The ONE ⭐️ CrossFit Coach | Souza’s Show

Matthew Souza (00:00):

Make it bright. Adjust the light. Oh shoot. It was like two seconds in. I thought I already froze. What’s up everybody? Not the bomb dropping. We’re about to drop some bombs. Oh man. Still a great intro song about a little keyboard in some base. Augustus, what’s up? Susa is the one star coach. I hope not Superstar. That’s right. Kenneth. You guys pumped up for the election watch party. I almost didn’t do this show today. I was thinking, I was like, all right, we’re going to be on for, I don’t know, six hours or something straight. And so I was like, okay, I just won’t do the show. I’ll coach morning classes and then just gear up to be on for tonight. But I don’t know. Peer pressure, man, it could be a positive thing. When I told that to Savon, he was kind of like, oh, okay. I didn’t really say anything. And then I saw this morning he went live and still did his show for almost three hours, even though he was going to be on all afternoon. So I was like, all right, shit.

(01:13):

Guess we’ll do the show. So we’re going to take a look at CrossFit training’s new YouTube channel. I still, for the life of me, cannot figure out why they decided to separate it from the main channel. I don’t know. I don’t know what it is. I guess I forgot this. I had this in the background and when you said my name, it scared me for I’ve done that. Shows you get watch, so you just kind of click it and you have it on and you’re doing other stuff and all of a sudden it starts playing and you’re like, who the hell is in my, oh, it’s the show. What’s up? That’s how I just get people’s attention. Slater, good afternoon. Classic picture with Rich. We’re going to talk a little bit about Rich Froning on Hiller’s Instagram. They did the podcast on the election stuff.

(02:01):

I think he’ll be part of our special guest stopping by this evening. I don’t know if I was supposed to say that, but we got a bunch of cool people lined up. Hopefully they’ll all make it through. They’ll be jumping on for like 20 minutes out of time. Jumping off, I’m sure Savon already gave you the breakdown. Oh shoot. I hit the actual Ju Judy Reed. Oh, snap Girl, the new icon photo mini mouth. Dig it. You’re looking fit. Hi Judy, if it makes sense to the opposite CrossFit hq, allegedly. Dick is the biggest guest of the night, dude. I hope so. What about senior Rich Senior? That would be sick. Okay, so let’s take a peek over here. We got the CrossFit training new YouTube channel. Again, I was saying, listen, I don’t know everything what goes on behind the scenes, but I just don’t know why you would have a channel that has millions of millions, well, 1.413 million subscribers on the main CrossFit YouTube channel.

(03:02):

And rather than pumping both channels, I mean rather than pumping one channel at the same time with both kind of strategies that they’re using, which is the stories inside the affiliates accompanied with a bunch of the coaching stuff. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want that to intersect right there in that channel. Because if I’m coming to that channel because my friend shared a story with me or something, and I don’t know about CrossFit yet, or just maybe I’ve heard about it, but I’m not familiarized with it. And then they send me that video to watch on CrossFit’s YouTube channel and I’m like, oh dude, that was great. And then following right up behind that is some sort of great video on coaching or something. So it’s like you brought me there for this story that my friend wanted me to listen to, and then I kind of poked around on the channel and realized, oh wow, there’s a bunch of stuff in coaching in here and this is the standards and this is the difference between some of the CrossFit gyms in the other offerings that are out there, the other group style classes.

(03:59):

And that could have made a big difference. And again, like I said, I don’t know why they decided to separate it. Maybe there’s something else that I don’t know about that maybe they had. But regardless, the channel is still growing a little bit here. It’s almost that 10,000 subscribers. I know Hiller definitely pumped some life into that. And then they dumped a crap load of these movement demos in, and I wonder if the strategy there, because they uploaded these, I think all in one day, just a ton of them. And maybe the strategy there was just to try to own the SEO with these searches, but I would’ve put CrossFit in every single one of these titles too. So this one has it Scorpion FET dash CrossFit movement demo. Oh, some of them have it, but some of them don’t. Oh, quality control. Where’s my button? Quality control.

(04:56):

They should say CrossFit in every single one of ’em. Every single one of ’em. And then why would you put all of them at one time? You guys could have easily stretched this out over a period of time, but maybe it was just to try to own the SEO or just push a ton of content to that channel. So anyways, their live stuff though has been dc. I don’t know, have you guys watched any of it? They started off with a bang here. We got Denise Thomas, Nicole Carroll. They just talked about CrossFit coaching then and now some good nuggets in there. The one with Stefan Roche and Josh Everett. Man, that one could have been great. I really like Stephen, but the internet was so bad and trust me, I know about that. I know how that is. When you have choppy internet, it sucks to try to push through those shows.

(05:50):

But Natalie, what’s up? Hi, welcome. Moves the needle. Yeah, yeah, rich Phoning is definitely a needle mover. The last of the needle movers, if you will, harvest CrossFit. Maybe it’s a play to keep us affiliated, like look at this cool value we’re adding, not realizing it doesn’t add any value at all for low IQ affiliates like me. Yeah, I think they’re struggling a little bit to figure out what they could offer to the affiliates, and you could tell there’s a little bit of a struggle there because a lot of it is asking the affiliates what they want. And to a certain degree that is true. You’re going to want to do that just to know your audience. We’re going to look at a post that Andrew Hiller put up on his Instagram recently, and he talked about doing what’s best for the viewer or making it good for the viewer in terms of YouTubes and creating content.

(06:44):

And I think that’s something that they’re struggling with. I don’t think they know how to add the value. So they’re going back and asking a bunch of affiliate owners, what do they want to see? Then of course, you’re going to get this barrage of different answers, and now we’re trying to see them keep up with that or catch up with that. And the problem with going down that path is, number one, you’re not carving your own direction and you’re not charging by your own leadership. You’re kind of taking a poll and then reacting, and then that’s always tough because you’re never going to please anybody. So then the crowd might change their mind or they might seem that way and then you’re like, shit, we did all this work, but it didn’t really go over that well. And you’re just pretty much a dog chasing its tail at that point.

(07:26):

But needless to say, it is cool that they are doing some live stuff in here and just to actually hear him talk in general. I mean, since the games, the whole CrossFit ecosystem coming out of HQ has just gone completely dark. If somebody inside CrossFit HQ would’ve testified at a Clinton thing, I would assume they all deleted themselves on accident. It’s all of a sudden they’re just gone. It’s like, what happened? But it is cool to see a lot of these people pop up in these lives and different things here. So we’ll keep our eye on that and review that as it develops or continues to grow. But one thing I wanted to actually here, let’s start with this.

(08:12):

Actually, we’ll give a plug right here first. So we have, oh shit, what am I thinking right here? If you guys haven’t checked this out, I’m really excited for Jenny. I’m really excited for these updates that she’s doing. Hi, Elizabeth. Hope you’re doing well. She’s been absolutely crushing it with these. She’s been crushing it. Jeffrey, what’s up man? Welcome to the show. These little updates are great. I love them too because I literally listen to ’em. She’s on a different time zone. So these are usually uploaded right as I’m getting up or getting moving around in the mornings. And it’s great because I throw ’em on. They’re typically between that eight to 15 minute timeframe, six to 15 minute timeframe, and it’s perfect because I’ll just throw it on and I get caught up on everything that’s going on in the space, and Jenny does a great job at delivering it.

(09:02):

I’m super excited that she agreed to post these here and we’ll continue to support her. I think her role will continue to grow with here at the Seon podcast. I would love to see her in the mix at a CrossFit update show just to see how all the guys react, maybe have her smack around Taylor a little bit and stuff. It would just be a cool dynamic, so hopefully she’ll keep crushing it and keep doing the thing, and we’ll keep watching her evolve over time, which will be fun. So go check ’em out. If you haven’t seen them, you probably have because they’re crushing, but in case you have not, okay, now we’ll cruise on over. Judy Reed. She’s killing it perfect for this and semi channel. I could not agree more. I could not agree more. I think her voice is great on our platform and with what we’re offering here. So we got Andrew Hiller’s Instagram, the place to be where it all goes down. Apparently we got his clip here from Rich. So we’ll listen to this for a moment and then we’ll go over to the other post here and then we’ll tie it into why you don’t want to be a one star coach and what that means. Okay, here we go.

Speaker 2 (10:13):

Maybe know about what’s going on in the CrossFit world right now. No idea.

Speaker 3 (10:16):

I’m hearing rumblings and lots of rumblings. I just know the word. The rumblings are incorrect because the rumblings I’m hearing is basically might be the nail in the coffin. We won’t speak too much on it, but I’m not seeing anything from them.

Speaker 2 (10:30):

That’s the thing.

Speaker 3 (10:31):

It went dark completely. It’s a terrible strategy. It’s a terrible, horrible, miserable strategy. It never works out well.

Speaker 2 (10:38):

What do we know about what’s going on in the CrossFit world right now? No idea.

Matthew Souza (10:41):

I’m hearing rumblings. Yeah, so the same rumblings that we’re all hearing about the online season and what do you guys think? Rich basically said that would be the nail in the coffin. Do you think that moving the whole thing online would capsize the ship in terms of the sport? I don’t know. I don’t know if it would. It really depends on how they format it, and it really depends on the judging and how that goes with video submissions and all that. I’m going to bring up this here. Oh, not that. Oh, thank goodness. I clicked and it brings up my text on this screen, but you guys can’t see ’em. It’s only screen sharing. Okay, it’s only screen sharing the window, not, I mean the chrome window, not my whole entire screen. So looking for that. This is from Andrew Hiller. It looks like this was a post he put on X.

(11:33):

See how I called it X and not Twitter. I’m evolving. I’m evolving. The number one rule I have followed when creating videos has been to give the people what they want. Another way to say this is keep the viewer in mind. I do the best I can so that you want to watch. I wonder if CrossFit ever considers the viewer. I’m looking at you potential online season. One thing too that if you follow Andrew closely, you know this, but if you’re just kind of on the outside looking in, one thing he doesn’t get enough credit for is how strategic he’s in his videos and how much he actually puts into optimizing certain things, understanding attention span, how he has two storylines going, and we’ll jump back and forth to keep the viewers engaged. It’s very intentional in his videos, and it’s been cool to watch him continue to evolve and grow over the years.

(12:25):

But he’s absolutely right. You have to create content. I mean, it’s the same with the business, and that’s why we’ll move into that conversation soon here. But if you’re not thinking about the person that’s in front of you, if you’re not thinking about what’s best for your customer, what’s best for your viewer, and really keeping that top of mind when you’re doing certain initiatives or certain things, then it’s really easy. It’s really easy just to suck, and then it creates something that nobody wants to watch. So if you’re keeping top of mind what it is that your viewer wants or what it is that your customer wants, it’s usually as a good outcome. If you’re focused on how much could I extract from this or what could we gain from it, or there’s some other ulterior motive. That’s typically when you see things start to go south.

(13:13):

Kenneth the lap, one might say he’s calculated inference to Andrew Hiller, and I would agree. Andrew then says in the next X, this can also apply to the $1,500 yearly affiliate bump. Is there a long-term play for that to benefit the viewer? And he put that in quotation marks. He’s talking about benefit of the affiliate owner, and then he put, I’d guess not. And then the barbell spin, sir Brian spin from the barbell spin chimes in here, and he says, maybe this means they will require all video submissions to be public, to be public. And so I want to kind of use this as our jump off for the one star coach conversation because if they move the whole competition season online, what do you guys think? Do you think that that should be done in a public arena for the ones that are, let’s say, moving on, right?

(14:12):

So maybe from the quarter final qualifiers to semifinals, and then of course the semifinals to the games. All those videos need to be posted public. What do you guys think about that? Do you think that’s necessary? Do you think it’s good for a free and fair competition or what do you guys think about that? I was distracted by these comments here because this show is on Chevy’s in mats. I was confused why I couldn’t see everybody’s chat. And then she realized that she was on mine. Yeah, they all saved to my channel. They go live at the same time and then sometimes unlisted. Jenny up, I just gave you a plug you’ve been doing awesome. Keep it up. Keep it up. And so one of the critical things as a coach, and now we’re going to transition from the online season, and Jethro definitely thinks it should all be public videos.

(15:07):

And the reason why I want to go with that, the plug, Trish, what’s up? And talk about the being on display or having your videos in public. You’ll definitely have some athletes that will give some pushback to that. They’ll be like, Hey, sometimes it’s different at the gym. I don’t want to open myself up to that criticism, whatever the case may be. But if you think about it in terms of your coaching, what happens if you are coaching a class? And that has to be displayed on public video for everybody to see. The question that I have for you is would you be proud of that hour that you taught or would you look at that and say, wow, now that I’m watching it back, I could have done a lot better or shit, I am kind of ashamed at the way that I coach that class.

(15:54):

Or again, jumping back to the online qualifier submissions, oh, I’m kind of embarrassed by the way that I moved in that workout. I was rushing, and now that I’m watching it back, I could have moved a little bit better. I could have made the standards better. So in terms of coaching a class, I always think that if you are not number one, the first and foremost thing, if you’re not building a relationship with the people that are in front of you, meaning knowing what they do, knowing what’s going on in their lives, knowing their spouses, whatever the other people that they know in the gym, just getting involved in building a relationship with them, you’re never going to actually be able to coach them in the long term. And I cannot overstate that. When I see coaches, especially newer coaches, they come in and they’ll get somebody new in front of them.

(16:44):

And let’s say you have, for this example, let’s say you have clean and drink, and I’ll use this. This happened with us last night at the gym. You want to give them if they’re, especially they’re brand new, you want to give them an experience where yes, they felt like they were coached, but yes, you also felt like you made a connection with them and they got some wins. And typically when you come into a CrossFit gym, like a newer coach especially, will just start blasting out all these cues or we’ll start to go all this thing and really overcomplicate shit or talk way too much because they want to feel like they’re doing a good job. And if somebody were watching them, they’d be like, Hey, did you properly teach that clean and jerk? And that way they’re like, oh, I hit all these points.

(17:21):

I did all my progressions. I built everything up. And what ends up happening is typically that person that you’re in front of now, you have no idea about them. You don’t know what they’ve done in the past. I mean, hopefully you’ve done the minimum of ask them if they have any injuries before they stepped out onto the floor. But if you spent all that time going over all the details of the clean and jerk and giving them all your cues, you don’t know anything about them and they just leave confused. And typically what happens is, and I’ve heard this a lot throughout the years of coaching, is like, oh yeah, don’t think it was for me. It was really complicated. There was a lot of instruction. I wasn’t getting it. My body couldn’t move that way, whatever. It’s trouble with the front rack position or something.

(17:57):

And so if you turn that on its head and say, Hey, I’m actually going to give you far less cues on day, on the first day in, I’m actually going to ask you way more questions about what type of fitness you’ve done, what you’ve done in the past, how that’s worked out, what you’ve liked about certain things, what you haven’t, are you new to the area, that whole kind of general getting to know you. And I’m going to simplify down that clean and jerk as easy as I can make it. So for this new individual, if they’re brand new, that might be a position one from the hip hang clean, muscle clean, and then a push press or a strict press if they have some mobilities and limitations going overhead. So number one, a lot easier to coach. I could get them moving a lot better by simplifying down that movement.

(18:43):

I could spend more time interacting with them as a person and they’re going to feel like they understood it. And then I’ll even layer on like, Hey, the elbows, elbows. And then they get it on one rep or something, and I’m celebrating the hell. I’m like, dude, you got it. Look at you. You’re like a pronoun, making little jokes or whatever the case. But that way when they leave or they’re finished with that lift, they’re like, okay, cool. I understood it. I was able to practice it. Maybe they moved well enough so you could get a little bit of weight on the bar. Maybe they started to get good enough at it to where you could even layer in one more queue if it seemed appropriate. But at the end there, they’re going to feel like they accomplished something. They’re going to feel like they got it, and you’re going to know them more as a person as they walk out.

(19:25):

And when we try to jump too quickly to overcomplicating things for the showcase of, Hey, look how much I know as a coach, or I need to hit all these points of performance, because if somebody else were looking at me from the outside in, they would probably say and be like, Hey, it was clean and jerk, and you only taught ’em muscle clean and strict press. And I’m here to tell you that’s okay. And if you missed it, there was a great bit in here that Chuck Carswell did from the CrossFit training YouTube channel, which I’m going to play now, and Kevin O’Connor here, I think he’s coached close to, if not the most L one seminars out of everybody else on staff. And then Chuck has to be real close behind. I’m a huge fan of Chuck. I wish he would do more of these podcasts, but I know he doesn’t really like to be on the internet and all this other stuff. So I’m really thankful that he did this piece here. But there’s a specific nugget in here that I want to talk about right after he goes, so I’ll let Mr. Chuck Cowell go. Eric is going to set up the question,

Eric O’connor (20:35):

Could we discuss the impact of establishing the strong community outreach beyond the walls of the gym? So basically, how can we build a broader community outside the walls of the gym?

Chuck (20:47):

And so I have said quite often that I think every CrossFit gym has within its walls the people or the person or the relationship that is one or two away from everything that they need. And oftentimes what we don’t do is we don’t leverage those. We don’t explore those other options. So I think there’s two things that are happening there. Number one, you’ve got to recognize it would help you if you knew who your clients were, what they did for a living, what industries they were in, and you and your team go and support what’s happening there. That’s an easy way to grow. I mean, if you’ve got somebody who is a firefighter there, why couldn’t you go and support the firefighters on their event at their day? You’ve got school teachers and maybe a field day happens. Why couldn’t the gym go there and help with the field day and be a part of that? And so I think it’s a lot easier than people make it out to be. You just got to find a void in the community and go fill it. And if you find that void, go fill it. You instantly earn more credibility in your community, especially if you do a dang good job with it. So that would be mine. I don’t know. Do you have anything to help him out?

Matthew Souza (22:05):

Okay. I cannot reiterate what he had said enough. And of course, I give them crap about the internet being choppy, and then as soon as I play something, mine’s choppy. So what Chuck said there is super important. If you’re investing in your people, we just had the discussion of, and you learn more about what they do, you’re able to definitely jump in and add some sort of value there for what you bring to the table. And I cannot tell you what this has done for me and my affiliate on a personal level. I have gone to multiple corporations and done little bootcamp things locally because one of my members worked there or I was able to get in with that. Chris G, what’s up, Dean?

(22:46):

That has been huge. The whole firefighter thing has come from exactly what Chuck said, getting invested, learning more about, Hey, what do you guys do for this? I get a couple of firefighters in, I start asking some questions. I start volunteering my time like, Hey, when you guys do your next whatever, how about if I come and lead a little warmup for it or lead some stretches? And people are typically always open to that. Now with the teachers and different things like that you could go and offer, which is a little different if you’re getting onto a school campus. I could understand those little red tape there. But typically you could get onto a school campus, you could run a little bootcamp class with the kids, or I’ve actually done it with the teachers. So I’ve gone and I’ve worked with the teacher and the principal and I was like, Hey, let’s show the teachers how to move and how they can apply this with some of their kids.

(23:28):

And I’ll come in, we’ll do this little mini workout and then we’ll come in and I’ll give a little five minute lecture, right? Can I warm up your hoses from Trish here? A perfect example. I mean, who doesn’t want their hose warmed up? Trish, you had another great comment up here, Trish, I think for the first three weeks you were just trying to get them to come back. Well said. I mean, you could sum up all my jibber jabber into that exact line. And one of the things that we always talk about when I have new people coming back in is typically I’ll tell them, Hey, for your first 10 classes when you’re coming in, you’re doing nothing but just having a good time. I want you to be successful in all 10 of your first classes. I want you to leave here thinking, oh, next time I could do more.

(24:10):

Next time I could go a little faster next time I could do the full five rounds. Next time I could add some more weight. That’s also going to keep them engaged and excited about coming back. And so what Chuck was saying there is a lot of times we are one relationship away from that changing everything or one or two connections away from it being a big change in your gym. Whether you find somebody that need to find out, oh wow, you are in charge of the local youth soccer thing, and then now you have a whole entire in and you’re able to bring a bunch of these kids in and start some youth program or whatever the case may be. But if you’re not investing in your people and getting to know them and what they do and all these other things inside of your community, you’re never going to be able to start expanding outside of those walls.

(24:56):

And so that’s why it’s a twofold. It it’s not only is it important for you to invest in that person when they first come in just to make ’em feel welcome. So you could get a member that’s going to be engaged for a longer period of time, but on top of that, you never ever know what they do and who they’ll connect you with and everything else. And we have a really unique opportunity as an affiliate because most people get obsessed with their affiliates. They’re like, it’s their second place. If you guys have watched, I’ve done four or five watch party now for the affiliate video contest, and every single one bunch out of the five, every person that’s in there is like, this is my safe space. This is a home away from home. This is where I love to spend time with. This is my people.

(25:41):

And those people all want to share what they do and why they enjoy it so much and they want to share their gym. And so if you open up those conversations and you just start volunteering, I mean, I’ve had people that are baseball coaches, Hey, am the head coach of this little league awesome. Have you done anything for their shoulder health? No, we haven’t. Cool. What if I ran a little warmup with them? When’s the next day? It’s a Saturday at eight. Cool. I’ll come down, I’ll bring the bands. I’ll run a little shoulder warmup. So we get their shoulders fired up, and then guess what? I’m going to have a little conversation with the parents about, Hey, these are some healthier snacks you could kind of bring in for your kids next time or whatever. You know what I mean? You got to feel it out.

(26:18):

But typically, if you show up and you give your expertise and you contribute to whatever it is that you are wanting to, whether that’s the fire department, whether that’s helping somebody warm up, whether that’s giving some sort of nutrition lecture or whatever, the more you do that establishes expertise in your local market and it starts to open up the doors to all sorts of ways you could engage with your community outside of the walls of your gym. So often we get just stuck inside of there. And I will tell you that majority of the bigger contracts and the bigger money that have come into the affiliate that’s allowed me to reinvest in my affiliate have come from outside of those walls. But they’ve all started with relationships with people inside of ’em. I don’t think I made a single dollar outside of my affiliate without the help of one of my members that are already in there.

(27:10):

They’re your biggest. And people say it all the time, people are your biggest asset. I’m telling you, those relationships that you’re fostering inside the gym are going to really make or break your future networking 1 0 1. That’s right. Barry Cocker. That’s right. And it’s so easy. The networking portion is so easy because you’re the one in charge, you’re in front of the room, you’re okay to ask them questions. They leave all high off endorphins after they hit the workout and they got a good sweat in, right? There’s, you have the wind at your back in terms of networking with your members. And a lot of times I just don’t see people take advantage of it, especially, especially if you are a coach trying to make your way. So many times coaches think that the only way that they’re going to make livable money or a career is by elevating to an affiliate owner.

(27:59):

And they don’t even realize that when you go to elevate to an affiliate owner, you actually aren’t even a coach anymore. You’re a business owner. So many of your roles change. And I think that if you’re able to establish, like Bernie said, the networking one-on-one inside the gym, inside the people that you’re already coaching, and continue to invest in those relationships and seek opportunities within those relationships, you’d be surprised. Natalie, I hosted a class for Girl Scout group to get a fitness badge, and they loved it. And the scout leader said, more than half of them want to sign up for CrossFit. Oh, right Now, if you really want to get fancy with it, you already have some marketing materials and a cool offer for everybody that’s in there. So that way when you bring the Girl Scout in, you could be like, Hey, check it out.

(28:40):

Everybody leaving here. Here’s a card. Come back. You guys all get a free class on the next one or 20% off of this, or whatever the case may be, of how you bring people into your gym. And it’s a limited offer just for this group here, and you utilize it within a month or something. And now not only have you shown the value you’ve shown up and contributed, but you’ve given them some sort of cool offer and incentive to get ’em into the door. And that’s how that works. CrossFit janitor in babysitter, interesting. Elevate to personal training is the way, I mean, could not agree more Mason, people that are really great trainers that want to have elevation but want to stay on the coaching floor, don’t want to have to worry about finances and marketing and all this other stuff that comes with moving from coach to owner like personal training and finding other contracts outside of the walls of the gym could easily grow you as a coach. Even here in California, everything’s crazy. More expensive, a livable wage of a hundred thousand a year or more. And there’s just so many opportunities out there, especially now that everybody’s super health focused, it seems, which is good for us. It’d be even better if we had a shitload of media out for it. And so as we.

The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.

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