How one CrossFit gym expanded and thrived over the last decade.
The past 10 years have not been easy ones for CrossFit gym owners, but through it all—a pandemic, changes in leadership at CrossFit, and the rise of Hyrox—CrossFit TILT has thrived.
Not by accident or luck but by focusing on what matters: the coaches, the members, and the community.
“The community starts with our staff and the experience that they're bringing to these members when they come in,” said Brian Sieber, the general manager of all four CrossFit TILT locations.
“It’s all about creating relationships with your members, and then creating relationships with people within the community,” he said.
LJ Dicarlo and Max Isaak opened CrossFit TILT’s first location in Waltham, Massachusetts in 2016. Within a few months they had the opportunity to open a second location with Brian in Sudbury, a third location in Cambridge in 2018, and a fourth location in Southborough in 2019.
In addition to the Waltham, Sudbury, and Southborough locations, CrossFit TILT also runs a corporate gym inside a company called Education First. Brian said that location includes open gym space, Zumba, yoga, circuit training, strength training, and a rock climbing wall.
On top of running and managing these four locations, the team also owns three other gyms in the area. The owners and management clearly have a winning formula when it comes to running fitness spaces, but it’s not one based on gimmicks or flashy advertising. They’ve gotten where they are today by focusing on the basics, an approach that takes perseverance, dedication, and patience.
Brian, who started doing CrossFit when he was in college in 2013, has been with CrossFit TILT since day one.
“I loved it right away,” Brian said about CrossFit, “and I got into coaching right then and there.”
Brian said CrossFit TILT has always kept the CrossFit methodology as their focus, but in a way that’s tailored to their clientele, which he said is mostly moms and dads.
“We don't track scores. We don't care who got the most weight on snatch day or did the fastest time,” he said.
Instead, they put their attention on the people in the gym and celebrate consistency and hard work. They have different clubs based on how many classes a member has attended throughout their membership, ranging from a 500 club all the way up to a 2,500-class club.
This commitment to the members and the community starts with the coaches and the staff. Most of the gyms run with two full-time trainers who earn a salary, complete with benefits.
“We try to create a job that people are passionate about, a job that they love that builds a sustainable life for these trainers,” Brian said.
In turn, the trainers not only know everyone’s name, they know about their family lives, what they do for work, and what they enjoy doing outside of work.
“Our trainers are very good with developing relationships in the gym and then bringing people together throughout the class,” Brian said.
This type of cohesive community doesn’t happen by accident. If someone wants to become a trainer at any of the CrossFit TILT locations, first they have to go through an extensive onramp program. It’s broken into different phases that include observing classes, leading warm-ups, and then co-coaching a class.
The onramp also includes learning how to interact with members, how to lesson plan, and the details of running a successful class.
“This is a phased program that takes about two months to go through before they're even put on a part-time coaching role,” Brian said.
After someone becomes a coach, they get regular evaluations and feedback. This includes formal quarterly and yearly performance reviews, as well as what they call “drive-by feedback,” which is a more informal review.
“We want everyone to give feedback as needed to kind of keep us on our toes and also share ideas with the staff,” Brian said.
They also run a coach development program with all of the almost 30 trainers at all of their gyms. This includes monthly homework and then a call with all of the coaching staff to review the homework and go over other coaching development topics.
As important as the focus on the quality of coaching is the experience of the members.
CrossFit TILT uses the Push Press as their customer relationship management software, programming multiple checkpoints during a member’s first year at CrossFit TILT.
“A big part of what we do is communicate with our members,” Brian said. “We want them to show up to the gym. If they don't show up to the gym, they're getting a text, they're getting a call.”
This communication isn’t just for new members, however. When someone hits a milestone, whether that’s their fifth class or fiftieth class, or even a personal record in the gym, a coach will reach out to them.
This connection with the members helped the gym survive the gym closures during the pandemic.
“During Covid, we actually ran upwards of 10 classes a day on Zoom, and all of our members continued to pay for the most part. It was about just giving the members the best experience, even if they weren't in person,” Brian said.
During that time they kept checking in with the members and ran virtual trivia nights as well as Zumba and dance classes.
Keeping this connection alive meant that once they were able to come back and work out together the community remained healthy and vibrant.
And while CrossFit TILT has invested in Google ads, direct mail campaigns, and email marketing, Brian said they mostly get new members through referrals.
“Three to four times a year, we do bring a friend week where all the members can bring their friends in for a free week. That gets people to experience what we do here. We’ve found our biggest marketing tool is to create an amazing experience for our members, and hopefully they relay that to their friends and family members,” Brian said.
Finally, the CrossFit TILT team has worked hard to engage with the community over the last ten years. That includes reaching out to fire departments, police departments, senior centers, and parent teacher organizations.
“It’s all about creating relationships with your members and then creating relationships with people within the community,” Brian said.
About Author, Hilary Achauer