Running a gym is tough—it’s estimated that 30-50% of independent gyms fail within the first few years. That’s why finding the right strategies and support from the very start is important.
Gym mentorship gives you expert guidance from pros who’ve been there and done it, helping you avoid common pitfalls and grow your business faster. But finding the right mentor can be tricky. That’s why Kilo is kicking off a series of gym mentorship reviews, starting with one of the industry’s best: Two-Brain Business.
By the end, you’ll know about:
- The history and approach of Two-Brain Business
- Two-Brain Business’s offerings
- The mentorship program structure and strategy
- What Two-Brain Business’s customers say about them
- The Two-Brain Business State of the Industry Report
- The Two-Brain Business Summit
Read on to learn more about Two-Brain Business. 👇
Two-Brain Business Overview
Launched in 2016 by founder Chris Cooper, Two-Brain Business claims to be the largest gym mentorship practice over four continents. Chris had been a struggling gym owner in the early 2000s before seeking help from a mentor to boost the gym’s performance.
The results were so impressive that he decided to share his newfound knowledge with other gym owners through a series of blogs. Twenty of those blog entries eventually became the core of his first book, Two-Brain Business 1.0. Within a year of publication, his first literary effort became the best-selling fitness business book ever.
💡 Chris has written several other books to help gym owners achieve success:
1. Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief
2. The Simple Six
3. Two-Brain Business 2.0
4. Help First: Sell Less, Profit More
5. Start A Gym
6. Gym Owners Handbook
7. Millionaire Gym Owner
Chris shared insights from his book Millionaire Gym Owner on the Gym World Worldwide podcast. The book is packed with strategies and real success stories from 14 gym owners who quickly reached a $1 million net worth.
Chris started Two-Brain Business with 16 clients. Within four years, that number grew to nearly 2,000 gyms mentored. Today, it is the world’s largest gym mentorship practice, based on building successful gym businesses by providing clients with superior services.
Two-Brain Business offers various gym owner-based services, including:
- Mentorship
- Online courses
- Business coaching
For consistent results, the company emphasizes that gym owners do the following:
- Nurture relationships with clients and staff
- Stress personal development
- Promote a positive culture
This approach has helped Two-Brain Business clients consistently beat their competitors. As a result, they have received glowing reviews from clients and industry experts. This recognition includes feature articles about Two-Brain Business in major publications, such as Entrepreneur, Inc. Magazine, and Forbes.
Two-Brain Business Product Line
You can choose from various courses tailored to help you according to the current stage of your gym business. Here is a brief description of each one:
Start A Gym
If you’re ready to start your own gym but aren’t sure where to begin, the Start A Gym self-guided course is designed to fast-track your success from Day 1. You’ll learn the key aspects of launching a gym, clarify your vision, create a solid plan, and set up essential systems like scheduling, payment processing, and pricing. The course will also guide you on how to:
- Leverage time and money effectively
- Get your first clients before opening
- Build to scale
- Use social media the right way
Mentorship
This year-long program targets gym owners who’ve been operating their gyms for at least six months, with the goal of helping them reach $100,000 in Net Owner Benefit (NOB)—the amount you take home from the business after all expenses—with just 150 members. The mentorship is divided into three stages, preparing you to take your gym business to the next level.
93% of Two-Brain Business clients see a positive ROI in just 12 weeks or less. By choosing this option, you will get:
- 50 weeks of mentorship with a certified Two-Brain mentor
- 2 calls with a certified marketing mentor
- Online access to exclusive tools and resources
- Two-Brain Business Online University
- Support from the Two-Brain Business community at large
And so much more…
Growth
The Growth program caters to gym owners with established gyms who plan to scale up. However, it’s only available to those who have completed the mentorship program. Growth concentrates on training you to build systems and processes that make you a proactive gym owner instead of a reactive one. It also gives access to:
- The Two-Brain Dashboard and Growth ToolKit
- Two-Brain App
- Over 400 masterclasses
- Monthly calls with a mentor
- Private access to the Growth Phase Facebook group
And much more. It’s online modules also cover various themes like:
- Staff hiring and management
- Establishing standard operating procedures
- Designing a scalable business model
Tinker
The Tinker program is a high-level group for gym owners who are earning over $100,000 in Net Owner Benefit and are working towards a net worth of over $1 million. Like the Growth program, Tinker is only available to those who’ve completed the Mentorship program. It helps you further develop and experiment with new concepts and strategies, allowing you to brainstorm with other successful gym owners and collaborate on new activities. You will also receive:
- Mentorship with Two-Brain’s best mentors
- A coach and regular check-ins
- Group calls and Networking
- Online access to exclusive tools and resources
- Three in-person meet-ups with other Tinker members
Regardless of your gym business’s age or progress, Two-Brain Business allows you to take the most beneficial courses for your current level. Also, each program or course can give you the expertise, tools, and resources to drive your business to the next level.
How the Two-Brain Business Mentorship Program Works
When choosing a mentorship program, it’s important to understand how it’s structured. In this section, we break down the key details of the Two-Brain Business mentorship program.
Stage 1: Immediately Generate Revenue
Two-Brain Business’s first objective is to make the mentorship cover its cost as quickly as possible. For this reason, they spend the first six weeks of the program helping you create sales and marketing funnels that attract high-paying clients. During this period, you can learn to do the following vital tasks:
- Construct an onboarding program capable of generating front-end profits
- Learn effective sales delivery and closing
- Optimize your gym’s website to stimulate maximum lead generation
- Build a continuous flow of new prospects
While you’re in this stage and beyond, Kilo’s Gym Lead Machine can significantly increase the flow of new members to your gym. It allows you to leverage the most advanced digital technology to capture new leads with customized forms, nurture potential members with emails and SMS messages, communicate with them through two-way texting, and many other capabilities.
Stage 2: Leveraging the Big Opportunity to Growth
This stage focuses on using your newly amped-up marketing machine to drive growth. Along with tightening up your expenses, the program will help you thoroughly explore these six ways your gym can earn more:
- Acquiring more members: A small gym may not be able to support a sustaining income, so it looks at factors like this to maximize its income potential.
- Charge more: Accurately priced premium services significantly benefit your members and gym business.
- Holding on to members longer: Greater member retention means less money and resources spent on marketing, improving member satisfaction.
- Pay yourself appropriately: Profit is a powerful incentive.
- Control expenses: Most expenses should stimulate revenue.
- Hire quality staff: Gyms can’t prosper without an exceptional team.
Stage 3: The Perfect Day
This stage begins when the systems you have put in place run your gym business without your constant involvement. This means your business is serving you instead of you struggling to keep it afloat. At this point, you can focus on your long-term goals.
The mentorship program helps you reach Stage 3 by assisting you in fortifying a new segment of your business each month. Then, you continue this task until your gym runs on autopilot. To support this effort, the program provides unlimited email support with your mentor and access to 900 other Two-Brain gyms worldwide.
What Two-Brain Business Customers Say
When you visit Two-Brain Business’s website, you will find many gym owner customer reviews.
Here are three of the most informative (Courtesy of Reviews – Two-Brain Business):
Jesse Ewasiuk, CrossFit Cranbrook, Vancouver, BC
“When I signed on with Two-Brain in 2018, I was ready to call it quits and was desperate for help. It was scary as I had no money and wasn’t sure it would help my situation. Since then, I have worked hard to get systems in place.
The hard work is paying off! I now have seven coaches, an admin person, and a client success manager. Revenue has been above $20,000 since September, with an all-time high in January of $24,500.
Personal and business credit cards are paid off, and there is money to upgrade equipment for the gym. Big thanks to TBB for all the help.”
Vel Bates, 3D Fitness, Fort Wayne, Indiana
“December was a rough month. I set up a marketing call with a mentor and cracked down on new FB ads for the new year. We tightened up our systems for lead nurturing, created a posting schedule for our social media, revamped our client journey, and called a full staff meeting to review our plan.
We are on track to double our revenue since joining Two-Brain 8 months ago!”
Steve Esh, NCFIT Lancaster, Lancaster, Pennsylvania
“This time, three years ago, my wife and I were vacationing, talking about shutting the gym down (or not) 5 months after we opened. This is the first decent vacation since then, and we have our 4-year-old with us. Today, I can pretty much (90%) disconnect from the gym, new leads, sales, and other issues for a week. This time, we’re in Sarasota, FL. My CSM is taking on the leads. She sold $1700+ in PT the day after we left.”
The State of the Industry Report
Two-Brain Business has been publishing the State of the Industry report annually since 2020. It was created to provide small coaching gyms with the data they need to make better-informed decisions.
The report uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative insights from over 10,000 gyms to uncover what distinguishes top-performing gyms from the rest. It tracks key metrics like revenue, member count, and attendance by leveraging data from gym management platforms such as:
- Kilo
- Wodify
- PushPress
- TeamUp
To dig deeper into areas like profitability, staff pay, and owner workload, 1,000 gym owners contribute through a quick 5-minute survey. All this data is then packaged into a comprehensive report with easy-to-read graphs and visuals, and made available to the entire industry at no cost.
Chris Cooper, founder of Two-Brain Business, regularly breaks down key insights from the report on the Gym World Worldwide podcast.
The Two-Brain Business Summit
The Two-Brain Business Summit is the world’s largest fitness business conference. It began in 2018 and has been held every year since, usually in Chicago, IL.
In 2024, the summit attracted over 1,000 attendees and vendors, with notable speakers like Jon Goodman, Jason Khalipa, Brian Chontosh, and coaches from Mayhem Nation. The speakers are carefully selected based on what gym owners need to hear most, and each presenter is challenged to provide clear, actionable steps to help attendees grow their businesses.
In addition, an expert panel featuring teams from major gym management software companies addresses key questions like “Why aren’t gyms keeping clients longer?” and “What’s most important for gym owners right now?”
It’s the ultimate opportunity to network with top gym owners, hear from the best in the industry, and leave with a clear plan to level up your business. You can get tickets for the 2025 summit here.
Your Ultimate Decision
The information in this Two-Brain Business review should help you make an informed decision on which gym mentorship program is best for you. You can also benefit from reading our upcoming reviews of other gym mentorship businesses.
In the meantime, check out our other blogs to see how Kilo gym management systems can complement your gym mentorship program and help you run your gym on autopilot. To learn more about the Kilo advantage, book a call.