Staffing is one of the hardest parts of owning a gym. In this episode, Dan lays out a simple four-step framework for building real staff accountability — and how to know, without guilt, when it's time to let someone go. He walks through Expect (writing down real KPIs like retention and competitive performance), Train (including his own story contrasting his "death by PowerPoint" military training with the intensive police academy and six-month field-training program he went through as a 23-year-old cop), Inspect (a regular cadence for checking in on those KPIs), and Correct (documentation, additional training, and verbal or written counseling before anyone gets let go) — plus his reminder that none of it works if you haven't hired the right people in the first place. Dan also points listeners toward the Cheer Gym Owners and All-Star Cheer Coaches and Owners Facebook groups, and the Cheer Biz Accelerator events, open to any gym doing $10K/month or more in revenue.

Filling your cheer gym doesn't have to feel like guessing. In this episode, Dan breaks down the exact framework he uses to turn strangers into lifelong members — and why most gyms are leaking people out the bottom of their funnel without ever noticing. He walks through the three stages — Attract, Convert, and Ascend — including why posting "we're hosting an open house" once on Facebook isn't actually promoting it, the free learn-to-cheer clinic that more than doubled one client's team registration, a $54,000-to-$12,000 price-anchoring sales call Dan breaks down line by line, and the churn benchmarks (6% for tumbling-only programs, 1-2% for competitive teams) that tell you whether your retention is actually healthy. Dan also points listeners toward the Cheer Gym Owners and All-Star Cheer Coaches and Owners Facebook groups — where this episode's inspiration came from — and the Cheer Biz Accelerator events for anyone who wants a deeper, in-person dive into their business.

Picking a uniform vendor feels like it should be simple, until you're the one holding a surprise shipping bill and a prototype that didn't survive the wash. In this episode, Dan Cotton breaks down the exact framework he uses to evaluate a uniform vendor before committing a season's budget to them. Dan walks through the real story behind a dye-sub uniform that tested solid black and turned almost white the second it stretched, and the crop top redesign that followed a wardrobe malfunction at showcase. He covers how to set a price-per-athlete budget, what "all-in landed pricing" actually means, why you should never skip the prototype (and should wash it five to eight times before approving it), how to vet turnaround time and problem-handling, and the real tradeoffs between a DIY and a concierge-style vendor relationship. He also answers a question straight from the Facebook groups: is it okay to let AI design your uniforms? If you want us to put eyes on your gym in person, Dan's got four seats left for the Cheer Biz Accelerator event at Oregon Dream Teams this November, with two more events coming to Missouri and Oregon in 2027. Got your own uniform vendor story, good or bad? Join the conversation in the Cheer Gym Owners or All-Star Cheer Coaches and Owners Facebook groups.

Ty went from a football and baseball kid who'd never set foot in a cheer gym to a 4x World Champion at Top Gun Miami — and now he's making history on Miami Medal, the first-ever Pro Cheer League roster. Dan sits down with Ty to talk about his unlikely start at a D2 gym in Starke, FL, the injury that nearly derailed his college cheer career at Weber right before trials, and what it's actually like inside the brand-new Pro Cheer League — from bullseye and flash pyramid to the controversial overtime rule that cost Miami Medal a tied 73-73 finale in Nashville. Ty also makes his case for what pro cheer needs next: a real draft night, just like the NBA.

Dan's own ad performance has taken a hit this year, so instead of pretending marketing is easy right now, he's breaking down the three real reasons leads have dried up — for his own gyms and for the Next Gen clients he coaches. He covers why AI-written ad copy reads exactly the same as everyone else's and quietly kills performance, why your best ad creative is probably already sitting in your organic posts, and a real story about turning down a 24-million-view video because of how commenters treated the athlete in it. He also gets into why "sign up now" isn't an offer, and why only 1 to 3% of people who click your ad are actually ready to buy. If you want Dan and his team looking directly at your marketing, that's part of every Cheer Biz Accelerator event — more 2027 dates are open now.

Dan's been obsessed with pricing for four years — obsessed enough to write the book on it — and this episode is him answering the three questions he gets asked more than anything else by gym owners. He walks through his actual formula for pricing classes and all-star teams (payroll, expenses, enrollment minimums, profit margin — building to a real $625-per-class example), how to know when you can raise tuition (hint: check your churn rate against 6%), and why he thinks permanently grandfathering members into old pricing is a mistake — plus the September-to-January model he uses to roll out an increase without losing people. Grab the pricing calculator and the book, Charge What You're Worth: The Cheer Pricing Handbook, at cheerhandbooks.com, and if you want to work through your own pricing with Dan directly, that's exactly what happens at a Cheer Biz Accelerator event.

Every cheer gym owner hits the wall at some point — the moment you look at your spouse or your business partner and ask, "Is this actually worth it?" Dan's been there more times than he can count, and this episode is a look at exactly what he does when he gets there. Dan walks through the early years with his wife Tori, when enrollments were slow, revenue was tight, and teams weren't competing the way they wanted — and the three things he now relies on any time he feels like walking away: getting advice from the right people (not just the people closest to you), running a worst-case/best-case mental exercise before making any big call, and a lesson from a drill sergeant in basic training that reframed what "quitting" even means. If you're a cheer gym owner or all-star coach in one of your own hard seasons right now, join Dan and the community over in the Cheer Gym Owners and All-Star Cheer Coaches and Owners Facebook groups, or check out the Cheer Gym AI Lab on Skool for more content like this. And if you want to learn directly from Dan in person, the Cheer Biz Accelerator has two spots left for the November 2026 event (October is sold out).

You've heard it everywhere — as a busy gym owner, you need to delegate. So you think it's time to hire a manager. But according to Dan, it might not be. In this episode, Dan breaks down what a manager actually is (versus just a fancy title), the five things a real manager needs — supervision, delegation authority, communication, administration, and hiring authority — and why promoting your best instructor into that role doesn't always work out. He also shares his own 150-athlete rule of thumb for knowing when you genuinely need a manager, plus the honest story of hiring his first director just three years into owning his gym, before he actually needed one. Before you dive in, head over to the Cheer Gym Owners and All-Star Cheer Coaches and Owners Facebook groups to join the conversation. And if you want to work with Dan and Danielle directly, spots are still open for the November Cheer Biz Accelerator event at Oregon Dream Teams — with January and February 2027 dates now booking too.