Pulling Back The Curtain

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Pulling Back The Curtain

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As you probably already know, both Trevor and I own our own fitness facilities along with running everything at Habit Catalyst.

Today we both wanted to pull back to curtain a little bit and talk about what isn’t going so well in our gyms.

Being a fellow business owner, I am sure you have had your fair share of struggles and frustrations over the years. We just want to show that it does happen no matter what stage of business you are at!

So I will start….

CORE Health & Fitness

My gym, CORE Health & Fitness, is almost exclusively a semi-private training gym. We do run a small number of 1-on-1 sessions at off times during the late morning and mid-afternoon but other than that we are all semi-private.

No small group, large group, team training or whatever else it has been called.

This means we work in a client to trainer ratio of 5:1 and everyone who comes in gets their own customized program.

I really like it because it attracts the type of member we enjoy working with (primarily baby boomers) and gives us the ability to really create a personal connection with everyone at our gym.

We never have to worry about not getting enough “face time” with one of our members and we get to know them very intimately.

We generally have two coaches on the floor during all of our sessions working with our members so we can handle 10 at once. Our busier sessions we will add a third coach as once in awhile we get up to 15 at one time.

This normally works perfect!

However, when we run a transformation challenge and get a large influx of new people all at once, it can put a big strain on our coaches.

Teaching a brand new member their program for the very first time is very coaching intensive. It ends up being very close to a 1-on-1 session as we want them to feel comfortable. Joining a gym can be a very intimidating action so easing them into it and making sure they don’t feel lost is a non-negotiable the first few sessions.

This means we generally need an additional coach on for most of our sessions.

And guess who that might be…. ME!

I have gone from working about 15 hours on the floor each week to close to 30 during our challenge. It is not something that will last as our new people have already caught on quick and won’t need as much 1-on-1 attention going forward but it still puts a drain on myself and my capabilities.

I struggle with this a lot as during these certain peaks during the year it would be great to have an additional coach on our team. But then once the new members are integrated into our system, we go back to only needing two coaches to work with everyone.

To add on top of more coaching hours, this is a very busy time for Habit Catalyst as well. Launching our Clean & Lean Challenge and getting an influx of new users means more customer support. We are also diving deep into a big development phase, building out a lot of cool new features so we have been working hard planning all of that.

All of this has really just shown me how much I need to prioritize the big actions at my gym. I also need to make sure I plan my day out the night before so that I know exactly what has to get done instead of just drifting throughout my day.

(In fact I have been using this cool new app called Habit Catalyst to help keep me accountable on planning out my days! I might do a little feature in the future showing how you can use it for yourself…)

I cannot try to do everything like I have always done in the past. I need to rely on my team much more than ever before and allow them to take ownership of different parts of the business.

That is hard for me to do but one of my coaches has really stepped up and taken over a lot of my day-to-day duties. It has allowed me to focus more on the big picture, plan out our entire marketing calendar for the year, and put much more of my focus on bringing in new members to the gym beyond just our transformation challenges.

Because we do run the semi-private model, it does make it hard when we get a large number of new members but I would not change it for the world! I love working very closely with all our members and they love the personal attention they get both during sessions as well as within their programs we write.

So there you have it. These are the pains we are dealing with right now at CORE Health & Fitness. Not the end of the world at all, but still puts a strain on our team and myself.

Functional Fitness

Alright, Trevor here taking over.  .

2016 was an “interesting” year for me.  For the majority of this year I have been operating as a remote owner.  Many of you may know I moved away from my gym in Minnesota to Madison, Wisconsin so I was able to focus more of my attention on Habit Catalyst.  

The gym is not getting neglected as I still run our team meetings, organize our marketing, meet with coaches virtually, but am simply not involved in any of the day to day operations.  

This was a big decision because it meant the final step in my progression as a gym owner. Started with zero clients, grew a clientele out of someone else’s space, moved all my clients into my own space, then expanded that space three times over three years, hired more and more staff each year, and finally stepped away to see if this beast could run without me involved in the day to day operations.  Yep, I have lived the entire progression of a burnt out trainer to a remote gym owner.

This year has presented specific challenges because I don’t have the ability to jump in and fix things right away.  Maybe its ego, but I feel like I can find a solution to anything.  Like all entrepreneurs I believe in two things:

1. My ability to figure things out
2. My work ethic

Unfortunately, that can at times hold my business back because I NEED to do everything.  No one can do it better.  When you are running a mature business and building a bootstrapped start-up there is A LOT to do.  

You know the old saying, “if you want it done right, do it yourself.”  

Yeah, that is terrible advice, especially for entrepreneurs.   

If you want it done right, do it yourself for a while, then teach someone else to do it, then coach that person up, then give that person the freedom and incentive to improve it.  

That is how you build a business and I had forgotten aspects of that.   

This has forced me to teach my team to be solution orientated rather than simply coming to me with questions.  They need to come to me with questions but also possible solutions.

Also, the gym has gotten a little “stale” over the last 6 months  Honestly, I think we went into auto-pilot mode and our numbers confirmed this.  Our membership base shrunk on a consistent basis for the first time ever.  

Some of this is just the natural order of things but I am not one that is willing to just accept what is going on.  

So, we made plan of action for 2017 and it goes a little like this.

We are focusing on 4 major themes in 2017.

1. Enthusiasm
2. Connection / Community
3. Teaching
4. Accountability

You will notice that nothing on the list deals with training.  I feel like our “product” – training – is very very good.  Not that we are not trying to improve it, but us incrementally improving our training isn’t going to keep clients around.

The Big Four above are what are going to keep clients around.  

To two most important are Connection/Community and Teaching.  These two are what set us apart from anyone else.  They set us apart from the group exercise class at the local community center and the 24 hour gyms.  

I won’t go into an exhaustive list in this post on how we are going to accomplish this because the post is already getting a little long so I will stick with a few key points.  

Side Note: If you want more of this stuff, just reply and let us know as I can create a more detailed post if it’s helpful for you and your business.  

The first key improvement is doing more video.

I believe this hammers both number one and two.  It allows our coaches to display their expert status, it allows us to teach, and video builds connection better than anyone else.

This will also allow our coaches’ personality to shine and build a stronger connection with clients.  

Now, directly on the community side of these we are planning events for 2017 directed and lead by our coaches.  

We are planning at least one outing per quarter.  Think things like snowshoeing, hiking, bike rides, 5K runs, mud runs, and anything else we can think of that is interesting.  

These will help our clients get to know our coaches outside of the gym and also build relationships with each other which is just as important as building relationships with the coaches.  

I believe that if we do the four points above, the numbers will take care of themselves.  

Just like with a client who wants to lose weight, I can’t focus only on the numbers.  I need to focus on the behaviors and actions I have control over.  The numbers will indicate if the changes are working.  

In our coaches’ office we have the Big 4 for 2017 up on the wall so they are constantly reminded of what we are working towards.

1. Enthusiasm
2. Connection & Community
3. Teaching
4. Accountability

As always, I will keep you posted on how things go.  Think about the intangibles in your business, what are the ultimate factors on why people stay.  Many times it’s not just the training, so can you find some ways in 2017 to improve and systemize the other aspects.

What struggles are you working through in your business?  Let us know and we can address them in future posts.  
Here is to kicking butt in 2017.