Last week at the Louisville conference, we had some fantastic conversations with attendees about the differences between working on your business and in your business. This is a concept every gym owner needs to learn, or you’ll find yourself operating in year 4 the same way you operated in year one except now you’re exhausted and ready for a break.
I hate when I see gym owners at that point. My advice to them is always the same. “We can fix this together, but I’ve got bad news. You’re going to have to keep pushing for a little while more…and it might be harder and more work than you’re doing right now. Eventually we’ll be able to lighten that load, but we can’t do it until you’ve fixed some broken areas of your business.”
I prefer to tell people that before they’ve reached the point of exhaustion, which is why I’m writing this blog. I hope you’re energized every time you hire someone new. I hope you’re still thrilled every time you get a new enrollment. If you smile when the phone rings at the gym still, that makes me happy.
For a lot of people, that’s not the case. Even good growth doesn’t feel good when you’re exhausted and spinning your wheels. The best way to eliminate the wheel-spinning is to start shifting your focus to tasks that work ON your business and delegate the tasks where you find yourself working IN your business.
Working IN your business looks like this:
- Answering all the phones and emails. Replying to voicemails and being available for every person who walks in the doors to the gym.
- Doing every social media post from scratch, scheduling it or posting it in real time.
- Teaching your coaches how to spot skills.
- Coaching teams and classes.
- Writing every system.
- Balancing the cash drawer and driving to the bank to make deposits.
- Going to Costco or scrolling on Amazon to make purchases for your snack bar and pro shop.
- Endless hours of vacuuming mats.
I could go on, but I think you get the picture. If you do any of those things, you’re working in your business. Here’s what that would look like if you took each of those things and turned them into tasks where you work ON your business:
- Systemizing your greeting system and building email reply templates to commonly asked questions. Developing a voicemail log for accountability and training a front desk staff to do all these things. Training a front desk staff to screen your calls and people who are coming in looking for you to ensure all sales representatives are only attempting to sell you something you might actually be interested in.
- Writing a brand guide that includes your gym color codes, preferred fonts, examples of posts that pull well with your audience, studying your Facebook insights and training someone to (at minimum) schedule your Facebook posts.
- Developing a trainer program with lead coaches who are trained to teach new coaches how to spot. Focusing on leveling all of your coaches up so you’re never in a stressful hiring position looking for someone off the street who can spot fulls.
- Coaching a team because you love it and want to coach it alongside a junior coach or assistant coach with major potential who is there to learn from you.
- Writing a system on how to write systems and then delegating that task to someone in your gym who is responsible for writing systems and sending them to you for review.
- Developing a cash accountability system so you know if there are errors or dishonesty while also tracking your daily sales.
- Teaching a staff member what items to inventory and how to make a shopping list and find the best deals. Training a staff member on purchase parameters and how to make wise choices between brands. Developing an electronic receipt accountability system.
- Writing systems and hiring someone to clean during the day or late at night.
It sounds like more work to work ON your business right? Maybe. But it’s work you do once or twice and then it’s done for you. You’re not going to write a new system on how to clean toilets every week. You’re going to write it once, train someone how to do it properly and then check the toilets when you go to the bathroom at the gym. Working on your business means that you’re doing something once that has exponential results. Is it easier to just do it yourself in the short term? Sometimes. Does it give you the freedom to spend your time more productively on building programs and developing staff members who will ultimately be on the front lines day in and day out? Also yes.
If you’re finding it hard to make time for coaching calls, it’s because you’re working in your business. There is probably nothing you actually need more right now than a coaching call to snap you out of the rhythm and change your behavior.
