The Cheer Biz Podcast

Hosted by Next Generation Gym Owners

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Episodes

457

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Nov 2026

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About the show

Calling all Cheerleading and Gymnastics Gym owners. Next Generation consulting specializes in connecting people and profits. As a group of entrepreneurs who started businesses in the Recreational and All Star Cheerleading and tumbling world, Next Gen‘s owners have dedicated themselves to inspiring, leading, and coaching other business owners to grow and thrive in their businesses. This podcast will dive into all aspects of owning a business. Highlighting and interviewing not only experts in the fields of marketing, social media, and all things business, but also interview some of our clients who have shown initiative, innovation and growth! Apply To be on the podcast https://nextgenowners.com/podcast/

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60 recent

November 7, 2026Episode 46216 min

Great Coaches Are Trained: The Steps Most Cheer Gyms Skip

Your athletes shouldn’t need to get the right coach to have a great experience at your gym. But how do you turn a staff with different experience levels into coaches who consistently deliver your standards? In this episode, Dan Cotton shares the training framework he recently walked through with a gym owner during a Cheer Biz Accelerator spotlight session. He starts with hiring for character and cultural alignment, including why he tells candidates the parts of the job they might not enjoy before either side commits. Then Dan breaks down the full progression: classroom training, structured shadowing, supervised coaching and skill checkoffs, ongoing audits, and continuing education. Drawing on his experience in law enforcement training, he explains why watching a few classes isn’t enough, how observation checklists give shadowing a purpose, and what to cover in a daily debrief. He also talks about checking whether coaches maintain your standards after they’re working independently. If your training process mostly consists of “follow this coach around, then take a class,” this episode gives you a starting point for building something more intentional—and a more consistent experience for your athletes and families.

November 3, 2026Episode 46116 min

You’re Never Going to Be a Perfect Gym Owner

You teach people to make decisions with good data. Then you realize you’ve been doing your own payroll budget in your head—and the numbers are wrong. In this candid episode, Dan Cotton shares a budgeting mistake in his Dream Camps business that left him facing bills with less cash available than he expected. He explains how hiring year-round staff and adjusting pay without checking the full budget led him to underestimate payroll by 50%, and what happened when he finally sat down with the numbers. Dan walks through the frustration, self-doubt, and difficult conversations that followed, including how he and Tori began working on a plan and stronger budgeting rules. He also talks about another challenge inside his gym: keeping staff, athletes, and parents aligned as the program grows. This isn’t a story about having everything figured out. It’s an honest look at recognizing a mistake, taking responsibility, and building systems that match the business you’re trying to run. Dan’s message: you’re never going to be perfect, but you can learn, recover, and make your next decision with better information.

October 31, 2026Episode 46021 min

When Your Best Coach Wants to Open Their Own Gym

You’ve invested time, money, and trust in a coach. Then they tell you they’re leaving to open their own gym. Is it betrayal—or a conversation your business should have been preparing for? In this episode, Dan Cotton looks at both sides of one of the hardest conversations in gym ownership. Having once been the coach who thought he could run things better, Dan understands the desire for independence. He also knows what it feels like to build someone up and face losing them. Dan walks through the questions to ask before reacting: Do you actually want to keep this person? What would make staying worthwhile? Could mentorship, a second location, or a franchise create a future together? He shares how ODT’s first franchise came about, why ownership shouldn’t be your automatic offer, and his perspective on setting boundaries when a departing employee is building a competing business. The biggest takeaway starts before anyone gives notice: build a career path. If your strongest coaches can’t see a way to grow their income, responsibility, and future inside your gym, they may start looking somewhere else.

October 27, 2026Episode 45924 min

The Real Reason We Switched Class Management Software

Every cheer gym owner eventually asks the same question: should I switch my class management software? In this episode, Dan walks through the exact framework he uses to decide — and the right (and wrong) time to actually pull the trigger. He covers the real reason he switched systems himself (credit card processing fees eating into every transaction), the “what’s actually broken” one-sentence test, a birthday-party booking snag that forced him to tell the difference between a software limitation and his own operations, why he won’t use any system without automated recurring billing, and a quiet hack for cutting down on paid support calls. He closes with his personal timing rule for switching without blowing up a competitive season. Want to work through decisions like this one directly with Dan and the Next Gen team? Check out the 2027 Cheer Biz Accelerator events (January, February, and March) — head to Cheer Gym Owners or All Star Cheer Coaches and Owners on Facebook for details.

October 24, 2026Episode 45813 min

Before You Spend a Dollar: What to Fix Before You Pay for Marketing

Marketing is a bloodbath right now, Dan says, and gym owners who throw money at ads before fixing the basics are wasting their most valuable dollars. Dan runs through the five things that need to be in place before you spend a cent on paid marketing: a functional website, a real CRM instead of a “billboard on the internet,” solid tracking and analytics, an active social media presence, and real reviews. Along the way he shares the story of running the exact same special two years in a row and watching enrollments fall from 40 to 19, and makes the case that marketing is “more art and feeling than math.” If your website, CRM, or marketing fundamentals need an outside set of eyes, a Cheer Biz Accelerator event is a great place to get them sorted before you spend another dollar. Join the Cheer Gym Owners and All-Star Cheer Coaches and Owners Facebook groups for more conversations like this one.

October 20, 2026Episode 45721 min

5 Revenue Streams Every Cheer Gym Owner Is Underpricing

Tuition is the baseline, Dan says, but most gym owners are leaving serious money on the table by underpricing everything they stack on top of it: pro shop, private lessons, birthday parties, and clinics. Dan lays out his framework for diversifying revenue the right way, including why he aims for an 80% gross margin on everything from t-shirts to birthday parties, why all-inclusive tuition can turn into an “all-inclusive, except...” trap that frustrates families, and the real math behind whether private lessons are actually making your gym money or quietly costing you. If pricing and margins feel like a guessing game in your gym, a Cheer Biz Accelerator event is built exactly for this kind of deep dive into your numbers. Join the Cheer Gym Owners and All-Star Cheer Coaches and Owners Facebook groups for more conversations like this one.

October 17, 2026Episode 45617 min

Nice Lobby, Empty Mats: What Actually Brings Athletes to Your Gym

Competition season brings a flood of temptation — outside clinicians, cleanup camps, specialty apparel, new choreographers — and Dan says most gym owners say yes to these adds without ever asking if they actually solve a real problem. In this episode, Dan breaks down his four-question framework for deciding what to add to your season: what problem am I actually trying to solve, can this thing solve it, what does it cost, and is that cost worth it. He shares a real story from his own gym about hiring an outside clinician who was phenomenal but didn’t fix what was actually broken, and makes the case that your gym is “just the building” when it comes to attracting new athletes through outside talent — kids don’t join because the lobby is nice. If you’re weighing whether to bring in a clinician, add a clinic, or spend money chasing what another gym is doing, check out a Cheer Biz Accelerator event where Dan and his team dig into exactly this kind of decision for your business, and join the Cheer Gym Owners and All-Star Cheer Coaches and Owners Facebook groups for more conversations like this one.

October 13, 2026Episode 45510 min

A Cheer Gym Owners' Guide to Staff Accountability

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.

October 10, 2026Episode 45414 min

Attract, Convert, Ascend: The Framework for Filling Your Gym

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.

October 6, 2026Episode 45320 min

Six Vendors in Fifteen Years: What Finally Made Me Switch

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.