jitsu for a year, but, um, and a lot of my, my professors joke about this every time is that when white belts get their blue belts, They disappear.

They call it the blue belt blues, the name for it. There's a name for it. Blue belt blues. So literally it's like, you know, for some people it takes a couple of years for them to get their blue belt. And they've achieved that. That's a big milestone because they're not getting pounded anymore. Um, but once they get their blue belt, you disappear because like, Oh, I achieved something.

I'm gonna take a [00:04:00] quick break. We'll see if I come back. Um, but you know, you've got different people who, when they're solely into. Finishing it all the way through, like, 

Dan Uyemura: yeah, there's something to this concept of milestoning where there's a mental letdown when you get there, if you will, like, okay, I made it and, and you, you can then reevaluate what, what you're doing, or if you, you know, like I've, I've hit my goal that I told myself I would do now I can leave.

Whereas in the, in the CrossFit world that doesn't exist. So I think, I think one of the cooler things we have as a business is we can look across different industries and see these trends, right? And so, um, that's kind of what we're here to talk about because what, why don't you talk about your experience and like moving forward, like what.

What Checkmat's seeing and what they want to do. 

Miguel: Well, um, in, in one of the, the suit academies that I talked to, you know, one of the things that they want to actually find a way to incorporate is, [00:05:00] um, some kind of committed club, like what's there in CrossFit, right? Um, part of that is to keep that engagement going like each month, right?

Uh, with the belt process, especially traditional gyms, you're getting promotions. Maybe every quarter, like either a stripe or a belt quarter, every six months, a year, just depends on, on the academy that's doing it, but when they want to find something to keep them really engaged. In between, especially for the people who like maybe aren't competing, right?

Right. Like for me, I'm, I'm a hundred percent blinders on competing and doing everything Jiu Jitsu. But, I do like, kind of like the aspect of a committed club. Cause sometimes, you know, even as an adult, we're sucker for little things. Shout out to uh, Checkmat Academy for the dope stickers right here. Um, I want a sticker.

What does it say? That the astronaut and then the kind of like the Barbie sticker right there for Academy. [00:06:00] 

Dan Uyemura: Are these, were these for a committed club? 

Miguel: That's, that's what they're going to be doing for their committed club. If they want it. Yeah, but they showed me the stickers and I was like, dude, I want a sticker.

Dude, these are like retro, 1980s. So, and you know, in our committed, in the committed club that we've seen in, in the CrossFit gyms, you, you would think it was the kids that were more into the little stickers, but it's adults. I still 

Dan Uyemura: can't get over this sticker thing. 

Miguel: Adults 

Dan Uyemura: go crazy over stickers. Stickers and water bottles and computers for some reason, it's a thing.

Um, okay, so let's, let's, let's get back. Okay, so what I want actually want to do in this, in this episode is marry the idea that CrossFit can learn from Jiu Jitsu can learn from CrossFit. So let's get back belt tracking. So, um, how can this be deployed in CrossFit gyms? And, um, what, what do you, what do they see in terms of like the churn reduction?

Miguel: Well, I, I think the way they could use or utilize it in, in Jiu Jitsu gyms is really got to use the, the data, right? That's there, especially [00:07:00] checking in. I've been to some academies where they don't check people in at all. They just assume people will show up and they'll be there when they get their promotions or whatnot.

Right. Um, but if you can, if you've got a system that you can use to track the check in data, the engagement, you know, how many times people's students are checking into classes, if you can combine all that data, you could have your, your committed club right there. Keep them engaged while they're earning their stripes or their belts.

Um, and especially for, you know, you've got your, your students that that may not be concerned about stripes or belts because They've got a higher, higher goal that they're trying 

Dan Uyemura: to achieve. We're going to flip flop it then because I was, I was asking what CrossFit You answered the other way. It's fine.

It's fine. We're talking about now what Jiu Jitsu can learn from CrossFit, right? So belt systems in place. They probably have big drop offs every [00:08:00] 18 months or 12, 12, whatever. When you hit your belt, committed club comes in. Committed club is a process where you're rewarding people monthly. With a token prize, some kind of recognition, some type of slap on the back, if you will, high five for being a part of a committed, you know, movement towards what you're trying to do committedly at moving towards your goals, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And in the crossword world, do you, do you know the numbers we're seeing on the Committed Club? 

Miguel: Um, I haven't seen all the numbers with the Committed Club, but what I think what CrossFit could, yeah. Use from jujitsu is having, it's sending longterm goals, right? Like, you know, um, what, you know, I don't know if you want to call it a PR or whatever, but have something set already, depending on the different movements or what you're teaching at your, this 

Dan Uyemura: essentially is what level method does, right?

So they put a, a ranking system around every movement or every, every facet in the functional fitness world. And then it's like, how [00:09:00] competent are you at that? Um, the, God, there was another system years ago. Stripe system. There's another system years ago that was very similar to this, but I think it's defunct now.

That was, we tried to do it at my gym. It was really cool actually, where it was like, you actually, yeah, you test into and there's thresholds for every movement. Yeah. So, and they actually had, and I'm sure I haven't studied level method as much, but it's probably the same where it's like. Until you can do a certain, until you qualify for a certain level, like muscle ups are out of the equation.

Like if you can't do a certain threshold for pulling upper body pull. 

Miguel: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's the same thing. Like, like with jujitsu, like at my, I'm a blue belt. There are certain moves I'm not allowed to do. They're not going to teach me how to do that. Cause I could probably hurt my training partner or myself, but, um, there's, there's so much ways that both different industries can learn from each other and help each other out.

Um, by minimizing churn and increasing, um, engagement. 

Dan Uyemura: Yeah. And I think this is actually a really cool aspect of what we will be driving forward is like using the [00:10:00] data across, you know, we can, we'll learn from every industry we work with. And start pushing, you know, the right ideas into the right gyms, or at least giving people the concepts that are happening.

That's how we're going to marry the two. 

Miguel: Yeah, I mean, and the tools are there. It's just really like using what's there and finding ways to exploit it. Is that the right word? To the benefits. 

Dan Uyemura: Exploit is a strong word, but in general, like what I profess is you want to understand what you want to get. For your clients and you want to manufacture that into the business.

So if you know that, like in jujitsu, if you know they need to be around for a certain amount of time to get to the skills required to be a blue belt, you also want to manufacture things within the month, like shorter timeframes to keep them along that path to get them to that year. 

Miguel: Yeah. And, and, and just, you know, to copy on that, there's different people that are there for the stripes and for the belts.

And then there's people that's there for the art of it. 

Dan Uyemura: Yeah. I would say in general, probably 10 [00:11:00] percent just don't give a shit about one or the other. But somewhere in it, like you kind of care. You kind of still care. You 

Miguel: still kind of care. I mean, like I talked about earlier, like I was, I was 

Dan Uyemura: geeked and you got stickers and got excited.

Like it's, there's something there. Okay, cool. So in general, like, and the cool thing is, is like we're working on a belt tracking software in PushPress now. Yes, we are. And that would actually allow a CrossFit gym to do a belt tracking style motion in their gym. 

Miguel: They'll, yeah, they'll be able to do the belt tracking.

They'll, they can do the committed club. 

Dan Uyemura: Yeah. We, we wouldn't call it belt tracking, obviously, in CrossFit Gym, but Yeah, like you can do a level tracking or whatever. Yeah. Give people long term goals. And we already have the Committed Club, which we're, we're refining right now, and that allows the Brazilian Jiujitsu gym to do short term, short term goals.

Yeah. Incentivization. Yes, for sure. Yep. So. The cool thing we have here is like, we're kind of marrying both worlds and hopefully we can fight churn in the short term and the longterm and provide healthier gyms for both. Yes, definitely. That's cool. Okay. Wrapping up. Is there anything that you want [00:12:00] to leave the parting words with?

Miguel: Um, Hey man, thanks to, uh, the academy for, uh, providing us some data and really showing us the ways that they've done their business and. Um, looking forward to helping them grow even better. 

Dan Uyemura: That's great. So I guess my question to you guys is if there's any other short term or long term churn reducing tools that you found in your gym that aren't, uh, your gym, studio, Academy, whatever you want to call it, that aren't specifically a level tracking in the longterm or committed club in the short term, we would personally like to know, because maybe we can productize that and make it more efficient for you to run that and your other.

So shoot us an email podcast@pushpress.com. Let us know if you found anything that's really effective in terms of reducing churn. And we might feature you on an upcoming episode of the podcast. See you guys later. Thanks for listening to another episode of the PushPress Podcast, where we help gym owners, entrepreneurs, and fitness enthusiasts thrive with actionable insights, inspiring stories, and strategies for growth.

Nick Reyes: Don't forget to [00:13:00] follow the show to stay updated on new episodes. And if you're ready for more, join our free Facebook community for gym owners. Check the show notes for the link, and we'll see you next time. Keep raising the bar for your business and community.

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