What does it ‘look’ like?
How clearly do you see your role as THE leader for your business? Clear enough to work on it every day, just as you work on programming for your clients or marketing?
Most gym owners don’t have that level of clarity. They may think they do, but when we get them to think deeper on the subject, they realize there’s more work to do.
If that’s you, that’s ok. We’ve all got work to do.
Here’s some food for thought.
Any business is an intricate collection of things.
What the business offers and who buys it…who creates it…who sells it…who cleans the bathroom…who pays the rent…
It all has to work together in service of one thing:
The Leader’s Vision For The Business
The more closely aligned everything is to that vision, the better the business operates.
When things aren’t aligned, you get cognitive dissonance.
If you aren’t familiar, cognitive dissonance is a term that refers to the mental discomfort someone has when holding two conflicting thoughts.
It’s like when a prospect comes to you knowing that eating better and exercising will help them and still not doing it.
You know how that makes them feel:
Anxious. Uncomfortable. Conflicted. Directionless.
When a business is suffering from a void of leadership, that’s exactly how it, and everyone in it, feels.
Anxious. Uncomfortable. Conflicted. Directionless.
Here’s a few ideas on what leadership really is (it’s not someone yelling at people like you see on TV) and how to apply these lessons so you can bridge the gap from where you are to where you want to be.
1. Clear Vision
Take a look at this clip of Jonathan Price of Nourished Performance in Gardnerville, NV. On the surface, it sounds pretty basic, but pay attention to one thing:
His clear vision of what his gym offers, what he wants it to be, and his role in all of it.
The Lesson
For a leader to be effective, they must know what they want and how their decisions play into making that happen. It’s not always sexy or showy, in fact, true leadership usually isn’t. What it is, is consistent, direct, logical and most importantly, communicated to everyone in a clear and sustainable way.
2. It’s Not All You
In this clip, Meagan Sbat of Get Fit NH in Concord, NH talks about why she had to learn to delegate for her business to finally grow.
The Lesson
No one can do everything in their business themselves. Elon Musk isn’t making all those Teslas, right?! For your business to truly flourish you have got to trust the people around you to do what you are asking them to do and make sure they have the training and knowledge to do it.
3. Keep Learning
If you want your business to mature, you as a leader have to, as well.
In this clip Marc Dearing of Next 5 Fitness in Davison, MI tells us how he had to get over his struggles with goal setting, planning, and self-reflection in order to figure out how to make his business successful.
The Lesson
Nothing in your business happens magically. You got your business where it is because of what you know to this point. You need to learn new skills to move your business to new places.
There’s more to learn in All Problems are Leadership Problems – Part 2.
Justin Hanover
Success Coach, Fitness Revolution
P.S. I don’t want you to feel like I’m putting you on the spot…well, maybe I do. This is important.
I just know that a lot of the gym owners I talk to don’t really know where they stand compared to other well-run gyms. The type of gyms they are trying to build.
They don’t know what they don’t know.
We’ve created a simple assessment for gym owners that will tell you how well you’re really doing and where your business stands among other gyms similar to yours.
(It’ll take less than 2 minutes!)
Why wouldn’t you want to know?
