Recently, we sat down with one of our earliest customers, CrossFit North Marin. Amy Brackett and her husband, Travis opened North Marin in 2011 with another couple in northern California. Travis, an economics teacher, and football coach was looking for a change, so they decided to make one, switch gears, and open a CrossFit gym. Amy manages the business and operations, while also working full-time at a marketing agency.
Over the past five years, Travis and Amy have realized tremendous success. They have almost 150 members, many of whom have been with them since the day they opened.
CrossFit North Marin raised $12K to benefit breast cancer research.
At North Marin, eight coaches run five different programs—CrossFit, TRX, Bootcamp, Endurance, and Barbell. Amy credits the gyms growth to the variety the gym offers and also the small class sizes that their philosophy is rooted in. “Whenever a class is getting big, we always add another one. It’s important to us to keep the class sizes small so we can offer consistent, quality coaching.”
She credits their incredible retention to Travis. “We got into CrossFit because of the community. Travis is at the gym every single day and takes the time and care to get to know and work with each member of the gym and that makes a huge difference.”
The spirit of community that called them to CrossFit in the first place is reflected in the gym’s tagline—Building a Fit Community. Amy and Travis work hard to nurture community and connection at their box. Just in 2016, North Marin raised over $25,000 for charity through fundraising events. Most recently, the gym held a crab bake with their members and raised $12K to benefit breast cancer research.
CrossFit North Marin leverages SugarWOD to support community building as well. We’re one of the top five places that our members spend their time—home, work, school, church, the gym. SugarWOD has helped to fill the gap and connects our members outside of class and events and adds to our community to help the members celebrate their work.
As an owner, workout tracking tools, like SugarWOD, are important to the success of her business. Before SugarWOD, athletes at North Marin used notebooks to log their workout results. Amy expressed that she “couldn’t imagine her gym without SugarWOD.” Its power to help her athletes see results is really important to her. “At the end of the day, I hope that my athletes are in it to see results. You’re not going to get client retention unless your athletes are seeing results and they have no idea unless they are tracking workouts.”
When asked what wisdom she would offer other gyms who were rolling out SugarWOD at their gym, she said, “Be the example. Use it often. Constantly remind athletes to track their workouts.”
The community at CrossFit North Marin has logged over 40,000 workouts and shared almost 160,000 fistbumps with one another. With those numbers, it seems that Amy and her team are definitely setting an example and it’s working.
When asked about the vision for CrossFit North Marin, Amy suggests that the team at North Marin is focused on continuing to invest in the current community and diversifying the programming to accommodate her members. It’s this kind of forward-looking attitude and investment that allows CrossFit North Marin to achieve the success it has.
See more about CrossFit North Marin here.