Let FR show you how and when to hold planning sessions that will propel your business forward and help you see faster results.

One of the fastest ways to grow your business is to look at what others have done to grow and find success in theirs. That doesn’t mean you copy exactly what they do, or that your business has to look exactly like their business…

Business doesn’t have to be complicated, in fact when it comes right down to it there are 3 things that will determine your success. These 3 things are the blueprint for fitness business owners to use if they want to see faster growth and take their business to the next level.

Growing, or scaling your fitness business isn’t easy. It takes more than a FB ad, a couple checklists and great training. If you would look at many fitness businesses that have found some success, usually in the $10,000/mo-$25,000/mo revenue range, there is one thing that really holds them back…systems.

We are going to provide a few tips to help you develop better fitness business systems.

When your growth stops how do you get ‘unstuck’ in your fitness business? There are 4 key areas you need to focus on as the business to kickstart your growth again.

Many fitness business owners end up stuck. There’s a common cause of ‘getting stuck’ at all levels and a simple way to ‘get unstuck. I’ll explain in the video…

Maximizing your time and getting the stuff that matters done is critical to your fitness business. Here’s what no one else is telling you about productivity in your fitness business.

Don’t make these 3 critical fitness business mistakes if you want to maximize your growth and get fast results.

Discovering the opportunities that will put your fitness business on the fast track for success can be a challenge. Always staying caught up in the day to day of running your business can distract you from the strategic level thinking required for breakthroughs.

The Fitness Revolution Fitness Business Alignment System™, the most effective strategic approach to running your fitness business, is set up to allow you to step out of your business at key periods during the year to plan and adjust as needed to hit your goals.

No matter how this past year has turned out for you a solid Annual Business Review can help you get the momentum you want for the coming year.  

If you want a complete overview of the annual planning session check out this blog post.

Your Annual Business Review will be a success if you follow this simple advice…

Step Away From The Gym

Trying to evaluate your current progress and strategically think about what you need to accomplish next is extremely challenging if you do it in your daily environment. Get outside of the gym for a few hours to prepare for and complete your Annual Business Review.

You will be tempted to check off a few tasks or complete your daily work if you try to do this in the gym.  

Find a place where you can settle in for a few hours to think.

Don’t Rush It

Transitioning from your daily routine to strategic thinking can be difficult. Often times I’ll find myself struggling for close to an hour to get in the flow of thinking strategically. It takes practice and is definitely a skill to develop.

Make sure you give yourself ample time to make this transition. Avoid giving up when things seem difficult or you get stuck on a thought. Often times the moments after that, if you are willing to grind through it, are where the magic happens.

Don’t Worry About How

You’ll be tempted to fix a problem right away or might get tripped up because you don’t know how to accomplish something that you think is really important. Stay out of the ‘how’ and on the ‘what’ in your review and planning sessions.

What the heck does that mean?  

Don’t worry about the steps needed to take to get your plan done or accomplish a goal. You can figure out HOW you will do it later. The most important thing to focus on during these sessions is WHAT you need to accomplish or fix.  

If you stick to that your mind will open up and you can explore out of the box solutions to your problems and attack them from different angles.  

That change in approach is what leads to big breakthroughs.

Need help…

It’s not easy to get through this alone. Oftentimes a business owner is too close the issues to really be able to step back and see the path to hitting their goals. That’s why a coach is so valuable when creating your plans. They challenge you to look at things differently and help you develop as a business owner. If you’d like to see if coaching could be a good fit for you let’s give it a test run! Schedule a complimentary Discovery Call today…

Running a personal training business is tough work! From the day you decide to start you will be faced with challenges, obstacles and difficult decisions that you’ve likely never thought about or been prepared to handle.

Taking action and implementing the following 5 key elements into your personal training business will give you the best shot for fast growth and success.    

A Sales System That Delivers Predictable Results

The fastest way to fail in your personal training business is not being able to get clients to pay you for your services. You have to be able to get clients to pay you, and pay you what you’re worth, if you want to grow.  

The first step is creating a system that you can use during your consultations that increase your chances of success with the sale. Here are 7 sales tips from fitness pros who have crushed their sales goals.  

A Marketing Plan To Generate New Leads

Learning how to implement marketing systems and put a marketing plan in place for your personal training business gives you control over your growth. You can’t survive off word of mouth marketing and referrals forever.  

The best marketing plan for personal training businesses is the Triple A Marketing Method. In less than an hour you can create a plan to attract more leads that is based on your strengths and allows you to focus your efforts on the highest return activities.

You have to take action if you want to get more clients. This plan show you how to get crystal clear on what actions to take.

A Productivity Routine

You don’t have an endless amount of time or energy to run your personal training business. The busy you get the tougher it will be to get it all done. This is why you need an operating routine in your business that allows you maximize your productivity.

Your productivity routine should improve communication within your business, allow you to stay focused on the most important projects and get more done in less time. If you feel like you are always running around with your hair on fire your current routine isn’t working.

Delegate Lower Level Tasks

Every minute you spend on a task that keeps you from marketing, selling, training or falls outside of your highest priorities as the business owner is lost opportunity. It’s costing you money!

Enter the skill of delegation. From the solopreneur to the business owner with a large team delegation is a skill that must be developed and implemented to grow the business. There will be a time where you’ll have to ‘wear all the hats’ in your business, but it shouldn’t last long.

Systemize & Scale

Developing systems and scaling a personal training business is often misunderstood. These are typically buzzwords that get thrown around in the industry.   

Systems are a set of tasks completed to deliver predictable results. However, systems shouldn’t be built out so in depth that they hinder the people trying to implement them. The systems you put in place should empower the people running them to do their job more effectively.  

Here’s a short article showing you how to create systems using the 20/80 rule.

To scale you need to be able to replicate those predictable results your systems create.  That requires that you hire the right people or outsource the right tasks so that others are getting results for you.

BONUS: Get A Coach

A business coach can help you get results faster.  They will have the experience and expertise to know what questions to ask you, understand the solutions to your problems, and teach you how to think like a business owner.  

Having a coach is like having a cheat code for a video game.  It removes a lot of the obstacles that keep you from having success.  Your clients hire you to help them devise a plan to reach their fitness goals and a business coach can do the same for your business/personal income goals.

If you want to see how a coach can help or where to start click the button below to schedule a complimentary call…

As you grow your fitness business the responsibilities you have can quickly get overwhelming. You have more clients to manage, administrative tasks pile up, you put in countless hours trying to keep your head above water and there’s a good chance you’ve just started to make a little money.

You’re in the difficult position of having to figure out if you want to invest in a staff member or tackle all this on your own for a little while longer.  

How do you know when to make the first hire for your fitness business?

There are 4 key indicators you can look for:

1. When the workload of the administrative assistant roles you are filling reaches critical mass (10+ hours/wk doing routine administrative tasks), then you should hire an administrative assistant.
2. When the demand for your training services outgrows your ability to provide a quality training experience (e.g. the client to coach ratio in a class or classes is too great for you to provide excellent coaching to every individual), you should hire an assistant coach.
3. When a demonstrated weakness of yours in a certain job position is negatively impacting business growth and you realize another person could perform the position’s responsibilities more efficiently and effectively.
4. When you no longer wish to fill a certain position AND have the revenue to support hiring someone for that position.

You want to hire your first staff member to fill a specific position, but there’s a good chance you’ll be asking them to take on a bit of a hybrid position. What you want to avoid is creating a unique position around this individual, but rather have them fill two positions on your organization chart. As your business grows, you can easily transition the person into just one of the roles that best suits them and their desired career path.  

There are going to be some financial requirements to consider before making your first hire. You need to be profitable and able to afford paying this individual. There’s a good chance your margins will have to take a small hit for a short period of time as you get this individual up to speed and into their position but within a short time frame, say 90 days, you should see a return on your investment.  

Your investing in staff to create your capacity for you to focus on growing the business and performing revenue generating activities. The time you save once your new staff member is in place should be reallocated to marketing, sales and training so that you can replace the expense of this first hire with new revenue.

Are you ready to grow?

Schedule complimentary 60-Minute Discovery Call with an expert on the Fitness Revolution Team to help you find a solution to your growth challenges. On this call, you’ll be able to uncover the obstacles holding you back from reaching your goals and put a plan in place to overcome them. It’s time to end the guesswork and frustration so that you finally create the income and business you want.

It all starts with the right question…

You likely started your business or entered into the fitness industry because you asked yourself a question about what you wanted to do, who you wanted to help or how you wanted to make a living.  

Your growth as a person and business owner start with questions about skills you need to develop, obstacles you will face and finding the path to success.

It’s simple…you don’t know what you don’t know.  

To find out you have to be willing to ask questions. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it saves the entrepreneur!

Fear and insecurity hold back many fitness business owners from experiencing growth. The fear of asking for help or looking stupid. Questions don’t make you less of a business owner, they make you a successful business owner.  

Here are a few questions you need to be asking throughout your journey of fitness business growth:

1. What should I not do at this stage to get to the next?
2. What should I focus my energy on at this stage?
3. What are the biggest risks for me?
4. What does success look like and how will I recognize it?
5. What did you do?  How did you do it?
6. What might I be missing?
7. Who do you know that I should know?
8. How can I (insert your goal or obstacle)?
9. Who can help me (insert goal or obstacle)?
10. What are my blind spots?

These are just a start, but the more questions you ask the more knowledge you will acquire. That knowledge, when put into action will result in fitness business growth.

So, what questions do you have for us at Fitness Revolution?

Seeking Answers To Your Most Challenging Business Questions?  

Take 60 minutes to talk with a member of the Fitness Revolution team to dig in to your business and help you discover the path you need to take to reach your biggest goals. The call is completely FREE! If you think working with us at the end of the call can help you reach your goals we’ll discuss what may be the best fit for you.

The struggle to find success in the fitness industry is real. You’re in a saturated industry with a lot of misinformation, hyperbole, smoke and mirrors. Just 12 years ago I was no different than you…navigating my way in business, simply trying to increase revenues.

I’m still no different than you.  

Each day I wake up with a desire and drive to push a little further, a little higher, and do a little more so that Fitness Revolution is THE GO TO solution for serious fitness business owners who want to take their business to the next level. But, enough about me…

You’re here because you aren’t cool with status quo. You want more from your business and more for yourself. And you want it all to happen by doing what you love.

While the market may be full of potential options for your target market, there are very few GREAT options for them. You have to be willing to step up and grab the top spot in their minds. When you do that you’ll have no problem rising to the top of your market and beyond.  

There are three things you need to dial in if you want to supercharge your success and rapidly grow your business.  

Commitment

Your fitness business success will largely be determined by your commitment to the cause. Are you willing to do whatever it takes to succeed?

Discomfort will become your new reality. You will be uncomfortable making new, bigger decisions. You’ll be required to get out of your comfort zone to implement new ideas, methods and strategies. You’ll have to get used to leaning into the discomfort of the situations.

The beautiful thing about this discomfort is that growth lies on the other side. You’ll learn how to handle these new situations, you’ll develop new skills and progress in your development as a business owner. These new skills and capabilities allow to you grow quickly.

Be committed to growing your business and becoming the business owner you need to be.

Responsibility

Do you ever get annoyed with the client that constantly blames their lack of progress on someone or something else? It could be their schedule, their family, their friends, their metabolism, or the cycle of the moon. Not once has it been their fault that they hit a sticking point or haven’t gotten the results they want.

Fitness business success requires 100% responsibility from you. You have to own the wins, losses and everything in between. There are always going to be circumstances out of your control. We don’t focus on those, but rather look at what we could do better or what we can learn from those situations.

Failure is going to be part of the learning process. Lack of responsibility will keep you from learning. You’ll be in an endless cycle of repeating the same mistakes or going through the same challenges if you don’t own it and change it.

Your rapid growth and fitness business success are determined by your level of responsibility.

Communication

In Five Stars: The Communication Secrets To Get From GOOD TO GREAT there was a quote from Barbara Corcoran, Shark Tank investor and real estate mogul…

“If you’re going to be in business, the single most important thing is the ability to communicate your idea to every single person you meet”

You need to be able to communicate to your market, to your team and to your mentors what it is that you want to accomplish and how it impacts them. This isn’t just marketing, it’s about persuading your audience, whomever that may be at the time, to support your initiative.  

Learning how to clearly and powerful communicate a message will make fitness business success come a lot easier. You’ll inspire your team, invoke your market to take action and recruit others to help you accomplish your vision.

Poor communication will kill your success.  

Climb The Success Ladder

No matter where you are in your journey as a fitness business owner you will need to zero in on and work to develop new skills to keep your journey moving forward. There is no status quo or maintaining success. I’m a firm believer that you are either moving forward or you’re moving back.  

These three skills and mindsets will help you find fitness business success if you choose to develop them. As you work to master them you will be moving forward…fast!

Need Some Guidance & Accountability To Get To The Next Level?

Take 60 minutes to talk with a member of the Fitness Revolution team to dig in to your business and help you discover the path you need to take to reach your biggest goals. The call is completely FREE! If you think working with us at the end of the call can help you reach your goals we’ll discuss what may be the best fit for you.

Training people from the comfort of your own home, not dealing with client sessions or having to work around your client’s schedules. It all sounds amazing, but is it really all it’s cracked up to be?

Running an online fitness business seems incredibly appealing, especially if you’ve endured the long days, split shifts and headaches of having to run your in person fitness business.  

Let’s take a look at what you need to know about running an online fitness business if you want to be successful.

Start Small

The first mistake many fitness pros make is trying to tackle the entire world with their online fitness business. You start running FB ads, posting IG selfies and start blogging relentlessly.

Instead of trying to have your online fitness business bring in all of your income think of it as your side hustle or complement to your in person training business. Not doing training in person yet? Then you probably want to consider if you should be training people online at all.  

I’m a big believer that you need some in person experience to be able to train people online. Can it be done without that experience? Sure, but it’s going to be a tougher road and you’ll likely need to have another source of income for a while.

In fact, one of my mentees started out this way. He was working for the city while training himself for a fitness competition. As he made progress and shared his journey he also interned with me at my studio and was training clients on the side. From there he picked up some online clients and gradually worked with them in his very limited spare time.  

He’s running a six figure online business now and a studio. But, I think he’s the exception not the rule.  

Instead of trying to make your millions and live on the beach through your online fitness business let’s set a goal of adding a $1,000/mo in extra revenue to your business through online training and get your systems in order.  

Market Local, Serve Online

The easiest clients to get for your online fitness business are going to be previous clients you’ve worked with that moved away or couldn’t afford your in person services. The next easiest will be friends and family that are willing to give you the opportunity to train them online.  From there I would still focus on capturing a lot of my local market before taking my online fitness business to the world via FB ads or other marketing channels.

Once you’ve worked with several clients and got testimonials you will have the marketing resources and pressure tested systems to market to a bigger audience.  

As you are working with these local clients, previous clients who’ve moved or friends/family you will want to start building your marketing resources such as social media following, email list and any content platforms you use such as blogs, YouTube, etc.

The Delivery Is Different, Principles Are The Same

Don’t treat your online fitness business differently than a brick and mortar or in person fitness business. All  the principles stay the same and your journey will be very similar.

Most fitness pros jump into online training without thinking through their Core Offer, Local Market Positioning or pricing structure. It is as if you think because its an online business you can just kinda figure it out as you go.  

That’s a recipe for disaster.

Instead, determine how you will deliver your services, what systems you’ll need to do it and what you are going to charge. You’ll also need a clear marketing plan for attracting new clients. As you are doing this think about how you will be able to grow this business, take on more clients and earn what you want without it driving you crazy.

You will still have a culture in your online fitness business, need systems, have to learn how to lead, manage and delegate. Online doesn’t mean easier.  

Don’t Take The Personal out of Personal Trainer

Online training still requires a personal touch and interactive component to it. Don’t try to automate everything from your marketing to sales process and delivery of your programs.  

Create your Core Offer so that you have personal interaction with your clients, check ins and ways to develop relationships with them to increase client lifespan and client lifetime value. If you want to be completely hands off or rely on automated delivery of workouts combined with a FB group to run your online fitness business you’re in for a long, tough road ahead.

Here’s an example of how I would set this up:

Core Offer – 1-1 Online Personal Training

• Intro Success Session and Evaluation 60 minutes via Zoom
• Monthly Program Design, included weekly updates as needed based on progress
• Weekly Check Ins via Email
• Monthly 15 minute 1-1 Coaching Session via Zoom
• Weekly Nutrition Adjustments as needed via check in
• Unlimited email access
• Price $199/mo

From there I would also offer a premium service that doubled or tripled in price for a set number of exclusive clients, say 10 max, which included weekly Zoom Coaching Sessions and unlimited text, phone access to me.   

*Note: Zoom is a video conferencing platform.

This could also be blended in with in person training once or twice a month as needed for clients if you are running a hybrid model.

Marketing Your Online Fitness Business

The wheels usually fall off here…

You start your online fitness business and think “if I start it they will sign up”. Then crickets. No one buys your program. You follow the digital marketing advice from the pros but its not working for you.

Now what?

Here’s what I would to do launch my program:

• Create a compelling Front End Offer such as a 21 day Rapid Fat Loss Program that leads to my long term program to get some traction
• Reach out to 5 people in my network, including previous clients to start a beta program or invite them to test drive my FEO for the online program daily
• Post content to Instagram and Facebook daily including posts and stories
• Start a blog and update it with content once per week
• Build an email list and add 10 people per week to the email list through various methods including online marketing such as FB ads, network connections, strategic relationships and my website traffic
• Email that list 3x per week with valuable content and offers
• Ask for referrals from my current clients, family and friends.  Let’s say 3 asks per day

As my continued marketing plan, once I got some traction I would do the following…

Daily:

• 1 Instagram post
• 5-10 stories on Instagram
• 1 FB post
• 3 network conversations
• Follow up with leads and prospects
• 1 Referral Ask

Weekly

• Add 5 people to my network
• Send 3 emails to email list (MWF)
• Add 10 people minimum to email list
• Write 1 new blog post and publish
• Publish 1 new YouTube video
• Check FB ad statistics/metrics and optimize
• Connect with 3 online or local business strategic partner prospects

Monthly

• Collect and share 1 new client testimonial
• Promote FEO to my email list

This plan would include running targeted FB ads using a small budget to test my offers and then ramping up as I began to get a feel for my return on investment. I would outsource the FB ads to someone like Lead Engine Marketing and focus my efforts on following up with leads they got me.

Can You Be Successful With An Online Fitness Business?

Absolutely, but its not going to be an overnight success story and you aren’t going to be working 4 hours a week if you want to make any money or have any sort of meaningful impact on your clients. There’s work involved, it takes time and you have to follow basic business principles.

Commit to putting in the work, developing new skills and providing an incredible service and you’ll have success.

Want to see if we can help you start your online fitness business or take it to the next level?

Take 60 minutes to talk with a member of the Fitness Revolution team to dig in to your business and help you discover the path you need to take to reach your biggest goals. The call is completely FREE! If you think working with us at the end of the call can help you reach your goals we’ll discuss what may be the best fit for you.

There’s a good chance you’ll experience a few ups and downs in business. Rarely is your path to success a straight line to the top. You are forced to endure peaks and valleys, sometimes extremely painful valleys.

Those challenges are placed there so that you can develop skills, strategies and relationships that will help you get to the next level. It’s a lot like training. You have to endure a bit of pain and soreness to progress to the next level of fitness.

High Performance Mastermind member and FR Coaching Partner, Stone Davis experienced one of those valleys in 2017. Instead of struggling to figure it out on his own he leaned on his coaches and took a leap of faith to find a group of peers that would challenge him and pull him to the next level.  

Here’s what he had to say about his experience…

“To be honest before 2017 I didn’t have much struggle with my business. I would say being more organized was an issue. Then in 2017 was a pretty bad year for the business and I wasn’t sure what the issue was, I was still unorganized and I couldn’t convert any leads to clients.

So, being that I had no clue how 2018 would be I decided to take a chance and put all my faith and effort into a mastermind group and my coaching.”

You’re guaranteed to experience uncertainty in your business. There’s no way around it, but you can expedite your growth and personal development by seeking out the answers to questions you have and finding people to surround yourself with that will provide you those answers. Or, at the very least, help you find the answers.

“Business is much better now. I have a clear plan and vision for my gym by learning from other business owners in the field.”

Stone has seen revenues increase throughout 2018 and spends a lot of time traveling the world.  

This growth and the ability to take time away from his gym to travel are all made possible by the plan he has in place and the vision he is pursuing. This serves a guide for his daily actions that will either move him closer to or further away from that vision.  

Everyone’s plan is unique to them. You shouldn’t blindly follow the path of another business owner, but don’t neglect the knowledge and experience they have developed on their journey. Those two things can help accelerate your growth.

Need help with the vision and a clear plan for your business?

Take 60 minutes to talk with a member of the Fitness Revolution team to dig in to your business and help you discover the path you need to take to reach your biggest goals. The call is completely FREE! If you think working with us at the end of the call can help you reach your goals we’ll discuss what may be the best fit for you.

Every day we meet a new fitness pro who is struggling to get their fitness business to the next level. They are frustrated with their growth, stressed out by their business, and confused about what to do next.

Time’s running out to find a solution for many fitness pros. And when that time does run out we see a lot of great fitness pros leave the industry or never reach the number of people they should because of these struggles.

Here are the not so sweet 16 reasons your personal training business fails…

You Never Learn To Sell

This is one of the first skills you need to develop as a good trainer. Being good at what you do isn’t good enough and simply offering training services doesn’t mean the clients will come. You need to learn how to get people to pay you, and pay you what you are worth, for your professional services.

Listening To The Wrong People

The wrong mentor, coach or advice giver can do some serious damage to a business. They may send you off with a bad strategy or worse give you advice that puts your entire business at risk. You need to pick your mentors and coaches wisely.

Failure To Track Performance

What gets measured gets managed. Failing to measure the performance of your marketing, financials and other business basics will leave you guessing when it comes time to make decisions. You don’t have the time to guess, business is hard enough without making uneducated decisions.  

Not Developing New Skills

When you started training you didn’t know nearly as much as you do now. You developed new skills and methods for delivering results and creating change in your clients. The same focus on personal and professional development needs to occur for your business.

No Cash Flow
The ability to invest in your marketing, your team and your business can accelerate your growth.  But, you’d be surprised how many businesses doing $200,000/year or more in gross revenue don’t have a dime to invest. Store up some cash so that you have a cushion to invest in your business when it’s time. You won’t miss that new piece of equipment as much as you’ll miss not being able to bring in new clients or hire that new trainer.

You Don’t Learn To Manage Your Time

Building a great business is nearly impossible on your own. Eventually, you’ll need to hire and delegate so that you can free up some of your time. But, before you do that it’s critical to learn to manage your own time and priorities.  

Misinterpretation of Systems

Systems don’t mean a checklist and they don’t mean automation. Too many fitness pros try to automate a process or system that should be run by a person because you know, we’re in a personal service industry. Systems should empower the people running them and when appropriate you can automate things to make it easier on the person running it. Examples would be putting clients on autopay for their memberships so a person doesn’t have to track and bill them for sessions.  

You Are Disorganized

As an entrepreneur, you’ve survived in a world of chaos. Doing every job, knowing where everything is and exactly how it should be done. That will be your achilles heel when it comes to building a team and being efficient with your time. You need to have your systems, processes, and business organized to allow others to flourish. Don’t expect them to be able to ‘just figure it out’.

You Hire The Wrong People

Slow to hire, quick to fire. That’s the rule when it comes to building your team. Now that doesn’t mean you should let someone go at the first mistake because often time that’s on you. It does mean that you need a great hiring process, clear expectations for each team member and a process to ensure they are trained to do their job well. Do everything you can to hire, train and retain the right people.

Burnout Blows Up A Business

You only have so much gas in your tank. Burning the candle at both ends, running around with your hair on fire trying to grow your business can’t last forever. Even if you outlast this, most your performance won’t be what it could. Learn to say no to opportunities that aren’t directly tied to your current goals and delegate tasks that you should no longer be doing. Oh, and take some time to recharge. Even if that’s just an afternoon on Sundays.

Bad Partnerships

Partnerships can be great or they kill a business. Most fitness pros bring on a partner for the wrong reasons. Before you take on a business partner get clear in what they will bring, get everything in writing and know exactly what the expectations are from both parties.

Putting The Brakes On Marketing

This industry is too competitive to stop marketing. Many fitness pros get ‘too busy’ to keep up their marketing. Eventually, their funnel of new leads dries up and revenue starts to drop. But, you can’t just turn your marketing back on and hope for immediate results. It can take weeks, even months, for marketing to turn into revenue. Don’t take your foot off the gas….EVER!

Refuse To Let Go

As you grow into a business owner with a team your roles shifts from ‘do-er’ to leader. If you refuse to let go of the technical work in your business, including some of the training. NOT ALL, if that’s what you love to do, but at least some of the training needs to be delegated. Your job now is to get results through other people, which requires a majority of your time is spent leading them.

Growing Too Fast

Have you ever had a client who wanted to progress on an exercise too early? They usually end up hurt and then set back with their progress. The same goes for a business owner who tries to open up another location too soon, doesn’t master the fundamentals at each stage of their business or tries to be an absentee owner too quickly. You have to earn the right to grow as a business owner and that requires putting in the work.

Your Ego Gets In The Way

After you’ve seen some success its easy to drink a little too much of your own Kool-Aid. If you think you’ve got all the answers and that you ‘know better’ things are eventually going to catch up with you. You’ll avoid addressing pressing issues or being real about the issues in your business. You need to be in a constant state of learning and growth.   

Business Doesn’t Evolve

The market is constantly shifting and changing if you don’t adapt your business will suffer. Doing things one way because that’s how you’ve always done them is a surefire way to eventually go out of business. Many giants have fallen, such as Blockbuster, because they refused to adapt. Your small business is even more sensitive to market shifts.  

BONUS: You Don’t Get The Support You Need Fast Enough

Every single successful business owner and entrepreneur finds mentors and coaches to help the learn and grow. You should look at this as an investment in your future and your success, it’s not an expense. In fact, you can’t afford to not find a mentor or coach. If you want to learn how FR can help you and see if we are a good fit, schedule a Complimentary Discovery Call with a member of our team. We’ll figure out if any of these 16 things are occuring in your business and help you address them quickly.

If we’re having a conversation exactly one year from today, and you had to look back over the past 12 months, what would have needed to happen over that period of time for you to be happy with the growth in your personal training business?

Take a minute and really think about your answer…

It’s easy to think about where you need to be in order for you to be happy with your success, but the challenge comes in figuring out the plan to get there. And more importantly having the accountability to execute that plan!

There are 3 elements of success in a personal training business. This is the trifecta for growth in your business and accomplishing big things in your business.

3 Elements of Success For A Personal Training Business

From our experience working with hundreds of personal training business and fitness business owners these three elements will put you on the fast track to success:

1. Live Events
2. Support from a peer group
3. Support from a coach

Live Events

One of the most powerful experiences you can have is attending a well run summit, conference or workshop.  

“Stepping away to work on developing your business in a live, hands on environment will create breakthrough moments for you.”

The first step in learning how to be successful and what it takes to grow your personal training business is putting yourself in a growth environment where you can learn from experts. Live events not only give you the chance to learn new strategies but you also get to see what’s possible by surrounding yourself with other like minded business owners.

Our most successful coaching clients attend two events per year.  The first is a Live Coaching Meeting designed to help the accelerate their business growth and the other is the Elite Fitness & Performance Summit.   

Momentum grows when you attend live events and the relationships that are developed help develop a strong, supportive community for you.  

Support From A Peer Group

You’re not in this alone!  There are other personal training business and fitness business owners out there who are dealing with the same challenges as you.  The trick is finding them and leveraging them to help you grow as a business owner.

You share common issues, challenges and opportunities. A strong peer network is a critical element to your success. Engaging with them will make life much easier for you.

“FR has streamlined our growth and allowed us to be a business with measurable goals and a direction that is leading somewhere we can see.” 

-Trevor Warnke, Athletic Revolution Mundelein

Your network will give you the power to “see what’s coming next”, essentially to predict the obstacles you’ll be facing before you get there. The experiences of the other business owners can be a valuable asset if you engage.  

WARNING: Make sure you find the right peer group. Not all are created equal!

The combined experience and knowledge of your peers and the lessons you can learn from them for bigger, faster growth for everyone. Always try to ‘level up’ with your peer groups and in your network. Aspire to connect and share ideas with those who are more successful than you or are where you want to be.  

Support From A Coach

You’ve probably experienced some level of chaos in your business. You’re on the verge of being burnt out, feeling as if you can’t add one more thing to your plate. Finding time to spend with your family or friends seems impossible and you may feel like you’ve hit a ceiling in your business.

You’re in a never-ending cycle of going to work each day but have lost sense of your true purpose.

You know there are solutions to your problems and answers to your questions. You tell yourself “it doesn’t have to be like this!” but struggle to create the solutions on your own.

That’s the beauty of a business coach for your personal training business. They provide an extra set of eyes that can give you a fresh look at your challenges and help you see the opportunity in your business.   

A great coach will help you do the following 3 things, in this order…

Step 1: Get Control

The first thing any great personal training business coach will do is assess your business and help you prioritize the actions that will produce the best results. You need to get control of the chaos and start freeing up some of your time and energy so that you can focus.

There’s a good chance your coach will be be very ‘hands on’ during this portion of your time together. You’re going to need a clear plan of action and accountability to get the job done. Your coach should work with you to ensure you’ve got healthy cash flow, your marketing is improving and there are no critical warning signs in your business.

Step 2: Build the Machine

Now that you’ve freed up energy to focus on your long-term vision for the business, it’s time to start building the machine. You’re beginning to sense momentum in your business.  Marketing efforts are more productive, your revenue is growing and there are far less fires and emergencies that arise in your day-to-day.

Your coach shouldn’t let you relax too much at this point. The real work is just getting started!  Don’t confuse the reduced chaos with success, now you have to implement the systems and structure within your business that allow it run like a well oiled machine.

This is where your coach should make systemization simple. Your systems will empower the people in your business to do great work and you’ll start to feel a sense of accomplishment each day.  

A coach will help you spend more of your time on the things you love doing and it’s paying off for you!

“I felt I was in the same spot I was when I opened the business four years prior. I was busy. I was doing alright financially. But I could not envision what the future of my business was going to be like. I was worried that I was just going to continue to be a trainer with a studio to train clients rather than a trainer with a business.

FR helps me evaluate the state of my business—performance numbers I should be looking at, who is my ideal client, who I should be marketing to, and what systems if any did I have in place. And then they helped me establish a vision for the future of my business.”

-Rich Ruffing, Accelerated Fitness  

Step 3: Run an Aligned Business

Your relationship with a coach should be transformative, but it can take time. At this point it’s time to make the leap from fitness pro and grow into an entrepreneur and leader for your team.

Because of the plan you and your coach have implemented your business is working as a cohesive unit, with clear purpose and direction. Your vision is defined and goals are clear.

You should sense incredible momentum and have the ability to evaluate more opportunities instead of dealing with constant problems. Most importantly, you’ll see issues early and be prepared to address them quickly.

This isn’t the end for you though…it’s simply the beginning! It’s the beginning for your newly aligned business and the opportunity for you to grow as a leader. To keep the momentum going you’ll use the system your coach has taught you (they do have a system right?) in your business consistently. Now your focus is maintaining alignment and making faster progress towards your vision.

Now no level of growth seems out of reach!

Your 12-Month Roadmap

We started this blog post with a simple question…

If we’re having a conversation exactly one year from today, and you had to look back over the past 12 months, what would have needed to happen over that period of time for you to be happy with the growth in your personal training business?

There’s a good chance that you can clearly see what you want your business to look like and what you want it to do for you. The challenge always comes in creating (and sticking to) the plan to reach those goals.  

You don’t have to do it alone!  Fill out the form below and schedule your complimentary Discovery Call to find out if we can help you build that plan and get it implemented quickly.

Poor communication with your team will kill your business. It leads to lots of frustration for both the business owner and the team. That’s why we created the weekly operating routine for fitness business growth. It allows you to manage and communicate with your team to get the most out of them.

A team that understands their personal impact on the business goals is a strong team.

Here’s your weekly operating routine:

• Weekly Review
• Weekly Alignment Meeting
• Weekly Kick Off

This seems like a lot, but the time you will save and headaches you eliminate by implementing this routine will pay off BIG TIME!

The Weekly Alignment Meeting is done at the same day and time each week with a set agenda to get the team up to speed and for you as the business owner to get feedback and input from your staff.

The Weekly Review and Kick Off are done individually by each member of the team. Our Coaching Partners and our team here at FR uses the Priority Tracker to do a quick review at the end of the week and get our week started. This creates bookends that allow you to focus on your top priorities and celebrate any wins.

Each part of this operating routine builds off the other. Your weekly review and kick off help prepare you for your WAMs. You then take the info from your WAM or to-dos and carry them to your review and kick off.

No one gets this perfect the first time around. You will get better at it as you get more reps in with the routine. Get started this week and you’ll start to notice the rewards in your business quickly.

Need some help ramping up productivity in your business?

Complete this quick form and schedule a complimentary call with a member of the FR Team to get you pointed in the right direction! This is the fastest way to make progress and eliminate obstacles in your way…

Wanna chase that “Lifestyle Business Owner” dream?

This probably isn’t the place for you. All the hype and BS surrounding the gurus telling you about being able to become a 7-figure online trainer or work just a few hours a week while building an empire is holding you, and the rest of this industry back.

That message is the equivalent of a trainer telling a client they can get cover model ready in 2 short weeks by simply taking their supplements and following their proprietary workout routine. It ain’t gonna happen…

Now that we’ve got that stuff out of the way we can get to the good stuff. What does it really take to run a highly successful fitness business? Online, studio, bootcamp or even a great business as an independent trainer.

A successful fitness business is built off the work of a High Performing Fitness Business Owner. Without a leader ready to tackle the toughest challenges and take risks, the business stands no chance at reaching its full potential. You must transform from fitness professional to fitness business professional to achieve your biggest goals.

Seek The Truth

High Performers want to know the truth. And sometimes the truth hurts. Surrounding yourself with ‘yes people’ and only wanting your decisions to be confirmed is a dangerous game to play as a business owner.

Your mission is simple…

Always look to be challenged and uncover the truth about your decisions and your thought process. High Performers don’t always make the right decisions and the outcomes of the best decisions don’t always work out in their favor. Mistakes are made, but the High Performer learns from those mistakes.

Bet On Yourself

High Performers are willing to bet on themselves. They will invest in their marketing, in their personal development and in their growth as a business owner. The best investment you can make with time or money is on yourself.

You’ll see business owners who continue to struggle constantly make excuses for why they can’t afford to market or hire a coach to help them grow their business. It’s not that they can’t afford it, but that they don’t value the investment.

If you knew that you could invest $1,000 today, but it would turn into $2,000 in 3 months you’d make that happen, right? That’s what marketing and coaching, when done right, can do for you and your business.

Kind, Not Nice

High Performers deliver kindness.

You may be thinking “WTF does that mean?” It’s pretty simple. Kindness is delivering information to someone with the intent to help them grow. You deliver kindness because you care about the individual. Being nice is telling the person what they want to hear or omitting information that may upset them.

As a High Performer you’ll need to learn how to communicate with your team, and even clients, kindly. There are going to be times that you have to be critical of someone’s performance or actions to help them grow as a member of your team. You can’t be afraid of conflict and avoid delivering this message if you want to be a High Performer.

Create Space

You can’t be busy and be a High Performer. Busy is what the average business owner calls themselves. Productive is how you describe a High Performer.

To be productive and think strategically about the growth and development of your business you need to create space. Space to think, to ponder, to ideate, to grow.

You’ll be tempted to put out every fire, tackle busy work, and seem busy to avoid having to spend time with your thoughts. In a world that moves incredibly fast it can be a real challenge to slow down and think.

This isn’t wasted time! Your best ideas and strategies will often come after an hour or two of sitting and thinking about your business without distractions.

A High Performing Network

There isn’t a single High Performer that I am aware of who has accomplished their success alone. High Performers understand the power of surrounding themselves with people who make them better and lift them up.

The saying that you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with is proven true over and over again. In fact, many of the times that I’ve felt stuck in business or my own personal development have been because I either outgrew my current network or wasn’t surrounding myself with the right people.

Finding a group of peers that you can connect with, lean on for help in challenging times and that help you grow as an individual and business owner will accelerate your progress. There’s nothing more powerful than being around the right group of people.

Seize Opportunities

High Performers tend to identify opportunities and take action on them quickly. Not every opportunity is worth moving on, so you’ll have to learn to make good decisions. Often times the decision to act means evaluating risk and learning how to manage that risk as you continue to move on the opportunity.

One of your biggest opportunities as a Fitness Business Owner is being apart of the Elite Fitness & Performance Summit. This is the #1 event for Fitness Business Pros in 2018.

Will you seize it?

This is your opportunity to learn from top experts in the industry, discover strategies that will transform your business and connect with a network of High Performers.

Reserve your spot today…

Are you spending your time on the most important activities in your business?

If you’re like most business owners the answer is “No.” You end up putting out fires and using up your valuable time on simple tasks that need to get done. These tasks keep you from doing the revenue generating activities and strategic planning within your business.

Every minute you spend on a task that keeps you from marketing, selling, training or falls outside of your highest priorities as the business owner is lost opportunity. It’s costing you money!

Enter the skill of delegation. From the solopreneur to the business owner with a large team delegation is a skill that must be developed and implemented to grow the business. There will be a time where you’ll have to ‘wear all the hats’ in your business, but it shouldn’t last long.

How To Delegate

Most delegation is actually a simple shift, or piling on of tasks that the business owner hates doing or doesn’t want to do anymore to someone who gets paid less than them. The tasks are then left untrained and unmanaged, leading to frustration later on when they aren’t being done well (or at all).

There are two components to delegation:

1. Handoff
2. Manage

When done well delegation includes clarification, training and accountability for the results. You can’t afford to miss any of these three areas.

During the Handoff you will clearly lay out the expectations for the individual being given the tasks and the priority level for the task at hand.

Consider the following questions:

• What level of detail is expected?
• What priority level does this have?
• What information needs to be reported back?
• What level of authority does the individual have to make decisions?

Once you have clearly laid out expectations it’s time to train the individual to complete the task. Plan ahead by gathering all of the information they will need to complete the task and a clear explanation of where to find this information in the future.

Training can take place using these three steps:

• Explain the task
• Demonstrate the task
• Observe them doing the task

Once you have trained the individual to complete the task and are confident they are able to complete it on their own its important to identify the risk tolerance you are willing to take as a business owner. What are the boundaries for the delegated task?

A delegated tasks shouldn’t end up back on your to-do list. You want to train the individual to identify, analyze and solve any problems that come up when completing the task, especially if it’s a repetitive task. A little time and energy spent upfront in training and prep will save you lots of frustration down the road.

The process doesn’t end with the Handoff! Now you have to manage the task and hold the individual accountable for delivering the results you want. This step is often skipped by business owners only to find out later that the task was never done or done well.

Don’t let that happen to you!

The first step in managing delegated tasks is to create checkpoints to get updates on progress or completion. During these checkpoints you want to ensure that the individual is following through on their commitment and discuss any issues they may be having with completing the tasks.

You have two options for the frequency that you get your updates. First, mostly for one time tasks, you can put the responsibility of the individual who now owns the task to provide updates to you at milestones and/or completion of the task. Second, typically best for recurring tasks, is to build in checkpoints during your Weekly Operating Routine. A great spot for this is in your Weekly Individual Meetings (WIMs).

What Shouldn’t Be Delegated?

The first tasks that fitness pros usually want to delegate are sales and/or marketing. This is a BIG mistake. Those are revenue producing activities that feed your business. Tasks or items that are critical to the growth or success of your business should not be delegated, especially at first.

You’ll likely have a small set of skills or items that your unique strengths. These are tasks or items that only you can do best for your business. These should remain with you for best results.

Your Delegation Action Plan

Find one task that you can practice delegating to another person this week. It might be something as simple as vacuuming the floor of your facility or even getting your groceries for the week. If you’re looking to delegate tasks around the gym or household chores so that you can spend more time growing your business look at apps like Task Rabbit. Upwork.com is a great resource for finding freelance workers to do online activities or administrative work.

Delegation is possible even for the solopreneur. Picking a one time task to free up a little time can be a great start for most business owners. Investing a few bucks to get something off your plate that is keeping you from finding new clients or growing your business will be well worth it.

Delegation becomes addictive when you do it well.

Free Training: How To Scale Your Business

If you want to learn how to scale your business to $30,000/mo or more then register for this free live training with Ryan Ketchum. During this training you’ll discover how to maximize your marketing, build a team and increase your productivity to get better results in your business.

It’s easier than ever to access information from experts all over the world. Blogs, podcasts, YouTube and social media make everyone and everything accessible. Which makes you think long and hard about attending a live event, conference or summit.

When attending a live event you have to fork out travel expenses, hotel, food, time away from the business and time away from family. There’s no question it is an investment. The determining factor is the return on that investment.

After running a 3+ hour workshop for sports performance and youth fitness business owners at last weeks IYCA Summit I did a little reflecting on the benefits of getting to these live events for a business owner. Here are my top 10 reasons you MUST get to live events if you want to succeed.

10 Reasons You MUST Attend Live Events

1. It gives you the chance to connect, in person, with other people who are going through the same challenges and facing the same difficult situations as you.
2. You have the opportunity to feel connected to a community bigger than yourself that can motivate you and inspire you take bigger, bolder actions to grow your business.
3. There is no better learning environment than live, in-person learning from experts all over the world. You’ll naturally absorb more information at a conference or summit than you will online.
4. You get the chance to escape the day to day rigors of running your business to focus on growing your business. The space this creates will allow for faster and bigger growth. Learning online in between sessions and then jumping right back into your routine kills some of that creativity and momentum.
5. The content and knowledge being shared at live events is cutting edge and innovative. Much of what you see online is created after this information has been shared to audiences all over the country.
6. You get the chance to connect with the experts and ask them questions. Emailing back and forth or connecting on social media is great, but being able to look a presenter in the eye, shake their hand and have a fluid conversation can’t be beat.
7. Just ONE idea from a live event can dramatically impact your business. You don’t need to absorb everything from the event, you only need ONE big idea that will transform your business.
8. You get to cut loose and have some fun! You work incredibly hard to grow and run your business. Attending these events allows you to kick back with other like minded individuals and have a little fun. You’ll go back rested and recharged.
9. Your commitment to your craft and personal development can be used to position you as an expert. Showing your clients and target market that you are growing as a fitness and business pro helps you stand out among the trainer who’s biggest concern is running the rack for bicep curls on a Saturday.
10. You’ll open your mind to new possibilities. It’s easy to get stuck in your own little world, running your business and gridding away. Stepping away for a few days allows you to see what’s possible in terms of growth in your business and for yourself. Your mindset will shift and growth becomes easier because you are able to think bigger.

If you aren’t willing to invest in yourself how can you expect your clients to invest in themselves with you?

The Elite Fitness & Performance Summit 2018 is the #1 event for Fitness Business Pros! If you want to level up as a business owner and grow your business then this is a MUST attend event. Save $100 on your registration and get $1,036 in bonuses by registering today.

Fitness Business Growth Tips For The Business Pro

There are 3 big components to scaling up your fitness business and seeing continual growth. Focusing on these 3 areas will help you overcome most of the biggest challenges that business owners face. So, what are they?

Marketing…

Team building…

Management…

Any of those make you squirm a little? That’s likely because you don’t know how to implement these well yet and they are new, maybe even unknown to you. That’s why you’re here though, right? To discover better ways to grow your business.

Fitness Business Growth Strategy: Control Lead Flow

Without a steady flow of new leads and prospects to keep your sales pipeline full your business will struggle to grow. Controlling the flow of leads, so that you can experience predictable and reliable growth, is the first critical skill you need to master as a business pro.

It all starts with a great strategy. That’s a Core Offer, Ideal Client and Local Market Positioning. Dialing in your strategy allows you to focus your efforts, prioritize your activities and eliminate ideas or methods that may not fit.

Many fitness pros, especially as you start out, have too many offers. You run small group, large group, personal training, online training and everything in between. The efforts you put into growing your your fitness business are spread too thin. Instead, hone in on one program and be the absolute best at delivering results for your clients in that one program.

After you establish your strategy the next step is building your marketing plan. You need to identify your top 3 lead channels, ones that fit your strengths, and have a focused plan to acquire that lead and convert them to a client.

Your business will eventually grow and require a larger flow of leads to sustain growth, and it’s at this point where you can expand your marketing, ramp up your investment in marketing, and expand offers to support the business growth.

Fitness Business Growth Strategy: Building A Strong Team

Being a victim of your own success is no fun! Business growth eventually requires more and more to be done to maintain the business success. These tasks fall on your plate at first and eat up your time.

Ever find yourself spending hours on low level activities or things that don’t fit your strengths because they “must get done” and the result is you not doing the stuff that actually matters? Or that gives you energy and purpose?

This trap keeps many fitness businesses stuck. The business owner never brings on a team or learns to delegate tasks to other people so they can free up their time.

Most hires come from an act of desperation. The business owner gets so stressed out and burnt out that they hire the first person that is willing to do the work so they can get it off their plate. This reactive hiring will cost you a lot in the long run.

If you want to build a strong team here’s what you need:

1. Clearly identified Core Values to use as a filter
2. An Organizational Chart to create structure in your business
3. Position Descriptions for the new positions
4. A hiring process
5. An onboarding process

These 5 pieces will allow you to make better hires, delegate tasks faster and build a team that supports your culture.

Fitness Business Growth Strategy: Weekly Operating Routine

Poor communication with your team will kill your business. It leads to lots of frustration for both the business owner and the team.

That’s why we created the weekly operating routine for fitness business growth. It allows you to manage and communicate with your team to get the most out of them.

A team that understands their personal impact on the business goals is a strong team.

Here’s your weekly operating routine:

1. Weekly Alignment Meeting with your team
2. Weekly Individual Meetings with direct reports
3. Weekly Review
4. Weekly Kick Off

This seems like a lot, but the time you will save and headaches you eliminate by implementing this routine will pay off BIG TIME!

The Weekly Alignment Meeting is done at the same day and time each week with a set agenda to get the team up to speed and for you as the business owner to get feedback and input from your staff.

The Weekly Individual Meetings are done weekly so that you have a 1-1 touch point with each member of your team that reports directly to you. This time is spent on helping them get better at their job and managing their performance.

The Weekly Review and Kick Off are done individually by each member of the team. Our Coaching Partners and our team here at FR uses the Priority Tracker to do a quick review at the end of the week and get our week started. This creates bookends that allow you to focus on your top priorities and celebrate any wins.

Each part of this operating routine builds off the other. Your weekly review and kick off help prepare you for your individual and team meetings.

If you’re a little hesitant to get started, begin with the Weekly Review and Kickoff. The rewards will be significant and you can gradually implement the other parts of the operating routine.

Become A Business Pro…A Clear Path To Success

It’s tough running a business on your own.  There’s a good chance you know what problems you need to solve but aren’t sure exactly how to get them done or where you’ll find the time to figure it out.  

That’s exactly why you need a coach.  To help you create solutions and hold you accountable for getting them done.  Not to mention the time you can save by having someone who’s ‘been there, done that’ give you the solutions you need.  

Apply for a complimentary Discovery Call today to find out how we can help you…

Sometimes all you need is an extra set of eyes and a little guidance to propel you forward in your business. So many fitness business owners wander around, aimlessly trying to out work their problems and ‘hustle’ for growth.

And while hard work can’t be ignored, it shouldn’t disrupt your life. You created your business to provide a better life for you, your loved ones and create more impact with your clients. When your business starts to degrade your life, adding stress and frustration, it may be time to take a different approach.

That’s what Garrett McLaughlin chose to do after attending the Elite FItness & Performance Summit last year. He jumped into a coaching program that was able to transform his business. 6 months later here’s what he has to say…

Before finding FR what was your struggle? What were your biggest frustrations?

Before finding FR, I was doing a million things and trying to reinvent the wheel. Hard work was not the problem, but I lacked the systems and metrics to be successful.

One of my biggest frustrations was how hard and how much I was working for what it produced.

I knew that if I could only learn how to fine tune the process to the most valuable strategies that produced results, then I could ‘turn on’ and ‘turn off’ the switch when needed. This would lead to more efficiency in my business and allow me to be more present outside of it with the people I love.

How did that affect your life? What did you feel like before you joined the Coaching Program?

This has really hit my life hard over the last few years. There have been times where I didn’t travel home to see family, missed weddings with close friends, and stressed constantly to the point where I was never fully present in the moment. I knew I had the potential to run a great business, but I needed the guidance to get out of my own way.

When you’re constantly wondering how much you’ll make that month it becomes hard to think long-term and get out of your own way.

How did the FR Coaching Program help you?

The FR High Performance Coaching Program has helped me tremendously and I can’t overstate how thankful I am to be a part of it. I only wish I joined sooner!

The areas where the program has really helped is having the guidance and accountability of a personal coach, properly tracking the right metrics which clearly show the health of my business, and having tons of educational content to reference in order to better operate a successful business.

Pearla has done a great job in helping me develop programs and services that fit my strengths while simplifying my business.

Every day I know exactly what tasks I need to complete and have clearly established goals to work towards. This has lead to less stress and more clarity in my day-to-day.

How is life different for you now?

Life has been a lot less stressful!

I am now working smarter in a systematic way and have seen more reliable and sustainable results. Plus, I’m able to enjoy things outside of the business on a daily basis. Instead of constantly being stressed out about money or generating new leads, I know I have the systems in the place to work for me even when I am not working.

Join The Waitlist for EFPS 2018 and let it be the start of your business transformation!

Want to build a personal training business that provides you the income and freedom you want without sacrificing your values? Most ‘gurus’ would tell you to build a lifestyle business, maybe take things online, or some other form of that bad advice.

Somewhere along the way being a business owner that has a brick and mortar personal training business was bad. It’s as if you gave yourself a life sentence of working 18 hour days and being broke.

That’s simply not true! You can make a six figure or more income, not just revenue, from your personal training business if you take the right approach. This approach requires that you make the scary transition from fitness pro to business pro.

The transformation is only scary because many fitness pros jump right into it without a plan and without a clue of what’s really needed to become a business pro. The unknown is what scares us.

Think of it like this…

Your clients are scared to start their fitness journey because the things they’ve tried haven’t worked and they don’t know what to do next.

The exact same applies to you as a business owner. You’ve probably tried a lot to grow your business or escape the endless cycle of chaos in your business. If it didn’t work well, or you’ve found yourself back in that cycle, what’s next?

Creating a plan for a successful personal training business is a lot like designing a great program for your clients.

You must assess your weaknesses, identify your strengths and then develop a plan that helps you accomplish a clear goal. Instead of trying to tackle everything at once, you focus on a 4-12 week program that puts you on pace to hit your long term goals and adjust your programs when needed.

Prescribing a training program and nutrition plan that will help a client lose 20 lbs is easy for you. The steps are clear and the path is obvious. But, when it comes to ramping up sales, building systems and developing into a leader that clarity is lost.

We’ve laid out the steps in The Journey Of A Fitness Business Owner.

The final big factor in making a successful transformation from fitness pro to business pro is your mindset. Negative self talk and head trash can keep you from developing the skills and having the courage to do what is needed to become a successful business pro.

What’s holding you back? What is your next step in your own transformation from fitness pro to business pro?

Maybe it’s just getting around the right people and having the right plan laid out for you.

One guaranteed way to take a step forward in your transformation is to attend EFPS 2018! This is Fitness Revolution’s annual summit for personal trainers and personal training business owners who want access to the best info to grow their business.

Jump on our waitlist to get VIP pricing and early registration for this amazing event. Join us on September 14-15th in Indianapolis this year!

Create More Efficient Fitness Business Systems By Avoiding These Mistakes

Having fitness business systems in place can make your life a lot easier as a business owner. Efficiency, effectiveness, and delegation are all possible because of systems, but you can also create more frustration and headaches by making some critical mistakes.

Getting Too Detailed

At first glance this seems odd, right? You want to create a system that gives clear instruction for the individual trying to complete it, but you need to avoid having a 3 page checklist for a simple system that should only require a few steps.

When you hire the right people and train them on the implementing your fitness business systems the amount of detail required is minimal. Remember, you get 80% of your desired result from 20% of the activities. Instead of trying to figure out every single detail about how an administrative assistant should reply to a customer and scripting it out, train them on the outcome you want and key steps to get to that outcome and let them work their magic.

Fitness Business Systems = Checklists

A system is NOT a checklist, it’s a method for getting an outcome. Systems require training, management and guidelines to be effective in your business. Simply handing someone a checklist for adding a new client to your CRM can get the job done, but you need to train them on being efficient, connect why it’s important to get it done right, and have a process in place for holding them accountable for doing it.

Set It And Forget It

Systems require management. Many fitness business owners create a system, hand it off and forget to ever check back in on it. This is the easy path, but it also creates the biggest opportunity for frustration. At some point, if you don’t manage the person that is supposed to use the system you will find out that something is wrong. It may not be getting done at all or it could be getting done really poorly.

To avoid all that make sure that you have checkpoints in place through weekly huddles with the individual or scorecard numbers that tell you if the system is being done properly. Getting ahead of an issue is much easier than fixing it after a few months.

Too Quick To Automate

A hammer works well with nails but it’s pretty ineffective at cutting wood. Automation is a tool, and when used in the right way it can make your life incredibly easy. However, if you try to apply automation to everything it will backfire on you.

Fitness business systems shouldn’t all be automated. We are in a people based industry and should rely on people to handle some of our systems. The system should support the person that is running it so that they can do their job more effectively.

It’s really frustrating to call into a customer support line and go through all the automated selections and identifications only to end up talking to a real person 20 minutes later that doesn’t have any of that info and asks you to provide again. That’s ineffective automation, having a person answer the first time could have solved the problem quicker and resulted in a happier customer.

Trying To Create All Your Systems At Once

Here’s one that will leave you tied up for months, frustrated and doing more work than necessary! Many fitness business owners try to create their entire list of systems at one time, essentially building an operating manual for their business.

Trouble is they get so caught up trying to figure out every last detail of what they will need that none of it ever gets implemented. You end up with a 100 page manual that’s pretty worthless.

Instead try tackling one system at a time. Build it, train your team on it, optimize it and manage it. Then move on to the next system. This will act like compounding interest for you as the business owner. Each system you implement will give you back a little more time to build more systems or focus on revenue generating activities.

What Systems Do You Need Right Now?

Take this quick business assessment to find out the biggest gaps in your business and identify the HIGHEST PRIORITY right now. After completing this 5 minute assessment you will have clarity on where you can apply systems to optimize your business. It’s 100% free, just complete the short form to download now.

5 Skills That Will Take Your Business & Career To The Next Level

Success in the fitness industry relies on your ability to deliver great results to your clients. Over time you’ve developed skills and learned new techniques to be able to create programs and coach your clients to success.

Growing and running your fitness business, whether that’s a studio or as an Independent Contractor, also requires skill development. You can’t expect that being a great coach and trainer automatically results in business success.

Here are 5 skills that you can begin developing right now if you want to see more success with your fitness business.  

Fitness Business Owner Skill #1: Communication

Great communicators can motivate, lead and manage teams. As a business owner you’re success and growth will rely heavily on your ability to communicate with your clients, your team and your market.  

It doesn’t matter if you’re an extrovert or introvert, great communication skills need to be developed. This includes both written and verbal communication.

Solid communication can compensate, at least for a while, for not having all your systems in place and learning how to be a great manager-leader in your business.

Fitness Business Skill #2: Management

Your ability to build and manage a team will determine how fast and how large you can grow your business. You can’t do it all forever!   

Trying to avoid developing your management skills will leave you and your team frustrated. The lack of clarity and accountability will ultimately repel great team members from your business and you’ll end up with their jobs back on your plate.   

Management requires you to create structure for your team, properly train them to do their job well, provide them support when needed and hold them accountable to producing results.

Fitness Business Skill #3: Priority Management

This can be exchanged with time management, but I prefer this term. We all struggle with getting enough done in our day and have to choose what may get left undone at the end of each day or week.  

The only good way to assess what you may or may not focus your time and energy on is by learning how to manage your priorities. It’s the difference between staying busy and being productive. Busy simply means you were working, productive means you were working on the most important things.  

Using tools like the Priority Tracker and following our Annual and Quarterly planning cycles allow you to strategically select your top priority goals and keep them front and center each day.  

When you know your priorities you can filter your opportunities and develop your “no” muscle.  Saying “no” will eventually be more important than saying “yes”, but it takes time to learn how to do it effectively.

Fitness Business Skill #4: Delegation

You gotta let go!  Have you ever hired someone to do a task, got really frustrated because they didn’t do it well and then took it back because “you could do it better the first time”?   

That’s a surefire way to get burnt out and overworked!

It’s one thing to say that you delegate and it’s another to do it well. Most fitness business owners end up delegating tasks out of frustration.  You get overworked, end up buried in tasks and then decide to find someone else to dump all your “extra” work on so that you can get it off your plate.

Don’t treat delegation like a bandaid.  Delegation should be a permanent solution.

When you take a little extra time to delegate properly you can give the right tasks to the right position for good.

Fitness Business Skill #5: Accepting Coaching

Trying to figure out this whole fitness business thing on your own is difficult, maybe impossible.  You’ll need to look for some outside help to grow as a business owner and entrepreneur. That may be from mentors, coaches, books or even podcasts.

The key with any of these growth resources is being able to accept coaching and a willingness to change. Many fitness business owners who have found a little success think they can figure it all out on their own.

You might think that you need to recreate the wheel or that your business is different so it requires a more specialized solution. Maybe you choose to ignore all the signs appearing in your business telling you that you need to work on a skill that’s uncomfortable for you.

The business owners that are able to accept coaching and fail forward are able to grow faster.

Get Access Our Fitness Business Owner Training…

What if you could get your Fitness Business Owner MBA while still running your business AND do it for just $39/mo?

That’s exactly what you’ll get inside The Academy, the top rated online training program for fitness business owners.   Inside you’ll get access to our entire library of business curriculum, training modules and resources designed to make your business better and life a little easier.

How To Use the 20/80 Rule To Create Fitness Business Systems

Systems…they are like Bigfoot or a unicorn.  Every fitness business owner is chasing them, working to put them in place, but very few have actually succeeded in defining and implementing them well.   They are a mysterious component of a fitness business that seems to always be just outside the reach of most fitness business owners.

Without systems in place, you will be reliant on either doing everything yourself or hoping that your people can figure it out.  Both of those situations put you on the fast track to burn out.

There’s got to be a better way, right?

Fitness Business Systems The Easy Way

Before we dive into systems we need to address the elephant in the room…

A system is NOT JUST a checklist of tasks to be done.

Let’s zoom out really quick, okay?   Without getting caught in the details of all the checklists and tasks that must get done in your business it’s important to note the 20/80 rule.

The rule states that 20% or your actions will deliver 80% of the desired results.  It’s likely that 20% of your clients make up 80% of your profits, 20% of your program design system delivers 80% of the results you get, etc.

Every business has a set of common processes that are required for them to operate and be sustainable.   You need to get leads, sell services/products, deliver those services/products and manage your finances.   While there are many different approaches to fulfilling those process, they all must be done for a business to be successful.

The Core Processes in your business are the 20% that make up 80% of the business activity.

A few examples of these Core Processes are:

• Marketing Process
• Sales Process
• Service Delivery Process
• Retention Process
• Accounting Process
• Human Resources Process

Simple Fitness Business Systems Deliver Big Results

Identifying your Core Processes isn’t enough.  Now, you need to zoom in a bit closer to figure out how each of these processes gets completed or delivered in your business.  Remember, avoid creating a checklist (at least for now) and keep things really high level.  Trust me, you’ll have a lot more success by following this method.

For each of your Core Processes document a maximum of 5 steps for each.

Here’s an example of the Marketing Process:

1. Create Your Core Offer
2. Define Your Ideal Client
3. Local Market Positioning
4. Build Your Core Marketing Funnel
5. Create Your Triple A Marketing Plan & Marketing Calendar

These 5 steps would put any business owner in a great spot to go get leads for their business.  But, it’s not a checklist or step by step blueprint for running a lead generation campaign.

Each of these 5 steps would eventually need to be broken down into smaller steps and eventually, checklists or step by step instructions would be developed and documented for each of them.   The key is not doing that until it’s absolutely needed.

Building Out Your Fitness Business Systems

If you try to build out all of your systems at once there’s a good chance you’re going to struggle through this process.  It’ll leave you stuck and frustrated with your business for a long time.  Instead, take a similar approach you would use with a client through their training process.  Complete an assessment, identify the #1 problem and then take the time to focus on creating the process that will solve that problem for good.

If you did this each quarter, and let’s say you got 2 processes and systems developed and documented in your business, that would equate to 8 big problems solved.  How would your life and business be different if you got rid of 8 big problems in the next year?

From there you can evaluate your systems each quarter to make sure that things are working the way they should for your business right now (they will never be perfect, and that’s okay).

Want help building out your Fitness Business Systems?

Trying to get this all accomplished as a business owner by yourself is a challenge.  Often times you need an experienced coach and the right set of tools to help you navigate the craziness that you experience every day and identify the biggest needs in your business.  We’d love the opportunity to talk with you and figure out if we can help you implement better systems in your business and help you get to the next level.

If you’d like the opportunity to talk with a coach here’s what you need to do:

Step 1: Download Your Fitness Business Assessment (Click The Button Below) 

Step 2: Schedule Your FREE Coaching Call 

Step 3: Implement and Take Action!!!

You probably took some shortcuts when you first started your fitness studio, bootcamp or gym.  Money was tight and you did whatever it took to get that next client and increase your revenues to pay the bills.  As your fitness business grows and you mature into a business owner, not just a self-employed trainer, its critical that you begin to address some of these shortcuts.

Replicating yourself and the results you get for your business will be key for continued growth.  There are only so many hours in a day that you can spend working on or in your business.  As you become more successful it will be tougher for you to do everything in your business.

Mistakes can be very costly when you get to this stage in the game.  Bad hires can cost you thousands and inefficiencies can hold you back from ever reaching your full potential.  

The easy thing to do would be to tell you to “implement systems in your business”.

But, what in the heck does that mean?  Most fitness business owners who want systems come to me asking for done for you scripts or templates to implement in their business.   

Instead of asking for an instruction manual on running your business you’ll be better served to develop skills and implement a few concepts that will make things a lot easier for you as you continue to grow.

If you’re feeling a bit of chaos in your business, constantly scrambling to get things done but never really making any progress this list is exactly what you need.

Fitness Business Owner Tip #1: Create Your Organizational Chart

The very first step in adding to your team and growing your business is developing an organizational chart complete with positions in your business and responsibilities for each position.

At first this may seem pretty silly. It’s just you and one other trainer, maybe a part time admin. Why would you need a complete org chart?

That’s like saying someone is just getting back into exercising and doesn’t need a workout program. Sure, you could just go in and workout but things will progress a lot faster with a well designed training program.

Creating your Organizational Chart when you have a small team, or no team at all, is the best time to do it. You haven’t made the mistakes that many business owners make at this point and you give yourself a template for growth.

Learn how to create an Organizational Chart inside Fitness Business Mastery.

Here’s a look at an Organizational Chart template

Fitness Business Owner Tip #2: Clear Responsibilities

Hiring new team members, from a part time admin to a director of sales to a general manager, requires that you clearly layout responsibilities and expectations.  Not doing this from the start sets you up for a lot of headaches down the road.

The easiest way to create clear expectations with your team members and employees is through position descriptions.

The typical way a fitness business owner hires their first employee is:

• Get overwhelmed and burnt out
• Decide they need to offload some tasks
• Hire someone to take on those tasks (plus whatever else they can throw at them)

This leads to no expectations for the owner or the new team member and a lot of frustration.  You’ll end up pushing whatever you don’t want to do at this person and hoping they get it done without considering what you actually need or what they are best suited to do. A better approach would be to use your Organizational Chart to create a positions description to fill a seat on the chart that can help take on some of the tasks and responsibilities in the business.

Discover a template for job descriptions inside Fitness Business Mastery.  

Fitness Business Owner Tip #3: Define Your Priorities

A lack of focus can burn you out quickly.  Without knowing what your priorities are its easy to get caught up in the routine of putting out fires and dealing with urgent, but not important issues that keep you from your most meaningful, productive work.   

Setting goals and using your position description Core Responsibilities as a guide will help you discover your true priorities.  And yes, even the business owner should have a position description for your role or roles in the business. 

As the business owner its critical that you know what the #1 focus of your time and energy should be at all times!  Your team will be looking to you for guidance and leadership.  If they see you scrambling all the time don’t expect anything different from them.

If you are using a system for planning your day and week, and it’s working, keep on using it. If you want access to our resources jump into Fitness Business Mastery.

It’s possible to create your own, but why do all that work when we’ve done it for you.

To help manage your day to day activities and keep the most important things at the center of your attention at all times we coach our clients to use a Priority Tracker.

The Priority Tracker is broken up in sections:

• Weekly Highlights and Headlines
• Rock Status
• Metrics
• Marketing Priorities
• Daily Action Items
• Misc Notes

Each section has its own purpose, but having all this information at your disposal keeps it top of mind and allows you to plan your day and week according to your biggest, most important priorities.

Fitness Business Owner Tip #4: Outsource Tasks & Services

We live in a time where it’s easier than ever to find someone who is great at a task and loves doing it to take on the work for you.  Using sites like Upwork to find skilled designers, editors, and virtual assistants can save you a lot of time and energy.

Services can also be outsourced to experts to save you time and energy.  The big plus to using outsourced services is that they can usually deliver a better result than you would get on your own.

If your business is ready, outsourcing services such as cleaning, bookkeeping and paid marketing, like Facebook ad management, can be a great investment.   

Tasks like blog updates, video editing, etc can be outsourced to individuals all over the world and save you a lot of time.  

Also consider using apps like Task Rabbit to find workers to do some upkeep in your gym or run basic errands for you.  

At some point the investment to get someone else to do it will be worth the time you get back to invest on your business.

Learn how to delegate and create simple processes to make this easy in Fitness Business Mastery.

Fitness Business Owner Tip #5: Hold Routine Meetings

As you grow and your team grows communication will become a challenge.  Having a routine meeting cycle for you and your team will help alleviate some of those challenges.

At a minimum you should be holding one team meeting each week.  Yep, every week you meet with your team and go through some specific numbers as well as talk about any issues going on in the business.

The keys to making this work are:

• Meet at the same day and time each week
• Have an agenda
• Be prepared

Honestly, if you do those three things you’ll be off to a great start.

This seems tedious and unnecessary at first, but once you get into the groove you’ll wonder how you survived without it!  

Your meetings are designed to keep your business moving forward and ensure everyone is on the same page.  With the right set up and frequency it will eliminate a lot of confusion and chaos in the business.

Get a template meeting agenda and overview of all the meetings you should be holding in Fitness Business Mastery.

Business Mastery Doesn’t Come Easy

It took you years to develop into the coach and trainer that you are today.  The same effort, time and discipline need to go into becoming a High Performing Business Owner.  

However, you don’t have to figure it out on your own.  There’s a formula for running a great business.  You go to experts and get certifications to enhance your career as a trainer and coach, why wouldn’t you do the same for your business?

Our team at Fitness Revolution put together Fitness Business Mastery to give you a guide, a roadmap, for develop a great business.  If you’re ready to take the next step make sure to check out this awesome curriculum!  

Achieve More Faster With This Planning Routine

“A goal without a plan is just a dream…”

I had to look it up but Antoine de Saint Exupery is creditted with that well-known quote.  You probably use some form of it to motivate your clients and explain the difference between what you do and what they may find in typical gyms, from typical trainers.

But, do you approach your business the same way?

Most business owners get so caught up in working in their business they never take a breath, look up and plan for their future success.  They hope that someday they hit their goals.

Now, don’t get me wrong…

Doing the daily work is what allows you to accomplish your goals.  However, if you’re working on the wrong stuff it’s all for nothing!  Let’s make sure you have a great plan to help you reach your goals and build a business you love.

The Fitness Business Owners Annual Planning Session

Do you spend more time programming for your client’s than you do creating a plan for your business?

That ends today!  Because we’re going to lay out your Annual Business Review™ and all the steps you need to take if you want a great plan for the year ahead.

If you’re reading this and it’s not time to do your annual planning, that’s okay too!  You can easily use this in your Quarterly planning.

You can do this no matter the time of year, size of busienss or type of business.  The best time to start is now!

During your Annual Business Review (ABR) there are a few prerequisites:

1. Complete your Annual Business Analysis™
2. Compile your Financials Metrics and 4 Marketing and Sales Pillars™
3. Review your Strategic Alignment Plan™ (if you don’t have one, you’ll create it during your ABR)

These simple tasks will help prepare you for a successful ABR session.  It’s possible to complete your ABR ahead of time, but it’s kinda like jumping into your workout with doing your movement prep or warm up.

How Long Should Your Annual Planning Last?

This differs depending on the size of the business, not just in revenue but in team members.  At Fitness Revolution we plan for a full 2 days out of the office for our Annual Business Reveiw.

If you’re familiar with our 5 Stages of A Business Owner’s Journey here’s what I’d suggest for each stage:

• Stage 1: 2 Hours of dedicated planning time
• Stage 2: 1/2 Day of dedicated planning time
• Stage 3: 1 Full day of dedicated planning time
• Stage 4: 1-2 full days of dedicated planning time
• Stage 5: 1-2 full days of dedicated planning time

As your grow your business and start venturing into Stage 3 and beyond there’s a good chance you’ll need to bring in members of your Leadership Team to participate in your ABR.   With a coach you may be able to expedite the process a bit and get a crisp plan in place quicker, but it’s still recommended that you dedicate some time to reflect on your business without having to worry about your day to day tasks.

You’re probably thinking “Ryan, your NUTS! That’s too much time…”

This will be some of the most valuable time you spend working on your business and it’s the foundation for all the work you’re going to put in over the next 90 days and beyond.  It’s where you build your plan to hit your goals!

At first it will be difficult, almost painful to step away from the business.  It gets easier and you get better at doing it.

This is why we give you these frameworks and processes to follow, it allows you to make the most of this time without having to figure it all out on your own.

No matter the amount of time that you spend on your ABR the framework is still the same…

How To Run A Successful Annual Business Review

It’s best to start with the outcome in mind.  At the end of your ABR you want to have:

• Your Annual Gross Revenue Goal
• Identify Metric Goals such as New Clients, Net Clients, Operating Margin or Retention that are important for your business success
• 2-4 key objectives for the year
• 1-3 Quarterly Rocks that align with your annual objectives
• An updated Strategic Alignment Plan

Step 1: Check In

During this time check in with yourself and your team, if involved, and rate your business, life and health.  This allows you to evaluate where you see yourself, good or bad, and increase your self awareness.  This works particularly well with your team or a business coach as they can get a pulse for where mindset is and where some potential issues could be in your life/business.

It’s always great to starting a positive as well.  Typically not all of these areas are going to be in dumps.  There’s a good chacne at least one great thing is going on in your life and you get to celebrate it here.

Step 2: Rock Reporting

This section of your Annual Business Review is designed to get a Done/Not Done status report on your previous Quarterly Rocks.  Remember, these were supposed to be the MOST IMPORTANT projects or benchmarks in your business for the pervious quarter.  We want to keep tabs on them and hold yourself and team accountable for getting them done.

If you follow our process for setting these SMARTR Rocks™ you’ll have a clear picture of where they stand.

Step 3: Previous To-Dos

If you had meeting to-dos or tasks that needed to be done from a previous Monthly or Quarterly Business Review check in on their status and get an update from the responsible individual.  This allows for continuity from meeting to meeting and establishes a culture of accountability.

Step 4: Strategic Alignment Plan Review

At this point you want to to either fill in your Strategic Alignment Plan or review your completed plan to ensure it is updated and accurate.  Go through step by step to evaluate your Core Values, Long Term Vision, Core Offer, Local Market Positioning, Ideal Client and check in on your yearly/quarterly goals.

If you are missing a key component or need to update one of the sections typically we would coach you to create a Rock or establish a to-do to use one of our tools to help you get it up to date.  It’s typically not a valuable use of your time to try and crowdsource the information and get it completed in this meeting.  Assign it to the responsible individual and let them take it and run.

Step 5: Set Your 1 year Goals

Now it’s time to set your targets for the coming year!  These should get you a little bit (or a lot) closer to your Long Term Vision.  You will look at your projections for Gross Revenue, evaluate your marketing plan  and create mielstones for your big projects.

This can be a tricky task the first few times.  If you have trouble this goal setting post may help you out.

Step 6: Set Your Quarterly Rocks

Now it’s time to drill down and focus on the next 90 days.  What has to happen for you to be on pace to hit your annual goals at the end of the quarter?

If you can clearly answer that question you’ll be off to a great start.

Avoid the mistake of taking on too much at this stage.  You’ll overestimate what you can get done in 90 days the first few times.  Focus on the most important items and leave the rest for later.   Heck, if you get all your Rocks done early you can always tackle more projects.

Step 7: Evaluate your Issues and Opportunities

Your SAP is a great place to keep tabs of issues and opportunities you don’t want to lose but can’t focus on right now.  Evaluate this list and prioritize the items you can solve right now that will have a big impact on your business.

This is the time to really dig in and find solutions to make these go away forver.

Step 8: Review Rocks and Goals

It’s time to wrap up your planning session!  Review your Rocks and Goals to ensure they are still accurate after completing your ABR and then get to work on putting together your SMARTR Rock Planning Sheets™.   Typically, if it’s not done before the ABR you can spend a few days planning out the steps to get your Rocks done.

What’s next?

Get to work on implementing your plan!  A great business coach can take a well prepared coaching client through this exercise in about 60 minutes, especially after they have built a good working relationship.  It does require work on both the coach and the fitness business owner’s part to make that 60 minutes effective.

Spending some time with your team or on your own going through this exercise ahead of time will make any time you have with a coach more effective.

If you have a team it’s time to head back to them and cascade the plan so they can help you hit your goals.

Need help…

It’s not easy to get through this alone.  Often times a business owner is too close the issues to really be able to step back and see the path to hitting their goals.  That’s why a coach is so valuable when creating your plans.  They challenge you to look at things differently and help you develop as a business owner.   If you’d like to see if coaching could be a good fit for you let’s give it a test run!  Apply for a complimentary coaching call today…

How To Be A Forward Thinking Fitness Business Owner And Develop A High Performing Fitness Business

Most fitness professionals jump into business ownership with no formal training in business.  Heck, I nearly failed the two business classes I took in college (probably because I never showed up to them…)

You can find some success with sheer willpower early on.  Grinding through the challenges and outworking or outsmarting them.  But, eventually you’re going to face bigger challenges as you grow your business.  These challenges require a more strategic approach to overcome.

A secret behind the success of many of our coaching clients is a simple tool called the Strategic Alignment Plan™.  This resource allows you to share your culture, vision and goals with your team, keep them top of mind for yourself and get everyone moving in the right direction.

We’re going to take a look at what’s behind the Strategic Alignment Plan throughout this article, but before we do let’s get a few other things out of the way.

What is Strategic Planning?

This is the business management activity that is used to set priorities, focus your energy and resources, strengthen your operations, and ensure that everyone in the organization is working together to achieve the same goals.

During your Strategic Planning sessions you’ll adjust the path of your business, reset goals, and define key objectives that must be accomplished for the business to accomplish it’s bigger vision or mission.

You’ll be able to look forward to see where the business is going and how you’ll get there, but more importantly you’ll be able to identify how you’ll know your successful.

You should be holding Strategic Planning sessions in your business once per quarter. We call them Quarterly Business Reviews, one of these being an Annual Business Review.

Why do I need a Strategic Alignment Plan?

It’s easy to get lost in the day to day of running your business and lose sight of your bigger picture objectives. Having a simple resources to align your vision, culture, goals and plans is key to maintaining continuity between your planning sessions.

This also helps you refresh and recenter when you get a little off track. Often times as a business owner you’ll find yourself chasing the next shiny object in front of you. It’s times like these that a quick review of your Strategic Alignment Plan can help you evaluate if that shiny object is pulling you closer to your goals or further way.

This tool also helps you share your vision, culture, goals and plans with your team. They can clearly see where you want the business to go and the impact they can have on your business in their day to day operations. Too many business owners assume their team and employees know why what they are doing is important. If you don’t tell them and show them, they won’t.

The Strategic Alignment Plan

The Strategic Alignment Plan was created to support implementation of the Fitness Business Alignment System™.  It’s composed of 5 Alignment Principles™ that are required to be in place for any business that wants to be a High Performing Business.   

These Alignment Principles are:

• Culture
• Communication
• Goals and Metrics
• Systems
• Strategy

Here’s a look at each section of the Strategic Alignment Plan…

NOTE: From here on out the Strategic Alignment Plan will be referred to as the SAP.

Core Values

At the very top of your SAP are the Core Values of your business.  These values will drive the decisions you make in your business, the people you hire and how you interact with clients.  Placing them at the top of your SAP ensures you review them each quarter during your Quarterly Business Review.  

Another side benefit, assuming you share your SAP with your team, is that it keeps your Core Values front and center for everyone.  This ensures they are living in the day to day operations of your business.

Long Term Vision

Your Long Term Vision is the statement that reflects where you are going. Your statement can be reflective of anywhere from 3 to 30 years. Most are between 5 and 10.

It’s important to know that developing your Long Term Vision is a process, not a single event. You’re not looking for perfect; you’re looking for the first version. Complete the following exercise to help generate your Long Term Vision.

Your Long Term Vision will shift overtime. It’s a constantly moving target, like the horizon. It’s not critical you get it perfect, but it should serve as a compass for you to determine your shorter term goals.

Core Offer

Your Core Offer is the service that you are going to build your business around. It’s the one that you would want all of your clients to end up in if you had that choice, and it’s the one that you should be known for.

Your Marketing Strategy will be built around this, so it’s critical to stay focused on what drives your business revenue.

Local Market Positioning

Your Local Market Positioning and Differentiators are the answer to the question, “Why should a customer choose your business over someone else’s?”

Local Market Positioning consists of two parts: Market Differentiators and Positioning Statement. These are both clearly display on the SAP to guide your overall Marketing Strategy.

Ideal Client

Your Ideal Client is the prototype of the individuals that you could build your entire business around. This isn’t your favorite client but instead is a set of characteristics that we’re going to turn into a fictitious person.

You’ll even give that person a name. If your ideal client is Roger, then Roger should be the type of client who, if you could find people just like him, would fill your entire Core Offer and support a high-performing business.

Avoid thinking about specific clients you have now so you don’t get stuck on them. Your ideal client will probably be a blend of several really good clients.

1 Year Goals

It’s time to zoom in and start thinking about what you need to accomplish in the next for you to be happy with your business growth.  The annual goals you set for your business should help you move one step closer to your Long Term Vision.   

Typically, in this section you’ll find that you need to identify 2-4 objectives to accomplish in your business, clearly defined goals for each of your 4 Sales & Marketing Pillars and your 4 KPIs.

The 4 Sales & Marketing Pillars are:

• Leads
• Front End Offers
• New Core Offer Clients
• Retention Rate

The KPIs are:

• Operating Margin
• Autopay to Expense Ratio
• Core Offer Conversion Rate
• Core Offer Growth Rate

These give you clear target to aim at for the year.

Quarterly Rocks

Now that you know what needs to happen in the next year we have to zoom in one more time to focus on what you should accomplish in the next 90 days to keep you track.

Rocks are the big projects or initiatives in your business. Outside of the day to day activities required to run your business these are your top priorities.
Set 2-4 Rocks per Quarter for your business and aggressively attack them!

Quarterly Goals

Again, you’ll need to drill down into your annual goals and determine what needs to happen in the next 90 day for you to be on track to reach them.

You’ll determine what your 4 Marketing and Sales Pillars and KPIs need to be for the upcoming quarter and list them in this section.

Issues/Opportunities List

There’s always going to be more issues to handle and opportunities to assess than you can tackle in a given quarter, and possibly year. Instead of trying to keep tabs on them in your head drop them onto this list on your SAP so that you can spend your energy working on your quarterly Rocks and goals.

This is a running list that you can reevaluate at each planning session.

How To Get Started With Your Own Strategic Alignment Plan

I’ve yet to meet a business owner who knocks it out of the park in their first run through of creating an SAP. It takes practice and time to develop the skills and understanding needed to have a really good SAP.

The key to success is just getting started. Go through our blog posts, videos and articles to develop each section. We’ve covered them in depth here on this site.

Or, you can jump into Fitness Business Mastery when we release it in a few days 🙂

The fastest path to getting your SAP created is jumping into a coaching program and using our tools and coaching to build it out with you.

No matter what you choose, I urge you to get started and begin using your SAP in your strategic planning sessions right away.

If you want some help complete the application below and schedule a FREE call with us…

Evaluating Your Fitness Business Performance And Planning Your Next Steps

Success in business doesn’t happen by accident!  There’s a lot of hard work and planning that goes on behind the scenes of every successful business, no matter the stage you are in on your business journey.  That all starts with a Fitness Business Assessment.

When you’re caught up in the day to day running of your business, focused on just getting stuff done it’s easy to let planning slip by the wayside.  Who has an extra hour or two, let alone an entire day to set aside for planning out your next moves?

That thought process is exactly what keeps many fitness business owners stuck in the same old routine, getting the same old results.

At the end of each year and quarter you’ll want to block off a day to sit down, reflect on the past 3 to 12 months and begin planning your next steps.   If a day is too much to manage right now, give yourself at least 2 hours.

Trust me, this time you spend planning will be a worthwhile investment.  

Disclaimer: Your first planning session will be difficult.  There’s a good chance you’ll fumble through it.  Strategic Planning is a skill that must be developed, stick with the process.  

Our coaching clients find that having a Success Coach go through your planning with you makes things a lot easier.  It’s great to have an outside, expert perspective to help you.  

Want some help with this? Schedule a free coaching call today.

Prior to your Annual Business Review (the planning day), you’ll want to complete an assessment of your business.  This is a great exercise to go through with yourself, and your team if applicable, a few days prior to your planning session.  

Now, let’s get into the nuts of bolts of your Annual Business Analysis…

Assessing The Last 12 Months

It’s important that you look back at both the wins and losses in your business over the past 12 months.  Celebrate what went well and learn from what didn’t.

In your Annual Business Analysis ask yourself the following questions:

1. What has gone well in the business in the past year?  
2. What didn’t go well in the past year?
3. What has gotten clearer to you about where you see your business in 3-5 years?

Departmental Reviews

After you have evaluated the overall performance of the business and areas for improvement you’ll want to zoom in and take a look at a few key areas of the business.  Each will be rated on a 1-5 scale and have a few clarifying questions to help you discover any blind spots in your game.

Finance

Which best describes your feelings on your business’s financial performance?

1. I am unsure of how our business is doing financially
2. I’m not happy with how our business is doing financially
3. I’m okay with how our business is doing financially
4. I’m happy with how our business is doing financially
5. We’re doing well financially, and we are tracking all the numbers to prove it

After your rating answer the following:

• What do you think is needed to make this a 5?
• Do you review your financials monthly?
• Do you have a budget in place?
• Do you know how well your expenses compare to other similar businesses in our industry?

Marketing & Sales

Which best describes your feelings on your marketing and sales performance?

1. I’m unsure of how our marketing and sales performance is doing.
2. I’m not happy with our marketing and sales performance
3. I’m okay with our marketing and sales performance
4. I’m happy with our marketing and sales performance
5. Our marketing and sales performance is strong, and we are tracking the numbers to prove it.

After your rating answer the following:

• What do you think is needed to make this a 5?
• Are your Local Market Positioning Statement and Differentiators clear and in use in all of your marketing?
• Are you tracking all incoming leads?
• Do you have a marketing calendar in place and followed in each quarter?
• Do you know your ROI on leads from various lead sources?
• Do you have a follow up process with leads that is used every time?
• Are you consistently meeting your sales goals each month/quarter?

Operations

Which best describes your feelings on your product and service quality?

1. I’m unsure of our product and service quality.
2. I’m not happy with our product and service quality.
3. I’m okay with our product and service quality.
4. I’m happy with our product and service quality.
5. Our deliverables are high quality, our customers are very happy and we’re tracking the numbers to prove it.

After your rating answer the following:

• What do you think is needed to make this a 5?
• Are you clear on what your Core Offer is?
• Do you have a process in place that measures and ensures your customers are consistently receiving high quality service?
• Do you have a process in place that collects feedback from customers?

Management

On a scale of 1-5 how would you rate your effectiveness as a manager?

1. Not effective at all
2. Rarely effective
3. Average
4. Above Average
5. Very Good

After your ratings answer the following:

• What do you think is needed to make this a 5?
• Do you have regular and effective communication with your staff?
• Do you and everyone on your staff regularly set and meet goals for themselves?
• Do you measure the performance of everyone on your staff?
• Do you have systems in place for hiring, training, performance improvement and staff exits?

What’s next…

After reviewing those specific areas of your business you’ll have a great idea of what is needed for you to take your business to the next level and meet your upcoming goals.

Get crystal clear by answering the following:

• In order for the next year to be successful, list 2-4 objectives you need to accomplish and 2-4 metric goals you need to hit.
• What areas do you need help in to meet these objectives and goals?

Next week we’ll take a deeper dive into the actual Annual Business Review and how to plan for a successful year.

If you’d like to get a bit of help going through this business analysis and talk to a coach to help you figure out what you need to do for you to have the best year ever apply for a FREE coaching call below…

The Skills You Need To Go From Struggling Start-Up To High Performing Entrepreneur

One of the scariest parts of being a business owner is the unknown.  There’s nothing guaranteed when you make the courageous, often times scary leap to running your own fitness business.  

Do you ever find yourself wondering what’s next in your journey as a fitness business owner?

What should I be focused on?

What should my business look like?

What should I focus on to get to the next stage of my business?

You’re not alone!  After working with hundreds of fitness businesses we laid out what your business will look like at each stage, the challenges you are going to face, common reasons for failure and what success looks like, including the skills you need to develop at each stage to prepare for what’s next.

The Business Owner’s Journey

We’re going to take a deep dive into each of the 5 Stages through this article, but first let’s do a quick overview of each.

You may find it valuable to read through each of the stages, or if you’d rather skip right to the stage you are in now and figure out how to get to the next stage of your journey that’s cool too.  This article is a lot like a choose your own adventure. Read it and use it however you see fit to help you.

Stage 1: Sell, Sell, Sell

Facility Type/Space:  Independent Contractor

Gross Revenue (monthly):  $0-$2,000

Major Earnings Benchmark: Make enough to pay the bills

Values: Being a great technician

Stage 2: Marketing Machine

Facility Type/Space:  Independent Contractor

Gross Revenue (monthly):  $2,000-$12,000

Major Earnings Benchmark: Income is 50% of revenue, paid on a regular basis

Values:  Going from technician to marketing and sales

Stage 3: System-wise

Facility Type/Space:  Leased space

Gross Revenue (monthly):  $10,000-$25,000

Major Earnings Benchmark: Income is 30-45% of the revenue, start earning market based wage

Values:  Going from marketing/sales to business

Stage 4: Manager-Leader

Facility Type/Space:  Leased space

Gross Revenue (monthly):  $25,000-$50,000

Major Earnings Benchmark: Six figure icome 

Values: Going from creating results to getting results through others

Stage 5: Entrepreneur

Facility Type/Space:  Leased space or property ownership as investment

Gross Revenue (monthly):  $50,000+

Major Earnings Benchmark: >50% income from profits, working less and making more, getting paid your highest dollar per hour amount 

Values: Opportunity, balance, family, experience, retirement

Take an honest assessment of where you are and let’s dive in and look at what each stage looks like and how to get from one to the next.

Stage 1: Sell, Sell, Sell

When you are first getting started one of the most valuable skills you can develop is sales, outside of being a great trainer/coach…of course.

You won’t last long in this industry if you can’t get people to pay you for your services. Many fitness business owners are forced out of business quickly because they never learn to sell their services.  It’s an easily avoidable fate.

The Challenges

At this point you’re asking questions like:

• What should I be doing each day? 
• Who do I listen to?
• I need clients…where are they?

These questions along with overcoming your internal fears about sales will need to be addressed as you continue to grow your business.  As you gain new clients you’ll also build your credibility.  

Common Causes of Failure

If you never learn to sell it will be impossible to stay in business.  Not developing sales skills and utilizing a system that will get you predictable results will leave you clientless and penniless.  

This is a stage where you are most vulnerable to bad advice.  You are working diligently to make your business work and open to taking advice or coaching from just about anyone.  This advice could be detrimental to your growth.

A bad lease at any stage can put the strain on a business, but when you’re just starting out and trying to generate (and keep) as much revenue as you it can put you out of business.   

Many times Word of Mouth marketing drives a Stage 1 business, if that doesn’t take off because your clients aren’t willing to talk about you or you can’t deliver results worthy of referrals it’s going to be a long, tough uphill battle.

What Does Success Look Like?

You’ll know you’re having success in this stage when you have happy clients and you’re seeing steady, continuous growth.  

This success is built on the foundation of you acquiring the proper credentials to deliver training services and have a big focus on getting better at delivering results.

To support your growth you’ll need a polished and consistent sales process in place that allows you to hit your daily and weekly goals.   

Congratulations if you can check off all these boxes…

YOU’VE PROVEN YOU CAN SURVIVE!  

What Competencies and Resources Will You Need?

Getting out of this stage isn’t going to happen by accident.  You’ll need to focus on developing certain competencies that will be the foundation for future success.  It’s also important that you seek out resources to make success a little easier.

Here are a list of competencies:

• Closing sales
• Setting short term goals
• Delivering results

The resources to support you:

• The Triple A Marketing Method
• Priority Tracker
• Training Systems (Program design templates, etc)
• Certifications

Your Support Systems

Very few, if anyone can do this alone.  The road to success in the fitness industry is too challenging to have to figure it all out.  Learn from those who have been there before and build a support system that will help you when you get stuck.

At this stage you’ll find this support in:

• Online Forums/Groups
• Your Personal Network
• A Business Coach  

Understanding the value of a business coach at this stage will give you a distinct advantage!  They will help you implement systems faster, avoid the mistakes that put many fitness businesses out of business and get results quickly.  

By having a coach early you will build a solid foundation for your future success.   

Key Performance Indicators

With sales being the biggest factor to success in Stage 1 your KPIs are tied directly to your ability to add new clients.  Focus on New Core Offer (new clients) and New Front End Offers (trials, etc) during this stage.  

The faster you can bring in new clients the quicker you’ll be able to move to the next stage.

Stage 2: Marketing Machine

Congratulations!  If you’re in Stage 2 you’ve got your business off the ground and are making a bit of money.  Many fitness pros never get to this stage, you should be proud of yourself.

But, there’s more work to do…

In Stage 2 you’re going to need to ramp up your marketing.  It’s critical that you develop a plan to attract and acquire new potential clients for your business.   By learning how to predictably bring in new leads you will be able to support your business through the future growth stages.  

Without the ability to market you will be vulnerable.  

The Challenges

You’re getting busier now and there’s a good chance that you’ve said ‘yes’ to every opportunity that came your way to get to this point.  That’s going to be a risk for you.  You’ll have to learn to assess the right opportunities so that you have a focused plan for growth and aren’t chasing the idea of ‘busy for busy’s sake’.

You’re now more comfortable selling, but are starting to wonder how this whole trading dollars for time thing is going to work for you in the future.  There’s a good chance you’re starting to ask the question “how much should I be charging”.

It’s easy to be a victim of your own success in this stage.  If you continue to sell it means you’ll have more clients to train.  That’s great, but if you are spending all your time training you can’t sell any more.  Your revenue growth stops!  

Marketing can be tricky, especially in a competitive industry like fitness.  You’ll need to hone in on your target market and learn how to create a plan that gets you in front of the right people.  Spreading your message and attracting more leads is crucial if you want to grow.  

There’s a good chance you’d train people for free, because you love it.  But, that’s not a great business model… A huge challenge for many fitness pros as they go through this stage in their journey is overcoming their own issues with money, self worth and fear of success.   

You are great at what you do!  If you earn it, you deserve success.

Common Causes of Failure

As you grow and move through the stages of your journey the risks become greater.  They continue to evolve with you and your business.  If you know what trips up many business owners you can take the steps to avoid the causes of failure

In Stage 2 common causes are:

• Not tracking performance of the business
• Not saving, frivolously spending
• Thinking “What got me here will get me there”
• Time management issues/Lack of clear priorities

What Does Success Look Like?

Success in Stage 2 is all about being able to control your marketing.  You must be able to bring in new leads when you need them, be consistent with your marketing activities and these activities allowing you to hit your quarterly goals.

As you grow and time becomes an issue it’s also key that you bring on your first new hire for your business, likely an administrative assistant to help with some of the office work tasks that are keeping you from revenue producing activities.

A successful Stage 2 business owner will also begin manage their time and priorities well.  They have a system in place and structure to create time in their day instead of hoping they can make time.

What Competencies and Resources Will You Need?

Getting out of this stage isn’t going to happen by accident.  You’ll need to focus on developing certain competencies that will be the foundation for future success.  It’s also important that you seek out resources to make success a little easier.

Here are a list of competencies:

• Marketing Strategy
  • Core Offer Defined
  • Prospect Profiles
  • Local Market Positioning

The resources to support you:

• Quarterly Marketing Calendar
• Annual and Quarterly Goals/Rocks
• Lead Tracker
• Follow Up Systems
• CRM Software (client management and EFT billing)

Your Support Systems

Very few, if anyone can do this alone.  The road to success in the fitness industry is too challenging to have to figure it all out.  Learn from those who have been there before and build a support system that will help you when you get stuck.

At this stage you’ll find this support in:

• A Business Coach
• Community
• Workshops
• Mentorship Programs

These require a bit of explaining…

The community that you’ll find the most support in is a network of your peers.  You want to find a group of fitness business owners who have been or are going through the same journey you’re on.  This allows you to feel connected and eliminate the feeling that you’re the only one experiencing the challenges and problems that arise in your business.

A community of your peers can lift you up and provide you support when you need it most.  

It’s also critical that you seek out and attend skill development workshops and mentorship programs.  These can be in person or online programs that are focused on helping you develop specific skills and competencies needed to move forward in your business.  

Key Performance Indicators

We’ll take a small shift in Stage 2 and start looking at the front end of your marketing funnel when evaluating performance metrics in your business.  

In Stage 2 you should be tracking and reviewing:

• New Leads
• Core Offer Conversion Rate (Lead to New Client)
• Expenses

Stage 3: Systems-wise

Things have really taken off for you!  It may have taken you 12 months to get to this stage in your journey or several years.  No matter the time it took, you’re here now and have proven that you want to create a successful, High Performing business.  

This is a pivotal stage for most fitness business owners.  It’s where you have to begin thinking of your business as an actual business!  You have to replicate the results you can get yourself through systems and structure.

The Challenges

In Stage 3 you’re going to be thinking…

• Not all of my customers are awesome…
• Is this the best use of my time?
• How can I get other people to do this well?
• I need a break!
• What’s important?  What are my priorities?
• How am I doing?

Things are going well in the business at this stage but you’re realizing not all opportunities are created equal and it’s quickly becoming evident that you’re going to have to develop a new set of competencies.

It’s critical that you begin to make the mindset shift from being a great trainer who can market and sell to a great business owner.

Common Causes of Failure

As you grow and move through the stages in your journey the risks become greater.  They continue to evolve with you and your business.  If you know what trips up many business owners you can take the steps to avoid the causes of failure.

In Stage 3 common causes are:

• You stop marketing because you are too busy
• You stay in this stage too long and never progress
• Open another location too quickly
• Hire reactively (too fast), fire too slow
• Disorganization/lack of priorities
• Burn out
• Can’t adapt to the business to shifts in the market
• Thinking a system is a checklist
• Bring on a partner or realize a current partnership is bad

What Does Success Look Like?

This stage is often the toughest for a fitness business owner to go through because what is required for success may not come naturally.  

When you’re in this Stage look for the signs of progress and success by recognizing the following:

• You have a budget and are using it
• An Annual Marketing Calendar is in place
• You are investing in services to outsource tasks
• You avoid saying “yes” to everything
• You’ve taken your first vacation in ______
• You are tracking and measuring performance
• Hitting frequent PRs in your business
• You are setting and accomplishing your goals
• You collect your first distribution check from your business (profits are there!!!!)
• Your staff is accountable for the outcomes they are responsible for

You can see there is a lot that goes into success in Stage 3.  There’s a reason many never make it out of this stage and it’s often the stage that sends good people packing in our industry.

This is where the hard work starts for your business.  But, if you can get through this you’ll have a solid foundation for growth and an ability to scale your business.

What Competencies and Resources Will You Need?

Getting out of this stage isn’t going to happen by accident.  You’ll need to focus on developing certain competencies that will be the foundation for future success.  It’s also important that you seek out resources to make success a little easier.

Here are a list of competencies:

• Budgeting/Basic Understanding of Finance
• Delegation
• Hiring
• Management
• Prioritization

The resources to support you:

• Budget Tools/System
• Annual Marketing Calendar
• Human Resources Processes
• Organizational Chart
• Meeting Cycle
• Marketing Services for Paid Advertising
• DDV List of Systems
• Scorecard
• High Performance Mastermind

Your Support Systems

Very few, if anyone can do this alone.  The road to success in the fitness industry is too challenging to have to figure it all out.  Learn from those who have been there before and build a support system that will help you when you get stuck.

At this stage you’ll find this support in:

• A Business Coach
• Peer Group
• Workshops
• Conferences

You’ll notice that a close knit peer group or High Performance Mastermind makes its first appearance in this stage. Now, more than ever, it’s critical that you have a close group of peers to help you develop as a business owner and speed up your results.  High Performers don’t want to stay in a stage longer than needed, and a good peer group will help hold you accountable and get you results quicker.

Stage 4: Manager-Leader

You’ve made the shift and now you have a business you are proud of and that you love running.  Congrats on your success thus far, but there’s still work to be done.  

It’s time to learn how to get results through other people. There’s a good chance you’ve built up a small team to get to this point and they are responsible for driving certain areas of your business.  How will you keep making progress and get the results through your team?

The Challenges

In Stage 4 you’re going to be facing things like:

• How do we perpetuate improvement?
• Early decisions to ‘bootstrap it’ are catching up to you
• Figuring out what investments you can afford to make
• What is your culture, really?
• What’s next for you as the business owner?
• Should you open a second location?

You’re now beginning to think forward and start realizing the decisions you make today greatly impact the direction of your business for the future.  You may also get a sense of dissatisfaction, or uneasiness from your team doing a lot of the work.  

Common Causes of Failure

Yes, even at this stage it’s possible to fail!  Many businesses take a step back when they attempt to transition to this stage.  Sometimes it’s because they didn’t take the time to develop the foundation in their previous stages or it could be because they resist the need to develop new competencies.  

In Stage 4 common causes are:

• Not evolving as a manager
• Trying to leave this stage too soon
• Not letting go of the technical work
• Getting in the way of your team
• Letting your ego keep you from being transparent about the real issues

If you refuse to allow others to help you grow your business it’s going to be difficult to move on to the final stage in your business journey.  You’ll have to set your ego aside and help others improve at their job to truly have success in this stage.

What Does Success Look Like?

Another big shift happens in Stage 4, you are now more focused on the people in your business than dominating tasks or mastering technical skills.  You’re undergoing the transformation into a High Performing Business Owner!

When you experience the following you’ll start to notice success:

• You are comfortable asking the tough questions
• Your focus is on people and building a Leadership Team
• You say ‘no’ more than you say ‘yes’
• You’re investing in solutions to fix any issues in your business
• You’re spending more time as a manager than a technician
• You have the opportunity to take multiple vacations per year
• You have the ability to calculate when you can afford to make investments
• You are honing in on your “Hedgehog Concept”
• Everyone in your business has a number their performance is assessed on
• You have identified your unique ability and focus you work on it

What Competencies and Resources Will You Need?

Getting out of this stage isn’t going to happen by accident.  You’ll need to focus on developing certain competencies that will be the foundation for future success.  It’s also important that you seek out resources to make success a little easier.

Here are a list of competencies:

• Long Term Vision
• Sustaining Your Culture
• Communication
• Performance Management and Development
• Improvement of Processes

The resources to support you:

• Performance Based Compensation (if applicable)

You’ll quickly notice this stage requires a lot of development for the business owner.  It’s a time where you will be required to develop your own competencies to support your team.   

Your Support Systems

Very few, if anyone can do this alone.  The road to success in the fitness industry is too challenging to have to figure it all out.  Learn from those who have been there before and build a support system that will help you when you get stuck.

At this stage you’ll find this support in:

• A Business Coach
• Peer Group
• Workshops
• Conferences

During this stage relying on a great business coach to help you develop the required competencies and uncover your blind spots will be critical.   Paired with a peer group, like the High Performance Mastermind, you’ll have the support you need to continue you journey.  

Stage 5: Entrepreneur

Finally, the coveted entrepreneur stage!  You’ve worked hard and and done the required work to get here.  Celebrate a little 🙂

All your hard work has it’s rewards if you stay focused on the right things.  But, you’re still not immune to failure or falling back into old habits that could set you back.  

A High Performer is constantly seeking to learn and develop as a business owner.  

The Challenges

In Stage 5 you’re going to be facing things like:

• How do I let go?
• What defines me?
• What can I break? Do they really not need me?
• What’s my job?

It can be tough when the entrepreneur to realizes their team is functioning well and they aren’t needed in the day to day operations for the business to be successful.  If you aren’t careful you will be your own worst enemy and sabotage your success.  You’ll find ways to break things your business so that you can jump back in and be the hero.  

You’ll need to focus on your new identity as a the entrepreneur.  

Common Causes of Failure

Yes, even at this stage it’s possible to fail!  Many business owners take a step back when they attempt to transition to this stage.  Sometimes it’s because they didn’t take the time to develop the foundation in their previous stages or it could be because they resist the need to develop new competencies.  

In Stage 5 common causes are:

• Not managing/holding the General Manager or Leadership Team accountable
• Not shifting management techniques used in Stage 4
• Not letting go

This stage requires that you have someone or a group of people in place in the business where the ‘buck stops’.  They have the final say in the day to day operations.  Learning how to manage them and letting go of the responsibilities  you have given them will be key for your success.

What Does Success Look Like?

Once you’ve got to this stage you’ve afforded yourself the opportunity to focus back on some balance in your life and meeting your bigger life goals.  It’s time where you can take on passion projects or pursue things that you’ve always been interested in because of the foundation you’ve built in your fitness business.

Here’s what you’ll need for success:

• You have a General Manager or Manager in place to make decisions on day to day operations, including hiring/firing
• An exit strategy is in place
• A gatekeeper says ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for you
• You are investing in inspiration
• Life goals are being met 

What Competencies and Resources Will You Need?

Your focus at this point may be to extending your impact and helping others.  That may mean mentoring other fitness business owners and or giving back to your community.  To be effective at this you’ll need to develop competencies that help you (and help your team).

Here are a list of competencies:

• Mentorship
• Social Responsibility

The resources to support you:

• Continuity Plan (what happens if something bad happens to you?)
• New Business Development Plans

This stage is about you ensuring you leave something behind that you are proud of and that can be sustained without you there.  

Your Support Systems

Very few, if anyone can do this alone.  The road to success in the fitness industry is too challenging to have to figure it all out.  Learn from those who have been there before and build a support system that will help you when you get stuck.

At this stage you’ll find this support in:

• A Business Coach
• Peer Group
• Conferences

What do I do with this info?

There’s a lot of information here, especially if you read from start to finish.  In fact, it’s over 4000 words on what it takes to be successful on your journey as a fitness business owner.

Using this to help you is easy…

1. Identify the stage you are in
2. Learn what it’s going to take to have success
3. Implement those things
4. Look ahead to the next stage so you know what to expect

Skipping stages will only result in you failing.  Looking too far ahead won’t give you a big benefit because you’re taking your eye off the ball.  It’s okay to know where you are going, but focus the majority of your precious time and energy on mastering the stage you’re in currently and building a solid foundation for success.

If you need a little help complete the application below and we’ll jump on a call to figure out how to get you unstuck or speed up your progress.

Eliminate Your “To-Do” List and Get More Stuff That Matters Done

As a business owner the amount of “stuff” that ends up on your plate is overwhelming.  This is especially true if you’re having some success, growing your business and have yet to really build up a solid team.

You end up in this success trap.  And then…overwhelm, anxiety, stress, burnout start to set in.

It sucks!  I’ve been there and sometimes still find myself there.  You’re not alone, many of our coaching clients and even our team here at FR battle with time management.  

The good news?  There’s a solution for you and today you’ll get an inside look at a time management tool designed for fitness business owners (any business owner really) who’s dead set on exceeding their goals and becoming a High Performing Business Owner.

The Busy Fitness Business Owner’s Time Management Tool

Our team at Fitness Revolution quickly realized that managing time, planning your day and not getting sucked into the trap of “checking stuff off the list” was critical to the success of a fitness business owner.

You could easily try to knock of 15-20 items from your to-do list each day, but never really get anything done in your business.

When time is tight (and it almost always is) you have to stay focused at the top of the list.  Here’s a poster we have at FR Headquarters that reminds us to focus on what matters…

It currently sits right between my office and Nick’s…Kelly must have known we needed it most!

Your role as the business owner is to grow the business and then manage that growth so that you remain profitable and continue to move toward your vision for what it will become.

That’s not possible if you’re wasting your precious time on tedious mundane tasks that really don’t matter in the long run.  You may feel good for checking off a lot of tasks but your business won’t be operating at it’s best.

Watching several fitness business owners struggle with this and fail at using other day planners, led us to create a resource that fit our methodology and system for coaching business owners.

It’s called the Priority Tracker.

The Anatomy of a High Performance Day Planner

You can go online and search for day planners, time management systems and all that stuff, but you’ll rarely find one that works.  

Since you’re reading this I’ll assume you’re at least putting part of what we teach into practice for your business.  This Priority Tracker was designed for you…

It was designed for the fitness business owner who wants more from their business and is desperately seeking a way to escape their to-do list!

Your Priority Tracker is designed to be used weekly to help you make progress on the most important goals and projects in your business!

Here’s a post that goes into our goal setting process.  Let’s take a look at the sections of a Priority Tracker…

Positive Focus

The beginning of your Priority Tracker ,as you can see in the image below, always starts with a Personal and Professional Highlight.  It’s critical that you begin by focusing on the positive that happened in the past week.

This positive focus allows you to maintain the proper mindset needed to run your business.  No matter how challenging or bad things seem when you train yourself to find a positive, no matter how small, in your week you’ll be more productive.

Internally we use these highlights to kick off all our meetings at FR.  You can do the same for you and your team.

Goal and Project Status Checks

The next step is status checks on your most important projects and goals.  Your Rocks, what we call the most important projects or metric goals in your business, are front and center.  

You’ll write down the name of your Rock, the due date, status check and critical next steps.

This allows you to identify the most important activities in your business for the next week.  

Focusing on this before moving to the to-do list and tasks allows you to build in the time to get it done.  No more hoping that you’ll find time.  You create it.

After your Rock status report, it’s time to check in on the 4 Sales & Marketing Pillars in your business.  It’s important that you are on track to hit your growth or revenue goals.  Keeping your marketing and sales metrics in front of you at all times allows you to stay focused on moving them forward.

If you’re on pace, keep it up.  Off track?  It’s time to focus on your marketing and sales to get back on track with your goals.  

Help me?!

The next small section allows you to capture questions to ask your peer group.  Our coaching clients not only have their Success Coach, but also a group of peers to lean on when they need a bit of help or guidance.

As you’re planning out your week and identifying challenges or sticking points with your projects or growth you can capture your questions to post to the group here.

If you’re not in a coaching program what are you waiting for?  I’m kidding…a little.  

This could also be a place to post questions for your team or mentors that you need to get addressed.  Use it to eliminate sticking points.

Here’s what the top section of a Priority Tracker looks like:

Marketing Priorities

This is what drives your business.  It’s the behaviors and actions that will bring you new leads and get you new clients.  

We use the Triple A Marketing Method to create this list of activities.  You’ll input your marketing action items in your priority tracker and assign them days and time to get done.

These should be top of the list or right after your Rock next steps. 

Daily Priority List

To the right of the Marketing Priorities you’ll find your daily priority list.  This is where you begin to create time and plan your work days.  The goal is to stay focused on and start your day (if possible) with these activities.  

Obviously, you may have to train clients or run sessions in your day.  Those are predetermined activities that have to get done.  You’ll need to look at your schedule and figure out the remaining time you have left in the day and then assign that time to the items you’ll list here.

You may notice that there are only 5 line items in the image below.  That is very purposeful.  The sweet spot for high priority items to be completed is 1-3 per day, which leaves you two lines to focus on to-do tasks that you need to get done.

If you can leave for the day and cross off 5 extremely important items that moved your business forward, you’ll leave happy.  And you can rest easy knowing that you’re making progress towards your goals.

Resist the urge to turn this into a to-do list!

Meeting To-Dos

This section is designed to capture your weekly meeting to-dos or items that come up through the week that you’ll need to address.  It may be helping someone with a project, completing a follow up call or just getting something done that has to get done.

Capture your meet to-dos here and keep yourself accountable to getting them done each week.

If you find yourself with a little gap of time or extra time turn your focus to these and cross them off one by one.

Using The Priority Tracker

Each week, preferably at the end of your work week , take 30 minutes to review your previous week and begin filling in your Priority Tracker for the following week.   

This allows you to head into the weekend with a clear head and gives you the opportunity to relax and recharge.   Plus, when you come back into work on Monday you’ll hit the ground running, already knowing what the most important thing to do is for you and your business.

Using this system and resource will help you win back time and move your business forward faster than ever.  

Want Access To Your Own Priority Tracker?

Start your 30-Day Trial of The Academy for just $1 today and access our in depth module on using this resource and get your free download.  Plus, as a member of The Academy you’ll gain access to over 60 modules for marketing, sales and business management.  

It’s a guaranteed way to grow your fitness business and develop as a business owner.   Try if for just $1 today…

Time Management for Fitness Business Owners Made Easy

A quick Google search for “how do I increase productivity” produces 210,000,000 results come up…

“Productivity hacks” produces 16,3000,000 results.

Seems that there a lot of people out there searching for ways to be more productive, get more done and have more time to spend on the things they really enjoy.

But, let’s cut to chase…the only reason you want to be more productive is to achieve a result, right?

If you could sit around wasting a few hours a day and accomplish everything you wanted there would be no need for an increase in productivity.

What is productivity?

I can’t, in good conscience, sit here and tell you that I’ve got everything figured out when it comes to mastering your time and getting stuff done.

There are lots of lessons learned, many the hard way, and methods of the super productive that you’ll discover in this article.

Right now, at the time of writing this, there are methods that are being implemented in my own day to enhance my ability to be productive.

Let’s just look at the root word in productivity. The literal definition is “the state or quality of producing something”. Another definition is “the effectiveness of productive effort in industry, as measured in terms of the rate of output per unit of input.”

Essentially, productivity = the results you get with the activities you do in the time you do them.

Before we even talk about hacks, tips or methods of increasing your output it’s critical that we know the goal we are trying to achieve.

Wouldn’t it suck to spend all this time honing in your productivity only to miss your goals or accomplish the wrong goal?

Goal Setting For Productivity

Start with the end in mind…

Before we create the plan and the path to reach our goals we have to be able to clearly see the outcome we want to accomplish.

Think about the result you will get if you are more productive. How will you tell if what you are doing is working?

There are 4 types of goals (we refer to them as Rocks with our coaching clients) you’ll be working with:

• Metric-based
• Habit-based
• Project-based
• Phase-based

***From here on out we’ll use the term Rock to reference goals.***

Metric-Based Rocks

These Rocks are indicative of a number or variety of numbers that mean the most to your business that quarter or that align with the current objective of the business for that period.

Examples include total clients, gross revenue, new clients, profit margins, retention, etc.

Habit-Based Rocks

Much like you would introduce new habits for your clients making changes to their lifestyle, nutrition or activity you may choose to create a new habit that makes you a more effective, productive business owner.

These Rocks are created to help you jumpstart, and hold you accountable, to creating a habit. You won’t end the habit at the end of a quarter, when the Rock is complete, rather this serves as a period to focus on this new habit so that you can create your ‘new normal’.

Examples including completing a % of your marketing activities, hitting X of Y weekly meetings with your team, etc.

Project-Based Rocks

If you’ve got a large project looming for the quarter or year that will require a large chunk of your attention and is critical to meet the objectives you’ve set for the business it’s appropriate to create a Rock to complete this project.

Examples include creating and implementing specific systems, redoing your website, hiring and onboarding a new team member, launching a new program, creating client experience programs, etc.

Phase-Based Rocks

There are times where you can’t complete a project or initiative in one quarter so you break it down into phases and work to complete each phase on time. This is where Phase-Based Rocks are handy.

These are also the trickiest to manage because you have to be able to adapt to changes in the landscape of the plan as you go while staying on target and keeping the objective of the plan in your sights at all times.

Examples include moving your business to a new location, starting a second facility, adding a new Core Offer, etc.

Setting SMARTR Rocks

That’s not a typo! We felt like SMART goal setting had something missing.

You’re likely familiar with the acronym:

• Specific
• Measureable
• Attainable
• Realistic
• Timely

We added one letter to the end that makes a huge difference, especially for High Performance business owners, like you…

RESULTS-BASED!

This is the key to it all. What is the one result you are looking for out of setting this Rock. What results, outcomes, etc will you experience in your business when it’s complete?

If you go back up to our previous section the this aligns perfectly with the 4 types of Rocks you can set!

When setting your Rocks make sure you clearly state them…

Examples:

• Metric-Based: Average Monthly GR from $20k to $25k by DEADLINE
• Habit-Based: Complete Weekly Review Meeting 10 out of 13 times by DEADLINE
• Project-Based: Sales System is developed and documented by DEADLINE
• Phase-Based: Complete Phase 1 of Opening a New Facility: Have 3 Locations Identified times by Deadline

Now you’ve got a framework for setting and stating your Rocks!

Create The Plan; Act On The Plan

Your target is clear, you’ve got a GREAT Rock set, now what?

Many people fail at accomplishing their goals because they lack a clear plan. They hope that by setting the goal it will somehow manifest itself.

Your next step is creating a solid plan of action and give yourself milestones to accomplish your goals.

Internally, our Coaching Partners use a SMARTR Rock Planning Sheet to guide them. I can’t give that to you today, but I can share how it works and how to set it up on your own.

Here are the Rock planning steps:

1. Name The Rock
2. Create Your Milestones/Key Steps
3. Build Your Timeline/Set Deadlines
4. Identify The Owners/Key Stakeholders
5. Track Your Progress

As you navigate the plan through the quarter, working to achieve your goals, this plan will help you identify when you are “On Track” or “Off Track”.

If you’re “On Track”, keep going! Things are happening just as you planned and you’re on target to accomplish your goals.

If you are “Off Track”, usually because you missed a deadline or milestone, it’s time to regroup. Step back and look at what has to happen for you to get back “On Track” and then implement your plan to get there.

Being “Off Track” isn’t a Rock killer, it’s an opportunity to figure out when you need to find help from your team, business coach, mentors or peers to get you back on track.

Share these plans with your team and your mentors so they can help you along the way and hold you accountable to accomplishing your goals. Remember, you’ve identified this as the MOST IMPORTANT item to address in your business. Treat it that way.

Productivity Myths

The first place most business owners start when they think about productivity is time management. And most continue to fail at managing their time.

Instead of fighting the same ol’ battles and losing may I suggest you shift your focus to Priority Management?

There’s a good chance you’ll never wipe everything off your to-do list and get every task that is fighting for your attention completed.

Trying to manage your time so that you get ALL THE THINGS done is a guaranteed way to fail.

As a business owner, your list will continue to grow, the challenges will continue to pop up and new issues will be thrown at you from every possible angle. It comes with the territory.

It’s critical that you understand your TOP PRIORITIES and focus on those in your daily and weekly activities.

After going through the previous sections and setting SMARTR Rocks and creating your SMARTR Rock Plan you’ll have a great idea of where most your time is spent for the next 90 days.

If you’re still trying to figure that out… the answer is ON YOUR ROCK!

But, you can’t focus all of your time on the Rock. You still have to train your clients, deliver your services, sell, market, manage, etc.

The first and best place to look for what other priorities you have besides your Rock is your position description.

Running your biz by yourself and don’t have a position description? That’s okay, your top priorities are likely Gross Revenue and Operating Margins in your business. Those two financial metrics will help you ensure you’re growing and hitting your bench marks.

If you have a team and don’t have a position description for each person that may be your next Rock 😉 It’s critical that everyone knows what they are responsible for and how they will be assessed. It’s not enough to just tell them, they have to be able to see it on a sheet of paper and reference as needed.

And yes, you even need a position description for yourself…in all the roles that you fill in your business.

Priority Tracking

To help manage your daily activities and keep the most important things at the center of your attention, at all times, we created a priority tracker for our Coaching Partners and members of The Academy.

If you are using a system for planning your day and week, and it’s working, keep on using it. If you want access to our resources join The Academy.

It’s also possible to create your own, but why do all that work when we’ve done it for you 😉

The Priority Tracker is broken up in sections:

• Weekly Highlights and Headlines
• Rock Status
• Metrics
• Marketing Priorities
• Daily Action Items
• Misc Notes

Each section has it’s own purpose, but having all this information at your disposal keeps it top of mind and allows you to plan your day and week according to your biggest, most important priorities.

Creating Space For Planning

All this is great, but if you don’t create the space and time to use the tools and plan your priorities it’s all for nothing. It’ll get thrown into the pile of planners, hacks and tips you’ve tried in the past to get more done and achieve your goals.

A huge shout out to FR Coaching Coordinator and Success Coach, Julie Hatfield for the creation and optimization of most of this productivity method. She’s one of the most organized and productive individuals that I’ve ever met.

It’s no accident either, she uses the method we’ve outlined here to get so much done. And it’s not just small tasks to check off a list!

One of the steps she’s put in place is a “Weekly Review With Self” meeting. At the end of each week she will block off 30 minutes to review her week, check in on her Rock progress and outline next steps for the following week.

This allows her to focus on areas of improvement, areas where she’s excelling and set her activities for the next week.

You may be thinking “Ryan, there’s no way I have 30 minutes for this…”

And I’d tell you that I thought the exact same thing, but was wrong. You are too…

There’s no way you DON’T have time for this 30 minute meeting. It helps you get clear on next steps, identify where you are off track and even celebrate your wins.

If you’re questioning the value, it may be a good idea to set a Habit-Based Rock!

Now What?

Your productivity won’t rapidly increase overnight and your business won’t automatically start doubling in size by using this productivity method. It takes work, practice and discipline to realize the benefits.

Having tools and resources in place that give you structure, eliminating the need to create them on your own, give you a jumpstart. That’s what you’ll get inside The Academy.

But, if you want an ever faster path to success you can get access to all of our tools and resources designed to help you become a better business owner and increase your productivity by joining a coaching program.

There’s a program for you, no matter where you are in your business. The next step is finding out if it’s a good fit and what program may be best suited to help you maximizing productivity and achieve your biggest goals.

Schedule a complimentary Discovery Call today!

“Ryan’s one of those people that makes business, sales and marketing interesting…”

That’s literally what Rafal Matuszewski,the host of the Cut The S#!t, Get Fit Podcast, said about an interview we did recently.

On this podcast we talk everything from business to training to transformations.  There’s something in here for every fitness pro or business owner.

Here’s a few things we covered:

• Why I started my first fitness business and the mistakes I made
• Tips for having success with your own facility
• Finding your own path in the fitness industry
• The wild world of business partnerships and how to navigate them
• Why most fitness pros struggle with business
• The path for success in the fitness industry
• The biggest problems with Online Training and how to make it work for you
• How to leverage social media to create your own brand in the fitness industry

And a ton more!

Nick and Ryan were recently interviewed on the Profit First Podcast with Mike Michalowicz and his team. Ryan and Nick explain that, even in the extraordinarily competitive industry of fitness, you can make extraordinary profits. They walk us through a special way to build a funnel that attracts the best clients and keeps them coming back for more. Improve your fitness business, or any business, in this episode of the Profit First Podcast.