The Cheer Biz Podcast

The economy, Gen Z, the president - Dan says none of these are why your gym is struggling. In this direct, no-punches-pulled episode, he breaks down the six real reasons some gyms are thriving while others are stuck, and why almost none of it comes down to bad luck.

He covers outdated marketing (straight-line funnels stopped working back in 2024), weak offers that don't tell a story, underpricing that attracts the wrong clients, refusing to follow proven systems because "that won't work for us," being too impatient to let a strategy actually work, and skipping a CRM because it's easier to keep doing things the old way. Along the way, he shares how one NextGen client, Taylor McKeg, took her gym from $200,000 to over a million dollars in annual revenue in three and a half years simply by following the system exactly as taught.

Before diving in, make sure you're in the Cheer Gym Owners and All-Star Cheer Coaches and Owners Facebook groups, and if you're looking to grow your gym, check out the last remaining 2026 Cheer Biz Accelerator event at Dan's facility in November.

“I’m too busy.” “My gym is different.” “No one can do it better than me.”

They might feel true in the moment, but Dan believes these are three of the biggest lies cheer gym owners tell themselves — and they could be keeping your business from growing.

In this episode, Dan breaks down why being busy doesn’t always mean you’re spending your time on the right things, why waiting for things to “slow down” is a losing strategy, and how a simple time audit can show you where your day is actually going. He also tackles the idea that your gym is so different that proven business strategies won’t work for you, and why changing too much when implementing something new can be the reason it fails.

Finally, Dan gets into one of the hardest beliefs for owners to let go of: “No one can do it better than me.” He explains why holding onto everything yourself limits your growth, why someone else doing something 80% as well can still be a huge win, and why your job as an owner is sometimes to find or develop people who can eventually do things better than you.

Before you dive in, make sure you're in the Cheer Gym Owners and All-Star Cheer Coaches and Owners Facebook groups, and if you want to learn directly from Dan's team, check out the upcoming Cheer Biz Accelerator events.

For 11 years, Dan was everything at DreamCamps — CEO, COO, sales, marketing, camp director, and just about every role in between. This year, he finally realized that the thing holding the company back from its next level of growth was him.

In this episode, Dan shares why he made the decision to build out a management team and start handing off responsibilities he had personally owned for more than a decade. He walks through the roles he added, why he chose to promote people from within, and how putting the right people in operations, customer service, staffing, sales, and leadership allowed DreamCamps to keep running without him being involved in every decision.

He also gets into the harder side of delegation — realizing his team didn't actually need him in the ways they once did, learning to let other people take ownership, and figuring out when a business is truly ready for its owner to step back. Most importantly, Dan explains why freeing up your time only matters if you're intentional about what you do with it next.

If you're a cheer gym owner who still has a hand in nearly every part of your business, this episode is about recognizing when you've become the bottleneck — and building the team, systems, and trust needed to move into your role as the CEO.

Before you dive in, make sure you're in the Cheer Gym Owners and All-Star Cheer Coaches and Owners Facebook groups, and if you want to learn directly from Dan's team, check out the upcoming Cheer Biz Accelerator events.

Dan is back in the studio after three months on the road, and he has some hot takes about what he's been seeing across the cheer industry.

In this episode, Dan works through 10 topics that have been on his mind this summer, starting with why he believes coaching private lessons is easier than teaching classes and why the days of spending $100 on Facebook ads and expecting a flood of new members are over. He also gets into the growing amount of AI-generated instructional content in cheer, why underperforming staff are often undertrained and undersupervised, and how the language coaches use can impact an athlete's confidence and development.

Dan also shares his thoughts on parents stepping in every time their child faces adversity, the major Worlds division changes happening this season, and why cheer gyms need to stop fighting over athletes when there's a much bigger market of kids who aren't involved in the sport at all. He wraps up with one of his strongest takes: when things aren't going right in your gym, the first place you need to look is at yourself as the owner.

Before you dive in, make sure you're in the Cheer Gym Owners and All-Star Cheer Coaches and Owners Facebook groups, and if you want to learn directly from Dan's team, check out the upcoming Cheer Biz Accelerator events.

Originally recorded in October 2023, we're re-releasing this conversation because it's still just as relevant today.

Dan sits down with Jason Larkins, host of the Let's Talk Cheer podcast, to work through a list of real questions submitted by NextGen Academy gym owners - and it turns into one of the most practical, wide-ranging conversations on the show.

They dig into how to fix choreography mid-season without blowing up a routine, Jason's parent-email strategy for cutting down athlete absences (and his "we're all missing kids" gut-check for coaches), how to keep practice productive when half a stunt group is gone, and why Jason has started making his teams finish their work before letting them go instead of ending practice strictly on time. They also get into the harder stuff: co-managing a gym with your spouse, managing stress on competition day, and Dan's ongoing gripe with the 25/75 scoring split.

Before you dive in, make sure you're in the Cheer Gym Owners and All-Star Cheer Coaches and Owners Facebook groups, and if you want to learn directly from Dan's team, check out the upcoming Cheer Biz Accelerator events.

The cheer industry is huge, but the network behind it is small — and your reputation travels fast. In this episode, Dan Cotton breaks down why how you treat independent providers (choreographers, camp companies) and your own staff can make or break your gym's reputation — and what to do if you're already struggling with it.

Dan shares a real story from this summer: a longtime program canceled 60 camp beds with only 14 days' notice, and what that kind of last-minute cancellation actually costs the people you hire. He also covers how staff turnover and disorganization build a reputation that follows you, and why every gym owner should have a business coach in their corner.

Don't miss the Cheer Biz Accelerator events happening in 2026 and 2027 — visit cheerbizaccelerator.com for details.

Join the conversation:
Cheer Gym Owners (Facebook) → [link]
All-Star Cheer Coaches and Owners (Facebook) → [link]

Winning Worlds is an incredible accomplishment—but sometimes the biggest lessons in cheer come from the moments that don't end with a trophy.
In this episode of the Cheer Biz Podcast, Dan Cotton sits down with Kaden Snyder, World Champion with MACS Senior Starz and Weber State Cheer athlete, for an honest conversation about resilience, leadership, elite tumbling, and what it really takes to grow as an athlete.
Kaden shares the highs of competing at the highest levels of all star and college cheer, but he also opens up about one of the most difficult moments of his career and how it completely changed the way he views leadership, teammates, and success.
If you're a cheer athlete, coach, parent, or gym owner, this episode is a reminder that some of the most valuable lessons in cheer happen when things don't go according to plan.

In this episode of the Cheer Biz Podcast, Dan Cotton explains why the biggest mistake cheer gym owners make with artificial intelligence is treating it like a chatbot instead of an employee.

Dan shares how he's using AI every day to automate repetitive tasks, manage communications, build software, organize information, and save hours of work each week. More importantly, he explains the mindset shift that every gym owner needs to make if they want to stay ahead as AI continues to transform business.

Instead of asking AI to simply answer questions or write emails, Dan demonstrates how it can become a true part of your team—handling recurring tasks, summarizing information, drafting communications, improving workflows, and helping you focus on the work that only a human can do.

In this episode, Dan discusses:

Why AI should be viewed as an employee, not a chatbot
How AI can automate repetitive work inside a cheer gym
Why gym owners should avoid chasing every new AI tool
The difference between AI assistants and AI agents
How automation can improve productivity and communication
Why learning AI today will create a competitive advantage tomorrow

If you are a cheer gym owner, coach, or entrepreneur, this episode will change the way you think about AI and show you how to start using it to save time, improve systems, and grow your business.

Too many cheer gym owners make pricing, staffing, marketing, and growth decisions based on gut feelings instead of real business data.

In this episode of the Cheer Biz Podcast, Dan Cotton breaks down the essential numbers every cheer gym owner should track to make smarter, more profitable decisions. He explains why knowing your total revenue is only the beginning—and why you also need to understand where that revenue comes from, which payments are overdue, what your business is spending, and how much each athlete is actually worth to your gym.

Dan walks through key cheer gym metrics including revenue by program, outstanding accounts receivable, monthly expenses, enrollment by category, average revenue per member, customer acquisition cost, and average length of engagement. He also explains how these numbers help owners decide whether to invest in advertising, add staff, expand programs, or adjust pricing.

If you own a cheer gym, tumbling program, or youth sports facility, this episode will help you stop guessing, understand your financial reports, and use real data to build a healthier and more profitable business.

In this episode of the Cheer Biz Podcast, Dan Cotton breaks down what cheer coaches and gym owners often get wrong when studying the routines that win major end-of-season events.

Too many coaches watch a winning routine and immediately focus on the hardest stunt, the biggest tumbling pass, or the most creative transition. Dan explains why copying isolated skills is rarely the answer—and why difficulty alone is not what separates the best routines from everyone else.

This episode explores how execution, pacing, routine construction, score sheet strategy, and overall performance quality work together to create a winning package. Dan also explains why coaches need to study the full routine instead of one viral section, why different score sheets reward different choices, and why a video can never fully capture the energy a team creates in the arena.

If you are a cheer gym owner, all star coach, choreographer, or program director, this episode will help you analyze winning cheer routines more effectively, make smarter choreography decisions, and build routines that score—not just routines that look difficult online.