This, the 100th in the series, is a special article. It is co-written by my sister Hildy Kellman Agustin. Hildy has been a CrossFit member for the last 10 years, and is a psychologist in private practice. She brings great perspective on the role of community and belonging, as well as her own experience as a super-strong CrossFitter. Because we wrote this together, we talked about ourselves in the 3rd person. Hope you enjoy!
Fitness professionals and small business owners are among the hardest hit by the shelter-in-place guidelines.
Gyms are shutting down worldwide. In some cases, organizations are pivoting to streaming and recorded classes, but many gyms are nevertheless closing their doors and/or pausing subscriptions.
One bright spot in the fitness space is CrossFit.
For those of you that haven’t heard about it, or have somehow avoided the conversion attempts by a CrossFit enthusiast in your life, CrossFit is a fitness program. According to CrossFit’s website, “CrossFit is a precise combination of exercise and nutrition that has been proven to increase fitness and health for people of all ages and abilities.”
CrossFit is promoted as both a physical exercise philosophy and a competitive fitness sport. It is practiced by members of over 13,000 affiliated gyms, roughly half of which are located in the United States, and by individuals who complete daily workouts (otherwise known as “WODs” or “workouts of the day”).
CrossFit is a franchise, so each gym, or “box,” as they call it, is owned by the person who runs that box. In other words, it’s not a chain with employees, salaries, and benefits. It’s a tightly connected community of independent small business owners.
Small business owners are at real risk when they have to cease operations. In the case of CrossFit boxes, they still have rent and may have other employee obligations, even when no money is coming in.
Unlike many other fitness businesses, CrossFit.com posts daily workouts for free, so people can practice at home, without attending a group class. So, when the boxes are closed, members could choose to buy a few pieces of equipment and they would not need any sort of streamed class for guidance. Theoretically, things should be very bad for CrossFit franchise holders.
They’re trying to stay connected, and doing what they can—for example:
- Full Dimension CrossFit in Freehold, New Jersey has Zoom classes, three times daily. (see picture below!)
- CrossFit boxes including CrossFit TNT (St. Charles, MO), CrossFit Colby (Colby, KS), CrossFit Lavon (Lavon, TX) and Crossfit Blue Ash (Blue Ash, OH). have all lent out their equipment to members and are posting workouts suitable for home use.
- CrossFit Hyannis in Massachusetts started a Facebook group to help members stay connected
Even with these efforts, it wouldn’t be surprising to find members pausing their memberships.
And yet, at many CrossFit gyms, members are continuing to pay in full, happily.
For example, Rocket CrossFit of Seattle made the difficult decision to close the gym on March 12, three days before Washington State issued a mandate for fitness studios to close to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. Co-owner Brady Collins posted this difficult decision on Facebook.
Brady and his wife and partner Alyssa were afraid that they’d have to close the business, but within days, they were overwhelmed with supportive messages from members. According to an article in Women’s Health Magazine, “of Rocket CrossFit’s 225 enrolled members, just under 99% have volunteered to continue paying their membership fees in full…some have offered to contribute even more”
Why are members paying when they aren’t getting anything for the payments? One hypothesis is that membership gives benefits beyond the physical workouts—it’s also about community, belonging, and a sense of family. For many members, it’s the relationship with the box owner, the coaching staff, and with fellow members, and even with the larger CrossFit community, that drives their “forever transaction”. So even when members aren’t going to the gym, they still feel the value.
Robbie has written about CrossFit before. In The Membership Economy, she used CrossFit as an example (pp 61-63) of an organization that does a great job of creating “superusers”— members who go beyond just being good customers, who are so engaged in the value they receive that they contribute their own time and money for the good of the brand.
CrossFit prioritizes depth of commitment and connection from users over volume of users. They want members who adhere to the culture of the community—challenging themselves and each other to grow, to break through previously perceived limitations, and to do so together as a community. As a result, new member acquisition is slower than it might be at another gym. Not every fitness enthusiast wants to do things the CrossFit way. But those who join and stay have an affinity to the group that is deeper than most gyms.
When CrossFit Palo Alto, where Hildy and her husband train, was forced to shut down by the Shelter-in-Place order in March 2020, owner Tim Dymmel reached out to his community. He secured membership to the Keelo Fitness app on behalf of each member. He allowed members to sign out any and all equipment from his gym. He continued to program daily workouts for his community, including video demonstrations with himself and his family showing the workout. And he encouraged members to continue their sense of community by posting their workouts on social media, and he reposted them from the gym’s Instagram and Facebook accounts, encouraging everyone to feel the “timspiration.”
At the end of his email that announced these changes, Dymmel reinforced his commitment to the community, stating:
“Lastly, I will note that the outpouring of love coming back to me, my family and our coaches has brought me to tears multiple times already. (That’s a big deal.) Thank you for sticking with us. My experience with adversity is that it can divide or unite. But, it is a decision to be made. Decide to unite. Let’s kick COVID-19 together. While we’re at least 6′ apart.”
Crossfit box owners are taught to prioritize community. Each does it a little differently. But they really make an effort to get to know each member when they join.
When Hildy had major surgery 4 months after joining CFPA, Dymmel called her to check in, both before and after the surgery, and offered guidance on ways to return to training safely.
And Rebecca’s box (Crossfit Panther City in Ft. Worth, TX) rallied around her when she had a brain tumor in 2019. While she was in rehab, the Box owner visited with lunches.
If someone doesn’t show up for a class, the coach will call and check in. Often the other members will check in as well. You can’t hide from your CrossFit tribe—and that’s a big part of the value.
CrossFit is a great example of how investing in forever transactions with customers can pay off during times of crisis. When your members feel like family and are treated like community, not customers, they become invested in supporting each other. And supporting the owner. When members have received not just the contracted fitness classes, but also feel like their emotional needs for connection and belonging, they are more likely to invest whatever it takes to keep their “box” alive and well.
We all want to belong, to matter. It’s a basic human need. And organizations that feel like “my community” and not “your business” are the ones that build Superusers who invest in the well-being of the organization, and who contribute their own time and money for the betterment of the other members.
What examples are you seeing of places where the forever transaction becomes stronger during this unprecedented moment?
