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How to Deliver Bad News in Your Cheer Gym Without Losing Trust

The Weight of Delivering Bad News

I’ve been in business for 15 years, and in that time I’ve had to deliver bad news more than once — probably more times than I’d even like to count. As a gym owner, manager, director, or coach, you are inevitably going to have to give bad news to someone in your gym at some point. So in this episode, I want to teach you how to do exactly that.

Hey guys, welcome to the Full Out Cheer Podcast. I’m Danielle, and I’m your host for today. I hope your season is going smoothly so far — we just got our choreography at my gym, and I had my first junior three practice today where we started putting our stunts together in sequence. I was pleasantly surprised with how it’s all coming together already, on August 3rd.

So you might be wondering why on earth I’m talking today about delivering bad news. Earlier this summer, as you may have heard in a previous episode, we lost a longtime staff member who moved on to other opportunities, and it was a hard hit for the gym. We really had to think through how to deliver that news, not only to the rest of the staff, but to our customers and athletes. A lot of you listening actually knew this staff member, so it was a genuinely hard shift to navigate.

But I’m not just talking about that one situation — I’m talking about all the times over the past 15 years I’ve had to tell a team, “I know we said level three, but this season you’re going to be a level two.” Or the time I had to tell a team we weren’t going to have a level four that season because athletes had graduated or moved to other gyms. Or the time I had to tell staff at a second location that we’d decided to close it. Whatever the situation, there have always been moments in every season where I’ve had to deliver bad news to parents, athletes, or staff. I think it’s really important that we, as gym owners, know how to deliver that news in a way that shows we’ve tried everything we can to make it a win-win — and that even when we couldn’t make it happen, we still have empathy and compassion for the circumstances people are in.

I was recently talking with one of our next-gen coaches who was helping a client through a difficult situation. This client needed to change how she handled payroll — a change that would have an immediate negative effect on staff, even though the long-term outcome would benefit them with more consistent pay and more reliable hours. Unfortunately, because of how the information was delivered, staff were unhappy, and it nearly turned into a full-blown revolt. That’s what led me to this topic: we need to teach people how to deliver bad news in a way that has the least negative impact possible on the rest of the gym.

Bad news, and the ability to deliver it effectively, is just part of leadership. If you’ve been in business long enough, you’ve had to do this before. I hope, like me, you didn’t always do it the wrong way at first — because I definitely have, and it created a big implosion in the gym with effects that lasted far too long. But as I got older and a little wiser, I also learned how to take bad news and find the win in it for everyone. Let me give you an example.

Turning Bad News Into a Win

A few years ago, we had a senior two team with a bid to All-Star Worlds. About six weeks out, we had an injury. The next week, we had another — and these weren’t minor, they were four-to-six-week injuries. Then, just a couple of weeks before the competition, we had a third injury. We had already hit our limit on crossovers, so there was no way to rebuild the routine without completely reworking it, and I didn’t think that would give those athletes the best possible experience at Worlds.

The complicating factor was that our parents had already secured their bid and booked travel — flights, hotels, all of it — and I was doing everything I could to avoid making them cancel. When that third injury came in, just a couple of weeks out, I knew we had a decision to make. To be clear, these were injuries like broken fingers — nobody was in danger — but they’re injuries you genuinely can’t compete on. If you’ve coached a senior two team, you know those athletes are often a little older, a little more emotional, and you’re frequently already at your minimum tumbling numbers because some of your athletes are learning to cheer for the first time at 13 or 14. It creates real limitations.

So I met with all of the parents and told them honestly: I’ve worked this out every possible way, and we don’t have the crossovers to redo this routine in the time we have left. I sent our athletes down to run what they could with another team — partly because they genuinely couldn’t run much with three teammates injured, and partly because I wanted them to go have some fun while I broke the news to their parents.

I told the parents I could still make it happen if that’s what they truly wanted for their kids, but I gave them my honest, professional opinion: I thought it would be a better experience for their kids if we didn’t go to All-Star Worlds, and instead spent that final week building a genuinely fun routine for the competition we’d already committed to the week before. I could cross over as many kids as I wanted for that one, we could build something the team would love, and they’d get to end the season on a great note — including one senior for whom it would be her very last competition.

There were tears, understandably, especially for that senior and for the families whose kids would have been going to Worlds for the first time. But we all agreed: the kids would do a fun final competition instead. And I kid you not — as I was walking back from that meeting, one of our coaches came running up to tell me another athlete had just dislocated his knee doing a team celebration dance. In that moment I knew, without a doubt, we had made the right call.

We ended up building a routine with a special moment at the end — lifting our senior onto shoulders for the first time, even though that wasn’t how we’d ever performed the stunt before, just so she’d have something memorable for her last time on the floor. Honestly, to this day, it’s one of my favorite things we’ve ever done. That’s the power of not just delivering bad news, but working hard to find the win hidden inside it.

Match the Delivery to the Gravity of the News

When you’re delivering bad news, think carefully about the weight of what you’re sharing and how you deliver it. I know a gym owner who had bad news for her staff but couldn’t get everyone together in person because of scheduling conflicts, so she put it on slides and sent them out. It turned into a lot of upset staff members — not necessarily because of the news itself, but because of how impersonal the delivery felt. Telling someone about a payroll change that will negatively affect their pay, without actually telling them in person, reads as a lack of compassion, even if that was never the intent.

If news impacts someone financially, affects their safety, or changes how their season ends compared to what they signed up for, it needs to be delivered in person. This season, after I’d already published our competition schedule with All-Star Worlds on it, I decided I wanted to do something different. Since 75% of our program leveled up this season, I wanted to take the pressure off and focus on learning the fundamentals before chasing a bid or an end-of-season title.

I knew that wouldn’t be welcome news for everyone — some families really wanted Orlando, and even though I’d been clear not to book travel until a bid was secured, some had already arranged time off work. So I met with each team individually. Including my dance teams, that was seven meetings that week, with crossover athletes attending up to three or four of them. I delivered the same message every time: I’m impacting your finances, your schedule, and how you expected this season to end, and that’s different from what you originally signed up for. You deserve to hear that in person, even if it means I can’t reach a hundred percent of families at once.

Would an email, a video, or a group call have been easier? Absolutely. But it would have stripped away the personal acknowledgment that I was asking people to accept something different from what they’d signed up for. I met with these families, asked to hear their feedback first, and then followed up in writing with a final answer. The bottom line: if you have something important to convey, don’t let scheduling and logistics get in the way of communication that should happen face-to-face. And ideally, you’re not making these decisions so close to a deadline that you can’t schedule the meeting further out — though sometimes, like with that senior two injury situation, you simply don’t have the luxury of time.

Let Your Managers Be Real Managers

If you have managers or directors, treat them like managers and directors. Mine never find out bad news at the same time as everyone else — they’re the ones I’m talking things through with in the weeks leading up to a decision, and I want their feedback along the way.

Even when I have to make a change because of a legal requirement — like back in 2015, when we switched our private lesson policy so clients paid the gym instead of the individual coach, and staff were paid hourly instead of a percentage of the lesson — managers may push back, but the conversation becomes: we have employment laws we need to meet, so how do we build a policy that satisfies the law while still benefiting everyone? In that case, we aligned the change with the time everyone was already getting raises, then scheduled staff for their usual private lesson hours and paid them even if a lesson was cancelled. It created steadiness — a consistent paycheck that didn’t depend on a side hustle of picking up private lessons.

Managers need to know first for a few reasons. They’re closer to what staff will be anticipating and thinking. They understand both the business and coaching sides, even if they’ve never coached themselves. And they understand the reasoning behind decisions, which means they can help manage the questions, concerns, and emotions of the team. Corporate doesn’t walk onto a store floor and tell employees something the store managers don’t already know — and we need to run our gyms the same way. When your managers are genuinely in the loop, you get far less of a revolt, because the people closest to your staff are already on board and can support the transition.

Never Have Emotional Conversations Over Text

Emotional conversations do not happen over text message. If a situation was significant enough that you addressed it in person, and someone brings their concerns to you by text afterward, there’s really only one reply worth sending: “I hear you. When are you available to meet so we can discuss this further?”

I don’t handle parent, athlete, or staff concerns over text. It’s fine to have a written record you can refer back to later if needed, but text is not the place to manage emotions, defend yourself, or explain your reasoning. Do all of that in person, and if you want a record afterward, follow up with an email recapping what was discussed so everyone’s on the same page.

I know that sounds like a lot of time, but managing these conversations well is my number one job — above coaching, above sales, above anything else, because these are my customers. To be clear, if you have managers who are true managers and are trained to handle concerns, they should be the front line, not you. I probably only handle about 1% of concerns directly. But when something does reach me, addressing it well becomes my top priority in that moment, and it never happens over text.

Put Yourself in Their Shoes

You have to genuinely put yourself in the shoes of the person receiving the bad news. Take payroll as an example. Maybe you’re shifting from direct deposit to paper checks, or changing when people get paid — like moving from every-other-Friday to the first and the fifteenth, which can create a four- or five-day delay for some employees.

Don’t take that lightly. Give people as much advance notice as possible — a couple of months, ideally — so they can prepare financially. And don’t assume a four- or five-day delay is no big deal just because it wouldn’t be for you. If you’re shifting payroll, remember what that delay might mean for someone else: being late on rent, on bills, or unable to put food on the table right away. We need to be compassionate about that, even if we’re not offering special exceptions.

The same principle applies to smaller changes. Years ago, when we moved from “wear whatever gym shirt you want” to a required staff uniform, we gave people thirty days’ notice so anyone who needed to budget for an extra staff shirt had time to do it. Seven dollars might be a Starbucks run to me, but I can’t assume it’s the same for everyone else. That kind of compassion and understanding matters, no matter how small the change seems from your seat.

Always Look for the Win-Win

This is something Justin taught me years ago, because I genuinely wasn’t good at it. My old approach was closer to, “Everyone gets bad news sometimes — this is life, and you’ll have to deal with it.” He pushed back on that as an outside perspective, and he taught me that you can’t give people bad news without doing everything you can to help them see the benefit in it for them.

Is there always a real benefit? No. Cancelling a trip to All-Star Worlds two weeks out is not, in itself, a win for anyone. But if you can build a genuinely fun routine for a competition you’re already committed to, that’s a real win worth highlighting. In that situation, I honestly didn’t care what level we competed at — I told the girls, if you can do full-twisting baskets, let’s do them. If you can do standing tumbling, let’s do it. It became more of an exhibition routine, but we’d already paid for the competition, so it didn’t matter. The win-win was giving those athletes a routine they were genuinely excited to compete, while being honest that the same routine wouldn’t have worked at Worlds.

You don’t want to manufacture a fake win-win. If payroll is shifting from every-other-Friday to the first and fifteenth, saying “you’ll get paid more!” isn’t the real win, and your staff won’t buy it. The genuine win is that paychecks become consistent — no more two-day gaps that meaningfully shrink a given check. When we moved from private lessons to semi-private lessons years ago, the real win-win was that private lesson pricing had gotten so underpriced that raising it substantially was the only sustainable option — so moving to semi-privates actually saved families money instead. Rack your brain, put yourself in the other person’s shoes, and look for a win that’s actually there. Then make sure you can convey it accurately.

Measure Success by the Majority, Not the Minority

I’m not telling you that following these steps means nobody will ever get upset. No matter what you do, some people may be. I’ve been fortunate to have great parents, great managers, and veteran families in my gym who understand we’re all working together for their kids’ benefit — but I know not every gym has that, and I know I may not have it forever. Culture can shift, and tough seasons can come around again.

Handling things the right way doesn’t guarantee universal agreement. But if you’ve handled it well, you can measure your success by the majority, not the minority — by how many people stay bought into your program and aligned with your culture and values, rather than the few who remain upset even after you’ve explained the reasoning and the benefit as clearly as you can.

Bad news is not going to destroy your culture. Reasonable people — parents, staff, and yes, even athletes, though teenagers can be convinced nothing bad will ever happen to them — can handle hard news. But the way you deliver it can destroy your culture. I’ll say that again: bad news does not destroy your culture. The way you deliver it can.

Final Thoughts

Every gym owner will have to deliver bad news at some point — that’s simply part of the job. What matters is delivering it intentionally, purposefully, and with compassion and empathy, so that you’re building your culture instead of breaking it. Whether you have to pull someone out of the air, level down a team, or tell your gym that a staff member has moved on, I want you to be prepared for that moment.

If conversations like this light a fire for you, I want to tell you about the Cheer Biz Accelerator — a two-day deep dive where you come into our gyms, see the operational side behind the scenes, and learn directly from myself and Dan. We get to know your gym deeply through pre-work ahead of time, so we can deliver a personalized growth report and build our teaching sessions around the specific gyms in the room. That’s part of why we keep the group small — with twelve gyms instead of thirty, there’s usually a lot of common ground to work from.

If that sounds like something you’re interested in, head over to CheerbizAccelerator.com, book a call, and see if your gym qualifies to attend. Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you on the next episode.

If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like “Control Freak or Empowered Gym Owner: Which Are You?”

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