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.

If Dan wanted to guarantee his gym stopped growing — or put it out of business entirely — these are the five things he'd do. Unfortunately, he sees gym owners doing all five on a regular basis across the industry. In this episode, Dan breaks down the real growth killers: airing your "dirty laundry" online, refusing to embrace social media and AI, marketing without a strong product to back it up, treating customers like they're replaceable, and skipping stair-step enrollment options. He gets personal too, sharing how his gym's $5 drop-in tumbling classes (and the total lack of anything between that and elite travel cheer) held his own business back in the early days. 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're ready to actually accelerate your gym's growth instead of stalling it, check out an upcoming Cheer Biz Accelerator event — new dates are launching in January and February 2027.

Dan's a self-described AI super fan — but this episode is him making the case for why the average cheer gym owner should not be spending their time building a custom app with AI, no matter how easy tools like Replit make it look. He walks through his own experience building an app for Dream Camps: the first version broke mid-camp after 100+ hours of work, and even the full rebuild this year still cost him roughly 80 hours over the summer. From there he breaks down the real math — time, token costs, hosting, security — and the two questions you need to answer honestly before you ever open a builder: do you actually know your business numbers, and is this really the best use of your time. If you want to learn how to use AI in your gym without building anything from scratch, Dan and Danielle run the AI for Cheer Gym Owners Lab on Skool. And Cheer Biz Accelerator dates are open now for Warrensburg (October) and Portland (November), with two more coming in January and February.