We’ve all seen it. It’s always there. Lurking right beneath the surface.
We can’t avoid it. We can’t get over it. And it’s always eating at us.
“What if I fail?”
Well, I’m going to help you out a bit here.
There are several dangerous trends on the horizon for all small business owners, but particularly the fitness club owner. By the time you’re done reading this, you will know exactly what the trends are and what you can do to avoid them.
Dangerous Trend #3
Fractured Focus – the constant gap in concentration we all face from seemingly endless minor distractions
You know how your phone is always dinging. Text messages, emails, phone calls, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, the list goes on. It’s like you can never get a moment to yourself. You’re so busy that you can barely run your business. It’s stressing you out and you can’t seem to figure out how to make it all stop.
Here’s what to do: Start with one hour of concentrated focus per day
Put your smartphone on silent and out of reach. Preferably in another room. Now that your phone is out of reach, next is your tablet, laptop, and television. Put the tablet away. Turn off the television. And close social media tabs, apps, and notifications on your laptop for one full hour.
During this hour, brainstorm and jot down ideas about how to improve the business. Chances are your customer relations, marketing, staffing, and budgeting could use another look. If you do this on a daily basis and make a commitment to execute on some of the ideas, you’ll be well on your way to improving your business.
Dangerous Trend #2
The Scheduling Squeeze – the perpetual race against time
There’s only 24 hours in a day. But that doesn’t seem like enough. Appointments, dropping children off at school, networking events, picking children up from soccer practice, cooking dinner, Chamber of Commerce, date night with your spouse, it’s a lot to handle. Sometimes too much.
Here’s what to do: Study your staffing and make adjustments
You didn’t go into business to do everything yourself. You went into business to make an impact. You can’t do that if you never have time to do what needs to be done for your business as well as your family. As a fitness club owner, you have several types of employees. You have trainers, salespeople, and customer service people. Hopefully, you have at least one or two people in each role. If so, make a list of responsibilities for each employee type. Once you do that, take a look at your schedule and find out where you can get someone to help you free up some time.
It’s time to hire and/or fire some of your employees. You may need to promote someone and replace their position with someone new. It’s also quite possible that you’ll find that one or two people are no longer a good fit for your business. It’s okay. These things happen. Be delicate yet direct.
Dangerous Trend #1
The Delegation Dump – fear of allowing someone else to do what you consider to be “YOUR” work
As a fitness club owner, you’re probably a bit of a perfectionist. How else did you get to be where you are today, right?
This perfectionist mindset has killed more businesses than The Plague did back in the 1300s. Millions upon millions of business owners have a mindset that tells them that if something is going to be done right, it has to be done by them. Well, guess what? If you have to do all the work, you don’t have a business, you have a job. And that’s not why you got into business, is it?
Here’s what to do: Have some faith. Have some patience. And, let go
You can’t do everything. And you shouldn’t want to. If you’re the best person at a particular function inside of your fitness club, my recommendation is to train someone else to perform that function so you don’t have to.
Also, if you’re out of your depth on a particular subject, you should reach out for assistance. I find that most fitness club owners don’t have a grasp on marketing, automation, and leverage. What that means is you probably don’t have a system that will attract and enroll clients on autopilot. It also means you may not have a formal Customer Retention Program or Referral Reward Program.
It just so happens that at Done-For-You Clients, we specialize in these areas.
Your Turn
How do you plan to implement these findings into your business?
Leave a comment below. We would love to hear from you.