Branded

My friends call me a slow cooker.  I am just now coming to understand and finish my thoughts on this "branding" issue and the effects of sub-standard trainers.   My partner is much quicker than I am at this and you can read his response here.

Let's define the terms and understand the assumptions, without which there is not conversation to be had.  What is CrossFit?  What is the brand of CrossFit?  The argument is that bad trainers will eventually be pushed out of the industry and the cream will rise to the top (the good trainers will remain).  The other side of the argument is that bad trainers will permanently damage the brand of CrossFit, and I assume that the unspoken remainder of this idea is that the damaged image of the CrossFit brand will somehow negatively impact the "good" trainers business.  

Imagine if you will a customer who goes into Ralph's (grocery store) and buys a soda.  The coke is warm, and the people in the store are not helpful in the least bit, in fact kind of mean and the customer slips, gets hurt on his way out the door.  

Compare this experience to a customer who goes into a Whole Foods store to buy a soda.  The door greeter is inviting and helpful, the store is organized and the food is all high quality.  The people are very nice and helpful, the customer is lead directly to the location of various sodas to choose from and picks the one he wants, pays, leaves and goes on his/her day.

No ask yourself; if the both bought a coke, paid the same, which brand is going to be tarnished, coke or the grocery store?  I believe that most people would be frustrated with the grocery store and not the coke.

Imagine now a client goes into a "CrossFit" gym has a terrible time, gets hurt, and develops a distaste for the whole thing.  The question is will this client transfer their frustration to the name "CrossFit."  I don't think they will.  They don't dislike exercises at 24 hr fitness; they dislike the trainer, or the environment.  

On a random note: why did this person go to another CF gym and not yours in the first place?  Maybe you're not the great trainer you think you are?  

It comes down to identity confusion.  If I assume that I am a CrossFit gym my attitude is totally different than if I am a gym who offers CrossFit classes.  I chose the latter.  I believe that CF Santa Cruz as run/owned by Greg Glassman himself is the only CrossFit gym, the rest of us are gyms that offer CrossFit classes and this distinction is important to our attitude of the brand.

Now, what is the brand, what is CrossFit exactly?  CrossFit is functional exercises as defined by their ability to be measured in terms of power, time, distance, and force.  High intensity, maximizing any of the three variables in the equation of power.  Constantly varied; conjugated.  The confusion with this definition comes into play when you think about something like parkour; if I am running at full speed and moving freely over roof tops, I am experiencing all three of these, running (functional) at max speed (intensity) and constantly varied obstacles I encounter (constantly varied).  Is Parkour CrossFit?  No.  Or you might here people complain that Gym Jones is a CrossFit rip off, because they do exercises that are functional or look like exercises done in a CrossFit gym, they do them hard and fast, and the workout for the day is different than pervious days.  Are they doing the same thing, are they a rip off?  Hardly.  Take a peek at some gyms from the past and we see similar things.  Coaches from the 50’s and 60’s were well known to do workouts that consisted of coupling cleans and running for example, check out Pat O’Shea here.  Does that mean CrossFit is a rip off of 50’s wrestling coaches?  No. 

So the problem we face is coming to a clear definition of what CrossFit is or at least being willing to say that CrossFit's definition of itself is wide in its scope and includes other activities that don't meet out stated goals.  

What is the brand we are protecting?  Is the CrossFit brand, eating zone and only following crossfit.com workouts exactly as stated?  Is it following exactly the posted workouts on OPT's website?  What about Louie Simmons site and nutritional approach?

We better get some clarity on what exactly CrossFit is; what exactly is the brand we are arguing about here.  Don't be confused though, Anheuser Busch does not allow its employees to eat in restaurants that do not serve Anheuser Busch products.  Can you imagine the CEO of coke drinking Pepsi?  That person would be fired in a heartbeat.  I get that part, but their products are much more clearly defined than ours.  

The focus of the matter needs to be on differentiation.  What makes you different from the other gyms in the area?  Offering CrossFit is only one thing.  That only differentiates you from 24 hr or Gold’s Gym.  What makes you different from other carriers of the CrossFit product?  Try calling one of my competitors, see how long it takes for them to get back to you.  Send them an email, how long and what is the response you get?  Call and email me, you'll see a difference I guarantee it.  I stake my business on it.  My food.  Come into my gym and see if you don't get greeted and meet positive fun people the first workout.  See if you get all of your questions answered and personal attention every workout.  

What makes you different?  I am willing to bet the complaints about branding are coming from older CrossFit gyms that never had to think of this as a business and differ themselves from their competitors.  All they had to do was slap the name CrossFit on their website and days later they had group classes rolling.  Not so anymore.  You got to approach this thing totally different now.  We have multiple CrossFit gyms in smaller and smaller circles.  What makes you different, why should the clients go to your vs. your competitors?  

So at the end of the day we all need to get more clarity on what is CrossFit, what is the brand we are trying to protect, our gyms or our products that we offer, and what makes you different than your competitors?  If these things are not clear, the business will not be successful and it doesn't matter what business it is.  

These message board threads and letters back and forth from gyms that have been asked to leave or decided to leave on their own are all missing the point.  Greyskull has massive brand confusion, what is that gym all about?  NorCal Strength and Conditioning (CrossFit NorCal, Robb Wolf's gym in Chico) has much more clarity he just ended rocking the boat too much.  Everyone was behind Robb, right up until he went on the offensive.  Had he stayed on the defensive side, and thus the victim, I would bet that most people would have continued to publicly support him.  By the way, how did OPT, Kepler, Theil and everyone else involved escape criticism?  

All the complaints against CrossFit center on these things.  What is the goal of CrossFit?  How does CrossFit go about accomplishing this stated goal and is it better than alternatives out there at achieving it's stated goal.  Efficacy, efficiency and safety.  This is not new.  Glassman has talked about this in the past, but for some reason we like to get into pissing matches with each other and other gyms out there without clearly stating the definitions.  

Is powerlifting better than CrossFit?  Is bodybuilding better than CrossFit?  These are foolish questions.  Are oranges better than apples?  For what?  

I define CrossFit as Varied Functional Movements done at high intensity as possible at the time towards developing GPP in a group setting.  This makes CrossFit unique and fun.  The brand I’m most concerned with is my gym’s brand.  I carry the CrossFit product because it meets my goals for my gym.  If it didn’t I would carry another product.  I’m not a CrossFit HQ employee so I don’t have to be exclusive to that particular product.  Think of the grocery store again.  I might carry CrossFit, Powerlifting and Boodybuilding products all at the same time.  I’m a retailer.  The wholesale said is the side that needs to stay committed to the particular approach vs. the alternatives.  A powerlifter can’t really be pushing bodybuilding, but I can.  I offer my clients what they want, some want bodybuilding, some want only GPP (CrossFit), some want to be fat and strong, some want…you get the point. 

What is your priority, the health and fitness of the clients or pushing CrossFit on everyone?

Go read Winning by Jack Welch.  Put it into practice and start differentiating yourself from your competitors.      

Stop getting hung up on if other gyms are good or bad and focus on clearly defining these things for you.  The bad gyms out there will create negative experiences for clients and you will have to re-educate them on what is and what is not CrossFit, what is and what is not different about you and your gym.  It's not fixed and it's a long-term project, your short sightedness and lack of clarity are differentiators for my gym.