| The Inevitability of Change |
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If what you are doing isn’t working, then what you are doing
isn’t working, and in business the opposite of failure is always the necessity
to change. I have written for years that many of the people who own
businesses, or make their living running them on a daily basis, would rather
ride the business into complete and utter failure rather than face the pain of
making major change in what they are doing. It is hard to contemplate, but
failure is often seen as a more preferable option than putting your shoulder
down and driving through the wall of inertia that separates you from current
reality and the growth and freedom on the other side.
For years I always thought people fought change because of
arrogance. Changing course would be admitting that what you are doing isn’t
working and this is especially painful if what you are doing was your idea.
Admitting the need to change is admitting that you were wrong, and few people
who ever get into that position of leadership and power like to admit that
maybe the course they have set isn’t going to reach the goal.
The fitness business is now changing faster than almost
anyone can keep up. Functional training, the advent of the literate trainer,
the failure of the box style business plan, the cannibalism of the low priced
players, the increasing sophistication of the clients we serve and the general
frustration by the consumer that fitness centers only exist to take money from
people who will never use their services have all combined to create an
industry that seems lost, dazed and inept.
It is interesting to note that the chain players fight
change the hardest. This worldwide group spends all their time, money and
assets wishing for the past to return. If only we can find the right special,
funding, unique line of equipment or programming the membership sales will
return to past glory days. When your wife goes away for a few days to "find her
own space” and takes your pool boy with her, and you are too desperate to
remember you don’t even have a pool, she isn’t coming back-not now, not
ever-and neither are the glory days of fitness.
On the other side are the training club owners who live by
change and whose businesses exist solely due to the fact that the chain players
failed so miserably in "the getting clients in shape” portion of their
business. If the chains understood how to get people in shape, there would be
no need for training clubs. These training club owners were born of change and
will lead the charge for the next generation.
Change is inevitable in this business during the next five
years and here are a few rules that might help you get that shoulder into that
ever-growing wall of fear and inertia:
·Realize that your current numbers don’t reflect
a downturn, but your new reality. If your sales numbers have been flat, or are
declining, for more than three months, this isn’t the sign of a short-term
trend, but your new reality. This is where you are, and where you will always
be, unless you realize that change is the only tool you own that will help you
escape.
·Commit to change fully. Most of the chain
players act like an old lady at a public swimming pool who takes an hour to get
wet. First one toe, then maybe all the toes and eventually she sits on the wall
with her feet in. By the time she gets into the pool the rest of the family is
packed and ready to go home. This is like the box club guys who want to put in
a functional room with just a few limited pieces of equipment to see if it
works first. By the time he messes around with a fake change, the rest of the
industry has passed by the window. This strategy guarantees that it will fail
because you failed to commit. Get naked, run hard and jump into the damn pool.
What you are doing is failing, so where is the risk at committing to a new,
broader plan?
·Realize that someone is going to get pissed.
Some members, and key staff, refuse to change and they need to go home now. So
many owners stall on making change due to fear of making some members mad or
through the agony of fighting resistant staff. Members will get mad and there
is little you can do about it but replace them. The big picture is that if your
business plan generates X now, and it has tapped out as proven by a flat growth
line, then losing a few members will open the door and allow you go to get your
business to Y, something that can’t be accomplished with your current plan. The
old adage is right: the needs of the many are more important than the needs of
the few and you might have to take a few casualties to get change done. And if
you have a resistant staff then explain fully, take some time but in the end
some will not be able to grow and they need to be replaced.
·Get your staff involved early. The larger chains
especially suffer from this lack of internal information. The staff needs to be
informed early and often as to what is happening, how it affects them and how
it affects the members. Your team can’t support change if they don’t understand
what is happening
·Inform the members. Members that see stuff
happening, but don’t understand it, will make up incredible, negative stories
to fill the void. Members hate a vacuum and left without information will make
up some incredible bullshit to fill that void. Get them letters, email,
Facebook posts and Twitter feeds early and often
·You have to change the culture, not patch the
hole. Major change requires a change in the culture of the business. For
example, when Howard Schultz returned to save Starbucks, he shut down all the
stores in the world for an afternoon of training and corporate
re-indoctrination. He realized that change could not happen until the culture
that supported the failure also changed. Most box players are only willing to
make superficial changes rather than committing to a culture change strategy that
defines what the business stands for and what it will be in the future
·Lead: don’t follow. I will never understand why
any company good enough to build over a 100 clubs ultimately fails because the
owners are waiting to see if someone else is doing it first. The, "I am waiting
to see if anyone else does it” excuse is another way of saying that you are
incapable of judging the information and making a decision for yourself. If you
can’t make a decision yourself then your company needs to fire you and hire the
guy that is going first. How many fortunes have been lost because someone has a
good idea but is too scared to go first? Every industry has a leader and why
aren’t you leading this one? Think Steve Jobs ever waited to see if anyone else
would come out with an IPod first? How did that work out for Microsoft?
There has been more change in the fitness industry during
the last few years than there has been during the last three decades or longer.
Seeking and planning for change is not only good business but also the only way
a number of the big boxes will survive. If all else fails, remember one thing:
if it isn’t painful, then it isn’t a big enough change to make a difference. |
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| How Hard Should We Push the Clients |

Don showed up to the club everyday, six days a week and had
been doing that for 11 years. He became a member the third month the club
opened and he considered himself one of the original members in the club. The
only day he missed was Sunday, and that was only because his wife said she
would divorce him if he didn’t at least go to church with her once a week.
The group always met in the big chairs in front of the shake
bar every morning. The average age of all the guys, which sometimes numbered as
many as six, was about 60. Everyone in the gang ambled in for morning coffee
around 6:30 a.m. carrying gym bags, or if they were retired, they sported every
old, tired tee shirt and short combination imaginable. No one wore new stuff,
unless it was after Christmas and you had to wear what your wife gave your for
at least a week, because new stuff wasn’t as cool as wearing the same beat up
workout shirt for 10 years in a row. There was status in a tee shirt that was
old and most of the shirts were either acquired free or were from some long
forgotten vacation.
These guys were gentlemen loved by the staff and the other
members. If one missed, the group was concerned and if anyone needed help the
gang was usually there moving furniture, helping with a home project or doing
whatever was needed.
Sometimes these guys even worked out. Most of them did the
same circuit, using the same reps and same weights, year after year. On off
days, they all walked on the treads slowly talking to each other up and down
the row, but never fast enough where you couldn’t hold a good conversation.
Don died of a heart attack at age 60 and he died because we
failed him. He died because we all knew that what he had been calling fitness
for the last 11 years was in reality nothing more than a gentle stroll on the
tread followed by a circuit that hadn’t challenged his body since the first
month he started as a member.
We failed Don, and all the other guys, and all the other
members like Don, because we knew that what he was doing wasn’t good for him or
enough of a challenge and we let him get away with it.
Of course there might be other reasons associated with Don’s
death, but for 11 years, six days a week, we knew that what he was doing in
this gym was working against him and we definitely did not do our job and
intervene.
The real issue is how hard do you want to push the Dons in
your business? Even trainer gyms have clients that do as little as possible and
after a few years we just let them get away with it. We love them, take their
money, and make a few suggestions that they should work harder, but mostly we
accept that fact that this client just isn’t motivated and he just keeps moving
at his own speed.
We do not do the clients, members or ourselves any good by
ignoring what we know to be harmful behavior. If you have these members, you
have to do whatever possible to change the behavior and at some point you might
be better off pushing enough that the client either changes or leaves. We can
justify ourselves and say that at least Don was moving a little every day, but
in reality we could also show how much we care, and how much we believe in what
we are doing, by pushing hard to get more out of the people who give us money,
but don’t get what they pay for in exchange.
We owe guys like Don our best attempt to give them more then
they sometimes get from us. We have to remember that we are in the fitness
business, not the clubhouse business and if we know that what the member is
doing is detrimental to his own well being then we need to sit the member down
and have the talk.
If you accept the money; then failing the member is not an
option, and the responsibility becomes ours to do what we can, and beyond, to
help every member live a long and healthy life. |
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| Why You Can't Sell Fitness |

Fitness does not sell, and will never sell, and we spend too
much time trying to force the concept of fitness down the consumer’s throat.
Dave Chesser, owner of Formosa Fitness in Taiwan, and who
makes frequent comments on my Face Book pages, recently asked a challenging
question that seemed to big just to quickly answer on FB, although I did
attempt to give it a short blast. His question was, "In The Business of Fitness you wrote that fitness doesn't sell and
never will. Do you see the rise of training clubs as changing that situation?”
You can’t answer this question without defining the words,
"working out.” Fitness to all of us means there has to be an effort made by the
client to sweat a little, move a lot and chase a defined goal that equates to
our version of fitness. Working out is the action the client takes, and that we
direct, to get the job done.
The problem with this definition is that what we think of as
fitness is seldom what the client is seeking or wants to attain. In other
words, there is a huge disconnect between what we think he should be doing and
what he really wants to have happen.
Perhaps the strongest example is an early Crossfit video I
recently viewed that showed two women working out and one of them having an
emotional breakdown during the workout. I was on the site because I like
Crossfit and think their contribution to group fitness and training is vastly
underrated due to a few weak trainers that get too many people injured.
Greg Glassman’s original writings and theories are simple and
strong and I find the workouts fascinating. I do think it is a shame; however,
that such a powerful concept gets tainted by a few coaches that just live too
far over the edge. Most of the Crossfit people I have meant are sincere; don’t
make the money they should, and deeply care about the health and safety of
their clients and much of Glassman’s early genius is lost due to a few clouding
the image of many.
The video in question showed a fit woman sobbing near the end
of her workout, yet she kept going. She commented that working out is an
emotional high for her and that she often cries if the workout is challenging
and pushes her. There was even a comment on the video about how motivating a
trainer found this video and how he wished that he could evoke this same
passion in his clients.
The disconnect is that a trainer could look at this video and
get really excited about the workout and the challenge, but the vast majority
of clients would mutter that your spandex is too tight on your lower unit
cutting the blood flow off to your head. What gets us excited, which is fitness
done passionately, is also what drives away clients. In other words, being a
purist is a great way to achieve maximum fitness, but a very poor way to attract
and sustain clients in sufficient numbers.
The sufficient numbers part is important. Any good trainer can
always attract a band of followers that will work until death seeking the
approval of the trainer. In this case, a good trainer is no different than a
good preacher: both attract that tight band of followers that believe in you
and will follow you and do anything you ask.
The failure of course is that 20-30 loyalists seldom combine
to pay enough for the trainer or the preacher to make a living doing what they
were born to do. If you have 20-30 clients, but have to have another job to
support yourself and the business is more of a hobby, then you have missed the
big picture, which is you can make money doing what you love if you follow the
passion but drop the purism.
We have to realize that fitness is just another tool for the
client to use to seek a higher plane of living. The mistake is that we make
fitness the goal and forget, due to our passion, that the client seeks fitness
for totally different reasons.
There is nothing better to me than hitting the gym, throwing
some kettle bells around, listen to some music, and try and push myself (most
days/some days just survival is the goal) to new limits or try new exercises.
Often the workout is the best part of my day and is something I plan for even
on trips.
The clients, on the other hand, tolerate fitness as something
that has to be done to enhance other things in their lives. Fitness means
looser clothes, a higher chance of getting laid this weekend, a job promotion,
a higher chance of getting laid this weekend, keeping up with the kids or
walking on the beach with a significant other and of course having a higher
chance of getting laid this weekend. Looking better naked is still a driver for
many people and fitness is just a tool to get that done.
The problem is that we try to sell fitness as something
logical. We want you to workout so you will live longer, enjoy more health,
lose weight, have fewer health issues or increase your energy. Logical doesn’t
sell and logical doesn’t attract new clients. Living longer is only important
if you are 85 and logically I understand that having a glass of wine offsets a
lot of fitness, but I trade the emotional satisfaction of a glass with friends giving
up the logical fitness reasoning that I should be drinking Fiji water out of
metal bottle specially made by Patagonia and chewing on some home baked almonds
without salt (die purists die).
There is a wonderful book call, "Switch” by Chip Heath, which
addresses how to target the emotional context of an argument. The analogy the
authors use is that the logical mind is like a rider on an elephant, while the
elephant represents the emotional side of the person. You can’t talk logic to
the rider; you have to appeal to the elephant. This is a simplistic
representation, but read the book.
Will trainers change all of this? Training clubs are the
perfect vehicles for change, but most trainers do not have the mindset.
Traditional training, especially one-on-one, is nasty ass boring and the
traditional studio that turns the client over like a grade school class change
every hour when the bell rings kills all chance for energy and achieving a
sense of belonging.
But the training clubs have a huge advantage over the boxes in
that belonging to a special community, again something that Crossfit does well,
sells and protects the clients. If you can create this community, you can have
clients that stay longer and pay longer than the other guy.
If trainers want to make money, and change the world, everyone
needs to understand that the client is there simply because he is trying to get
somewhere else. We have to understand that most don’t want to end the workout
sobbing and most don’t view working out as a religious or orgasmic experience.
Our jobs is to light them up with energy, group dynamics, fun,
music and the occasional free glass of wine. We have to strive to be the best
part of their day everyday and not something they dread over time, because they
do not want to hear one more lecture on diet or how to live the pure life.
Purism doesn’t sell, and neither does fitness as a goal. What does sell is a
crazed trainer willing to understand that the client is there to escape
everything else in his life and he needs another lecture like he needs another
ex-wife or stressful job.
Dave, if you’re going to error, error on the side that it is
better to just sometimes sit down, buy the client a glass and not take this
fitness crap too seriously. If all else fails, turn up the music, get a pile of
people moving and make sure everyone leaves laughing. If you can make that
happen a few times a week, they got what they paid for, and most importantly,
they will be back. |
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| Why Dan John is Important |
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Dan John has been mentioned many times in my writings over
the last few years, especially since he released his book, "Never Let Go,”
which I still think is an essential read for any trainer or any box owner
trying to develop a training-centric business philosophy. Dan has of course
continued to write and has released several other books and DVDs since I first
starting writing about him and I have even used some of his philosophy in
keynote addresses I have done for Perform Better.
As much as I like his work, the books are not what makes Dan
John important in our industry. Why I think he is a powerful role model for all
trainers is not what he writes, which I find funny and often brilliant, but who
he is and what he represents to all of us who work trying to make a living in
fitness.
The usual professional course of education for most trainers
in our field is to start out as a dangerous human with little practical
knowledge, but an enormous amount of theory and arrogance, and a personal
theory derived from books and magazine articles as to how a person should be
trained. These new trainers agonize over the perfect workout, over train
virtually everyone and are the crazy purist idiots that embarrass themselves at
restaurants trying to impress everyone with how clean they live and eat.
This is also, by the way, why you should never eat dinner
with trainers. It takes an hour to order the meal, as the trainer has to
discuss with the ever-patient waiter types of oil, origin of meat, freshness of
vegetables, and then humiliate the entire table as he whips out his own organic
mustard and pre-meal dried meat snack. We get it, you live pure, now order a
big hunk of carcass, drink a good beer and just workout a little harder
tomorrow. You will live and you will survive dinner out at 90% pure, but just
once realize that life, and diet, are not perfect.
Luckily, the idiot stage only lasts for a year or so and
then the trainer moves into hunger for knowledge stage where he travels the
world following the gurus and spends hours with his other trainer friends
discussing the latest Cosgrove post or Todd Durkin video. Every word is
absorbed, every nuance copied, every book read and he never misses a Perform
Better Summit, or any other training agenda, where he can stalk his heroes and
get the rare chance to ask questions and "hang out” with his Gods of fitness
philosophy.
After this phase fades, a few continue the quest for life
long education while most stagnate, trapped by their own success. Develop a
successful business, fill your life with clients and family and then never
learn anything new again is the chosen path. Over time, what you know is what
you know and a new idea has about the same chance of getting through the dense,
and usually shaven head, as a vegetarian does sneaking into a CrossFit
convention.
Which brings us back to Dan. Dan represents what we all
should be, which is a seeker of what works, not only in training, but in life
as well. His career and his life represent a never ending search for how things
work and how to not only be a good man in the classic sense, but also how to
bring that trait out in others, which alone is something to make your life’s
work.
He also represents the best of what a leader should be in
that he is fair, humble, willing to help anyone who needs or wants his help,
seeks a higher power through a lifelong career teaching how to think about
religion and higher power to students, and is not afraid to say he tried
something, believed it for awhile, and then decided he was wrong and he moves
on. His life is a testimony to passion for coaching and yet he is the
proverbial man of all seasons who, thinks, drinks now and then, is not afraid
to eat bad food, thinks and teaches about faith, will share his knowledge for a
fee but usually free whenever asked, and despite all his success will stand and
answer questions until the last knucklehead rookie leaves the room.
Perhaps the trait that he wears best, and is probably the
most important thing that a young trainer should learn from him, is that over
time you have to develop your own philosophy on training and on life as well.
Following gurus can help you get started on the trail, especially if you follow
the honest men and women in the world, such as Mike Boyle, Alwyn and Rachel
Cosgrove, Lee Burton and Gray Cook, Greg Rose, Todd Durkin, Mark Verstegen,
Coach Dos, Jason Glass, John Berardi, Eric Cressey and all the others who are
willing to do your thinking for you and then share their best and the brightest
opinions without arrogance, and usually with patience, driven by the simple
need to help others around them succeed.
I have watched Dan teach and am surprised at his patience to
share without the need to always be right, another brutal trait of the young
trainer who only knows his way or no way. Dan has spent a lifetime to finally
get the recognition he deserves; yet he takes all the new attention and success
as if he was just waiting on the side of the stage waiting for his turn to be
called. His goal for his students and readers is to emulate to learn but you
have to surpass the masters to make a difference. You are in fact the sum of
the questions you ask and your willingness to learn.
When I am asked about the future of the fitness business, I
usually respond by stating that the big box membership era is on dangerous
ground and that most of what we have presented as fitness to the public during
the last several decades is at best somewhat worthless and is mostly failing
the consumer and as a business model. There is hope, however, and the future of
our industry, and the endurance of the common belief that what we do makes a
difference in so many lives, is safe because change is coming from the trainer
up and not from the big chains that only want to sell memberships to people who
they hope they never see again.
And of course, who is nurturing this new generation of
leaders. It’s the new hero, such as Dan John and all the other gurus who are
willing to share what they know and teach those who are next to be more than
their teachers. |
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| Why People Fail |

There used to be a time in the past where I believed every
owner could succeed in this business if he or she wanted it bad enough.
Somewhere, no matter how badly beaten the person was, we could find a way to
get the person righted and financially successful. My belief was simple: No one
fails-everyone wins.
Over time, I learned that I was only half right. The
problems the owner had could indeed be identified, solved and his business
could be turned around. Applying the simple rules of business works everywhere
and if someone is failing it is because he has strayed from these rules. Figure
out the mistakes, correct the issues and this guy should be able to make money.
Intellectually, this all is logical.
Reality is a tough thing for me. I believed, and still do,
that we are doing the right thing in this business. We help people and we
change lives, which is a worthwhile way to spend your life. There are, of
course, many owners who are in the business to cheat, steal, rape, pillage and
otherwise do anything they can to take the money and run with no concern for
the damage to the client, the market, the industry or even their soul. Sadly,
there are still guys like this out there and the system hasn’t yet corrected
everyone.
But over the years I have finally come to admit that there
is another group that fails in business because that is what they want to do.
This groups fights, postures, screams and goes through the motions, but
unconsciously their train is heading for the cliff and there is little anyone
can do to prevent the catastrophe that results from their ultimate failure.
They fail because they can’t, or won’t, do what it takes to succeed. Here are a
few reasons people fail in this industry and what you can learn from these
nightmares:
- It is nobler, and you get
more attention, by suffering. This is the owner whom would have been happy
hundreds of years ago wandering the streets in dirty clothes talking about
the return of a forgotten saint, living under a bridge and eating out of a
garbage can. His suffering is his identity and if he gives that up he
loses his noble reason to fight. Today, this is the guy who works stupid
hours, makes little money, yet loves to brag about how tough the business
is but he is not giving up. He is a martyr to the gods of small business
and lives to let everyone know how tough it is, but he is paying the price
to someday make it.
This guy will never make it,
because success cancels out his right to complain to his wife how hard he is
working and how hard the business it. Money would ruin him because he is
happier as the poor, hardworking tough guy rather than being the successful guy
with money in his pocket. His identity is the suffering and he can’t bear to
lose that supposed admiration he gets for taking the daily beating and
proclaiming, "Poor, poor me the overworked business guy.”
This guy also doubles as a purist
in many cases and is the one who always shouts about him being the only guy who
can train people, who knows how to sell or who can keep this business running.
Only his magical bullshit is holding this place together and if he would ever
take a day off the whole thing would crumble to dust and blow into the streets.
No one but him has the answers and no one but him will ever have the answers,
because to recognize others you would also have to recognize that what you are
doing isn’t working and isn’t the answer.
This is the toughest guy to
identify because he always says the right things and works hard. If you are
this guy, or suspect you might be, you have to ask yourself how you feel about
money? Do you take more pride in your bank account or the struggle? Do you
really believe that you are the only one who can run that business or train
that client? Do you fight new ideas, not because they are wrong, but because
you would have to change and that those ideas might work?
- The nicest person who ever
lived. This is the owner who makes it his life’s work to carry every
worthless employee for way too many years, hates confrontation and lets
all the employees do things their way because he doesn’t want to upset
them. Every employee in this business that should be fired has a personal
horror story, such as a sick kid, a pending divorce or big bills. The
owner can’t ever correct these people due to personal guilt and every
employee knows this and plays the guy like a 2:00 a.m. drunk in a strip
club.
You owe the employees an
opportunity. You do not owe them guaranteed success. You should provide a safe
work environment, opportunity for education and advancement and the ability to
make a living wage. Once these criteria are met, it is now up to the employee
to do his share by performing the job.
The issue of course is that this
type of employee seldom if ever does the job because he has been trained not to
by the employer. Why work when you are guaranteed a paycheck for just showing
up and whining about your broken car, sick kid or husband that hates you?
Work is two ways: the owner creates
an opportunity and the employee accepts the money and does the work. If either
side fails in this, the other person should leave the game. As an owner, you
have to live with the reality that once you create opportunity and give pay,
then if the employee won’t/can’t do the work then fire his ass Monday morning
and get on it with it. There are a lot of other people out there who will do
the work if given the training and opportunity.
As a side note here, if you
constantly hire people who can’t do the job, it is either you and your training
approach, or you might be paying too little and attracting idiots, which is the
industry norm. Talent cost money and few owners are willing to pay for talent
when stupidity is so cheap
There are, of course, exceptions to
this rule. If a good employee has a bad run of luck, then work with him or her.
Cars do break, people do get divorced and things do go bad that affects good
people. You can’t, however, get into the trap that this becomes a way of life
for you and the employee.
Here is where the 3-Gs come into
affect. The rule of thumb is that once a good employee hits a bad time, such as
a divorce; give the person a couple of weeks to deal with it. At the end of
that time period, he now has to Get back in it, Get on with it and Get with it
now. If he is still a wreck, that is tough, but you still have your business to
run and your life to manage and carrying someone who will be in a funk forever
isn’t going to help you stay in business.
- The person who seeks
everyone’s opinion but does nothing. This is perhaps the most common way
to fail. This is the person who calls five times a week; then calls
someone else five times that week and then emails everyone to make sure
she understands what to do, and then, of course, does nothing.
When you are talking to her as a
business coach, you become frustrated because you realize that she is now
arguing with you about what to do and is using arguments from other coaches.
The best advice as a coach here is to walk away, and the best advice for her is
to pick someone she wants to work with, layout five things to do this week and
then get your ass moving.
You could also define this person
as the deer in the headlight person who freezes once things get tough. The
business once might have worked, but as markets or times change every business
struggles. This owner is the one who brings in a bunch of different experts and
then works them against each other looking for that magic combination of words
or that magical theory that will turn the business in a few days.
The only magic in hard business is
selling someone something everyday. Pick one line of advice and go to work. Get
some leads, sell come clients and work your way out of the mess. It is that
simple, and it is that hard.
The saddest thing about these
clients is that this group is usually the best and the brightest who could
really be someone. The inability to pull the trigger and do the work prevents
them using that talent to make money. These are the ones who have a checklist
of five things and a week later she hasn’t done a single one of those things,
but she now has a bigger list of even better things she has gathered from being
on the phone all week instead of getting into the gym and doing meaningful
work.
Failure in this business hurts all of us. That greedy
bastard that was selling paid-in-full memberships the day before he closed
rocks that market for years. The owner who fails overwhelmed by the noble
struggle still failed and took down the bank, the parents and everyone else who
believed in him. Failure is failure and there is really nothing noble about a
valiant effort.
Most of success in this business is mental, meaning you are
prepared to succeed and are willing to do what it takes to get there. Some of
you, though, have that hidden self-destruct button that gets hit every time you
start to get it going.
If you have been in business for a number of years, but
still haven’t made it yet financially, ask yourself if you are the roadblock to
your own success. The difference between making money and failing might be
staring at you in the mirror every morning. |
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| Risk is the Essence of Life |
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In almost all small business,
owners fall into two categories: the ones who simply focus on hanging on to
what they already have and the ones who seek growth and are willing to accept a
little risk in the process. The first category is called maintenance people and
the second group is called risk takers.
Maintenance owners focus on just
one thing: keeping what they have already achieved even if what they have is
not enough to be successful over time. Owners that plan their month by just
matching the same numbers as the facility did last year are examples of a
maintenance management style. Owners who hang on to equipment for an extra year
past its life span, put off painting their facility for another six months,
rip-off programming instead of buying proven systems and who hire the youngest
and dumbest staff because they can be hired cheaply are all signs that this
operator is more focused on just keeping things going rather than trying to
grow the business.
Risk traders are much more rare
in small business and are willing to take a little risk if it will give them an
advantage in the market, or if that risk will allow them to grow their business
to a higher financial level. Risk is also where life is lived, out there on the
edge where the best things happen to those who seek adventure.
Moderation, or seeking to
maintain everything and avoid any extreme, is where life is lost. Who, for
example, ever shouted at the birth of their child, or during a wild vacation,
or even perhaps the day you first fell in love, that "Yes, it was an
unbelievably moderate day?” I would rather drink the wine and do a few extra
pushups than deal with the restraints of living a moderate life.
The risk takers are also the
owners who market each month, invest early in proven programs, have a more
mature and better trained staff capable of generating income and who are
willing to sacrifice a little now in the business, such as painting the club as
needed each year, in order to achieve higher retention numbers later. Risk
traders are willing to gamble a little if it will improve their business and
are the ones who seek growth rather than taking the chance of becoming stagnant
in the market.
In any small business, only
about 20 percent of the players make money, about 60 percent just do enough to
stay in business and the bottom 20 percent need to get out and get a job
somewhere because they should have never, ever, opened their own business. Risk
traders are in included in the top 20 percent and maintenance people are the 60
percent and perhaps a small percentage of the bottom dwellers.
Perhaps the biggest problem with
becoming a hardcore maintenance management style is that you end up relying on
tools and techniques that are no longer effective. There are the guys still out
there in the market place who keep doing what they did 10 years ago and now
wonder why it no longer works.
For example, in today’s market
there is pretty good evidence that most of worked in the 90s doesn’t really
work today for the club or the member. Long, slow cardio has been proven
ineffective for weight loss, crunches destroy your back, circuit training has
about a six week window and then fails for the client, and most standard club
business practices, such as the pursuit of pure membership volume, is getting
harder to do since so many owners are now flocking toward low price and there
are now too many fighting for a shrinking segment of the same market share.
Staying focused on what is
important in your business is the foundation of what it takes to be financially
successful over time and often is what separates the maintenance people from
the risk takers who make money. The key to developing a focused management
style is learning how to keep your business focused daily on creating revenue
as well as learning how to project your business into the future over time.
Focused management helps you avoid the new, bad idea and makes the need to
chase the bright shiny distraction less appealing.
Part of a risk taker management
style is learning to be proactive in your
business instead of operating as a reactive to your competition and to what
they are doing in the market. To become proactive, you need to understand the
importance of planning. Every owner should have these planning tools in motion
at all times:
·A plan for the coming
month
·A plan for the next
24-hours for your staff
·A plan for the next 90
days for growth
·Other planning tools
you will need in your business
·A12-month marketing
plan
·A staff training plan
·A member service plan
Most owners are totally reactionary by nature. If the guy
down the street runs an ad, you run an ad; if the guy down the street lowers
his price, you lower your price; if sales slow down for a day or two, you panic
and run crazy price specials hoping you can pack the club overnight.
The guy down the street is not any better of an operator
than you probably are, but he is trying to move forward, and even a weak plan
is better than no plan or no action. He too is running ads under the same
conditions that you are in your business — without a long-term plan, and probably
in reaction to current market conditions or to what he views his competitors
are doing.
There are many problems with being a reactionary manager,
but perhaps the main one is that you let business happen to you--you
don’t make it happen or create the business you want. This means you’re
not creating or growing your business, or your revenue, by a plan, but rather you’re
letting your business be dictated by the surrounding, short-term market conditions.
Another name for this is situational management, which means you react to
whatever situation or catastrophe that is in front of you at the time rather
then working off a set, well thought out plan that keeps you focused on what is
important in your business over time.
For example, let’s say a club owner wants to generate 60
new memberships a month. Most club owners do set a sales number they would like
to achieve that month and most do some random marketing and then hope for the best.
Their sales people may be given a few quotas and the owner may increase
marketing that month; but there is still no actual plan in place to generate sales.
Setting a number is just a small part of focusing your business. Remember that
it is not just setting the number that is important, but the "how I will make
money and make that number happen” and the "what is my written plan to make
money” that is really the most important part of the equation.
What kind of owner are you? Do you constantly seek growth
and are willing to risk what you have now for something bigger later or are you
the owner that thinks good enough is good enough and you struggle to keep what
you have?
This also applies to employees too. Many people get stuck
in jobs they hate because the known, such as a consistent paycheck, is a
stronger anchor than risking your security for something you do love and that
would move your career forward. The problem with this is that at some point you
wake up, maybe at a birthday that ends with a zero, which is always an event
that gets most people thinking, and you realize that a large chunk of your life
slipped by and you are nowhere now and going nowhere in the future. Sadly, you
become what you fear most, which is a dead end job with no future and no chance
for you to become the person you should have been.
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| Perfection is the Enemy of Success |
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There is no such thing as perfect in small business and
seeking perfection can often kill what could have been a successful operation.
Seeking perfection is based upon the premise, "Build it and
they will come.” This old movie line strongly states the belief system of an
owner who wastes immense time and money trying to buy the perfect club.
This is the owner who will spends three days at a trade show
going from equipment booth to equipment booth assembling the "perfect” line of
equipment. He tries every piece, makes a list and then orders random stuff from
10 different suppliers. His belief is that if he can just find the perfect line
then members will seek him out and stay forever because he is the only one in
the market who knows equipment.
This is also the guy who builds a new club and then goes
$2,000,000 over budget building something too big and stuffing it with every
piece of equipment he could cram into the shell. His thought here is that he
will crush the competitors since he has more stuff and a bigger club than
anyone else in the market. He obsesses over every detail and spends more than
the club can ever return believing that the biggest training floor and the
biggest locker rooms will be the determiner between failure and financial
success.
Even the big chain players fall for that trap. How would you
like to put $30,000,000 into a club and then discover that you have the same
retention problems that the little guy down the street has, the one who you
laughed at when you opened against him, and that this huge box you created does
little to attract and even less to keep members.
Even the trainer heads suffer from the disease of perfect.
If only he can attend enough workshops, join enough mastermind groups and get enough
certifications he will become the perfect trainer able to create the perfect
workout. This is the guy who runs his own picture in the newspaper and on the
website and then lists all his accumulated initials behind his name. This
trainer also becomes the guy who is the most frustrated when he realizes that
all that education makes him knowledgeable, but hasn’t done much to create
wealth in his life. This is also the guy who can spend two days with the
Cosgrove’s or Durkin and not hear a word they say about business, but who will
walk away with 20 pages of notes about the perfect dynamic warm up.
What we have to realize is that perfect is not a business
plan. In fact, the search for perfection is what kills many fitness businesses,
and many more trainers, because at some point everyone realizes that there is
no perfection and if there was, the clients couldn’t care less anyway.
We also have to realize that anyone who spends that much
time and money to educate himself or build the perfect box isn’t doing it for
the client, he is doing it for himself and his own ego. Perfection is all about
you and little if anything to do with the client. We can lie to ourselves and
tell everyone that when this big $9,000,000 gym is done it will generate big
money by attracting members, but in reality, the box is nothing more than a
monument to our own ego and is nothing more than a shrine to little dicks
everywhere
What the clients do care about is results delivered by
someone who gives a damn about them. If the member were really the target, then
the choices would be different. For example, the owner who buys five treads
each from every major maker tells everyone that he wants to give the members
variety and that this concept sells in the market.
The truth is, however, that the members would simply love a
lot of good treads that have adequate replacement parts so nothing stays down
long when it breaks, and it will. Will a guy with six brands on the floor stock
parts for all six? Not likely, but the ego part of the equation is that the
owner got a lot of attention from the vendors, probably got some free stuff,
and can be a rock god at the trades shows getting invited to parties and
dinners.
Keeping the member in the top of mind position is where the
money is made in the business, but often the member slides to the bottom of the
pile behind personal ego, showing off to the competitors and creating a
business that is a testament to your own self-satisfaction. This is why so many
small training clubs make a lot of money; the trainer cares and gets results
even if the place isn’t a beautiful physical plant and this is also why big
boxes struggle these days. Members are beyond endless rows of equipment and
actually want results, something the box players never designed into their
business plans.
If the member was truly top of mind with the other trainers,
the trainer would pick one guru to follow for information, attend a few
workshops a year to stay current and then spend the rest of the time studying
business, facility design and member service. The hardest part to grasp here is
that once you achieve a certain level of competence as a professional
everything else is then about delivering results to a satisfied customer, and
all the information in the world is worthless if you can’t knock five pounds
off a chubby housewife and then get her in shape over time.
The simple rule is that perfection almost always works
against success for the member. Creating a member driven service business is
the plan, but to achieve that you have to park your ego at the door and
remember that the fitness business is nothing more than helping people get in
better shape over time at a place where they are respected for the money they
spend with you. Every decision you make has to reflect only one thing; the
member has to stay at top of mind.
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| Searching for the Perfect Club |
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Huge isn't Always Better
At some point you cross a line where just enough becomes too
much.
One scoop of ice cream is nice; three becomes a stomachache.
A few glasses of wine with friends makes for a relaxing evening, but after
several bottles one of those friends often becomes a drunken ass. Muscle and strength is beautiful; too much
and you’re a freak on Muscle and Fiction. And we don’t even want to start on
the fine line between, "Wow, that woman is hot” and "Those giant fake boobs are
so hilarious.”
Somewhere in the fitness world we also let, "More is better,”
become the standard we all sought, but after searching for the perfect club for
so many years I can safely state that enormous physical plants do not guarantee
a good experience, and in most cases the bigger the club the worse the workout.
Fitness is shrinking and what used to take thousands of
square feet can now be done better in smaller spaces. In the 90s, we used to
put a premium on the size of the workout floor and every Gold’s Gym in America
was proud to advertise how much workout space they had. It seemed logical at
the time: the more space you had meant the more equipment you had, and the more
equipment you had to use the better workout you could get. More meant variety
and the larger the club the better it must have been outfitted for the ultimate
workout experience.
Recently, I visited a large box club that was a part of a
national chain. The club was over 100,000 square feet and I was there on a
weekday night. It took me over 10 minutes once I was in the parking lot to find
a space and get to the door. Check-in was packed and there was another 10
minutes getting a day pass. I was in this for over 20 minutes and was still no
further than the front desk.
Just as I started back toward the workout floors, a sales
person appeared and it took me another five minutes to convince him that I
wasn’t a potential sale, but that I was from out of town and just there for a
day pass.
It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but the locker rooms, which
were also huge, were in the back of the club, which added a long wander about
in a 100,000 square feet. Once out of there, I was off in search of the workout
floor. This club had what seemed like acres of fixed plane, single joint
circuit equipment with hardly anyone using it. The classes seemed to be going
well, the free weight area had people and the small functional area was packed.
Working out in this behemoth was an exercise in frustration.
We are talking about one of the bigger clubs in the country and yet there was
no space for a warm up, there was no place to toss a med ball and there was no
space to swing a kettle. If there was anything amusing about this place, it was
that I found myself standing in a corner of a $33 million dollar club using a
few dollars worth of equipment that the owners felt was secondary and stuck it
in a corner.
Despite what they hype, working out with several thousand of
your closest friends in not a sales point. This lack of space, the inability to
move and workout, the shear waste of equipment and the stupidity of creating a
huge club that locks people into tiny spaces are all reasons that not only the
giant players are struggling but the low priced guys too. Somewhere along the
line, the member has learned that it isn’t the tool that builds a good house;
it is the skill of the carpenter.
What is the perfect
club these days? To me it is smaller, with about 600 members max, has coaching
for sale at various levels, yet I can come and workout on my own with a plan
provided by the club. And what about the price? How much do you think the top
5% of the members of a $10 club or some mass production national chain would
pay to get out of those hellholes?
The financial future of fitness, meaning which businesses
will generate the highest net per member, is not trying to stuff an impersonal
box with 10,000 members. The future is creating a service intensive,
training-centric business where everyone who is a member gets the maximum help
and, therefore, the maximum results.
If you own a box, the challenge is to create a price
structure that allows you to generate a higher return from fewer members. This
is a concept, however, that is so foreign to these operators that most will
fail rather than adjust. Seeking volume as your only business plan must be like
the person who takes that first hit of crack and then ruins the rest of his
life seeking the next high. Training clubs with less than 750 members are
generating over $2 million a year, which is often more than big boxes can do
with 3000 members. Making that transition mentally seems harder than making if
physically in the clubs.
The industry is changing and the perfect club in the future
just might be that 6,000-10,000 square foot training club that has that
intimate feel and that becomes something the consumer looks forward to several
times a week rather than trudging through a giant parking lot and trying to get
through a workout that must be endured or survived rather than valued.
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| The Issue that Confuses Most Owners of Box Clubs or Training Facilities is Price |
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The issue that confuses most owners of box clubs or training
facilities is price. When clubs hurt for business, the owner figures all it
could be is the price, and immediately he lowers his price believing that once
the price comes down, the memberships go up.
The low-price guys have believed this for a decade and the
value chains, such as Planet Fitness, have built a company based upon price and
the illusion that they exist solely for the beginner who is threatened by the
bodybuilders, who don’t really exist anymore anyway. Talking about dated
marketing: trying to scare a consumer with a boogey man that isn’t out there
anymore. The low-priced guys are also now gobbling each other up like a
starving jackal turning on its injured buddy. They are creating their own
problems by mass copying of the same business plan by so many new players and
those problems are going to get worse for them as more and more $9-19 players
think the number is magic.
But what about the rest of us who don’t want to charge $9
for someone to rent a treadmill and who will never get any help as a member? You
can compete against anyone if you stop chasing memberships as the primary
source of revenue and start thinking differently about the market and your
club.
The training clubs are killing the box clubs when it comes
to generating revenue, but most box club owners just don’t believe the numbers
these guys create in their businesses, or that they can do it in their own box.
Selling nothing but memberships as your primary cash generator simply does not
work anymore, and no matter how whacky you play with the $19 price, the volume
will never be back again.
As I have noted in other blogs and on my Thomas Plummer Late
Night Edition mini blog, if a box is doing a million a year in net membership
revenue, but only about $84,000 a year in training where is the growth
potential? Do you really think, with all the competition that is out there and
more on the way at all price points, that you can continue to grow the million,
or will you finally realize that the only growth potential left in the industry
is getting the training revenue to match the membership revenue.
Most owners yell bullshit here because they can’t believe it
can be done. Rick Mayo, owner of North Point Personal Training, generates $1.3
million a year in his facility, which is only 6,000 square feet. This business
concept could easily be picked up and dropped into any box, such as the Gold’s
Gyms that used to rule New Jersey for so many years, and in fact he is already
doing this as a side business. But the number is so high it sounds impossible
to achieve for guys who have spent their careers chasing nothing but
memberships. It is hard to believe, but an owner who spends $4,000,000 to open
a Gold’s can’t figure out how to get a few hundred members to pay for training.
But let’s look at it another way. Take $1.3 and divide that
number by the 330 members he has, which equals about $328 per month per member
average. You are telling me box owner that you have 2,000 members, but can’t
find 300 who will pay more for some type of training? Even if you charge half
of the numbers illustrated below, you can’t find 600 members in your base that
would pay for the extra help and support? Rick’s prices, by the way, range from
$99 for a template membership up to $2100 per month for unlimited 1/1 training,
and this is north of Atlanta, not downtown Manhattan.
Of course these members are there, but no one can see them
because everyone is blind from staring into the membership sun. Sell more
memberships. Sell more memberships. Sell more… Try selling memberships, but
sell the same gross dollar amount of training too each month. You would have to
be a totally incompetent owner of a box to not be able to take a few hundred of
your members out of thousands and turn them into training fools.
But to do this, you first have to realize several things.
First of all, 1/1 training is too limiting and should be less than 15% of your
entire training revenue. Secondly, stop selling sessions and packages dumb ass.
There is not money in using this antique tools, just like there isn’t any money
in paying aerobics instructors $40 per hour and then charging the members $19 a
month. Just because we were once stupid doesn’t mean we have to stay that way.
Pricing has changed over the last three years and the
emphasis now should be on showing the lowest price you can to attract the
widest range of members along with a layered price structured that appeals to
the different clients in the market sorted by interest, age and price.
Wow Thom, didn’t you use to teach us to be the highest price
clubs in town? Yes, I did, but would anyone still be reading this nonsense if I
was talking about the same things I did in 1995. Business changes, the members
change, the competition changes, the economy changes, which all means you
cannot use the same tools to make money we did 15 years ago. Many of you change
spouses more often than you change your equipment or business plan. You will
pay to get rid of the silly wanker you are married to, but won’t consider that
your price structure and method of training are no longer viable and needs to
be divorced too?
This also applies to training people too. Most training
people build failure into their business plan by limiting their program to only
the smallest segment in the market, which is the middle-age white business dude
and his wife, counting on just 1/1 to pay the bills. Sessions and packages are
also very limiting and have to be eliminated here as well.
All of Rick’s clients are on long-term memberships and the
Cosgrove’s (Alwyn and Rachel), who could probably claim credit for virtually
reinventing the training club model, won’t even do 1/1 in their club, and they
are doing a million a year in 6,000 square feet with only about 280 members.
Here is a sample pricing model and whom it applies to in the
market. This is the essence of what we will be teaching in 2012 in our
workshops along with creating the role of the assessor who does nothing but
feed the trainers. This model will have to be adjusted depending on the market.
That means when you read this and yell, "This is BS, I charge $XXX per client
now,” it means you have to adjust your prices for your market you anal retentive
miscreant:
·Unlimited traditional 1/1: $899-2100 per month x
12 months. This is a guided program based upon full support. The more stuff you
can add the more you can charge. The client would train with a coach 2-3 times
per week and then be guided into other support training if he wants to come
more often. This is targeted at the elite typical client most trainers seek.
·Limited 1/1 training, 5 times per month, no roll
over for the sessions: $399 (based upon $80 per session) per month x 12 months.
This is targeted at the elite typical client most trainers seek.
·Unlimited small group training (2-4
clients/members) offered at $249-349 per month with no limits on how many times
he or she can attend: This is offered about 26-40 times per week depending on
the clientele, age of the club and number of members. This tool appeals to a
totally different segment than 1/1. Personal training is just to boring for too
many people and there is an entire clientele that likes small group dynamics.
This group will usually be in the 35-55 age range, a little more affluent and
not the typical person who seeks 1/1 and the image that goes with it but also
doesn’t want to be part of the big group energy either.
·Limited small group training (2-4) people per
group, offered at $149-249 per month for 12 months: This group is limited to 5
sessions per month. Keep in mind that every level includes the one below it.
This means that if you sign up for 1/1 training you can use the gym as you
want, drop into small group or take part in large group training as you desire.
·Group personal training (12-15 per group with a
coach): This is the heart of group pt and replaces your boot camp model. This
is offered at $99-149 per month and is on the schedule for 8-12 times per week
with unlimited attendance, although most clients die at about three times. This
is tightly structured and you do the same workout for two weeks. This is
nothing more than a group ass beating to music.
No one should be allowed to attend here
unless they can keep up so beginners have to be brought up to speed using
fundamentals for 30 days or so as needed. Contrast this with the small group
that changes daily, is more intimate coaching and where everyone goes at their
own speed. The client for this is not a 1/1 client. The client for this is not
a small group client. The client for this is the 24-40 person who likes music,
a challenge and the group dynamic. Most box clubs do not do well with this
person and this potential member is happily doing crazy crap in someone’s
garage somewhere because the box owner can’t figure out how to train this guy
without a bench press, fixed equipment and curls, tools this client refuses to
use or even try anymore.
·Template programs, offered at $49-99 per month.
This program gives the client a workout/program design to follow for about 30
days. This is not personally designed, but more of a template. The training
clubs would be on the high end of the rate and would spend about 20 minutes
with a client once a month. The rate for box clubs should be about $20 more
than you are charging for a base membership. For example, if you are charging
$19, this would be $39. If you are already at $39, you can simply post workouts
on the walls in the club that change weekly giving every member a "trainer”
without the cost, giving you an advantage over the cheap players merely renting
equipment and providing no help.
The keys here are that you are appealing to a wide variety
of clients, there are price points for an even wider range of potential members
and that you are offering totally different products. Do not make the mistake
of trying to blend the levels by offering one of each product each month. This
assumes that all clients are alike rather than targeting different clients for
different products.
It is going to be a good year. Get your prices right, get
your people trained, get an assessor in place to sell training and make some
money this year. This could be your best year yet if you get ready for some
change. Next
up for us is Charlotte, January 19-20 - Drop
by and get a plan for next year. |
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| Why the Trial Membership Works |
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Most of you are now working on your marketing for next year.
The core element I still recommend; primarily because it is still such a
successful tool, is some form of the trial membership. Here are the three main
ways to use this tool and why it works:
The 21-Day Risk Free Trial
This is the tool that could be used by mainstream fitness
facilities that do not have a lot of competition. Do not forget that all
marketing is supposed to do is to get leads in the door. Many rookie owners get
upset that people show up but no one signs up. That is a sales problem, not a
marketing problem and the marketing worked if someone comes through the door.
In this trial, the guest would get full access to the club
and should be part of the group personal training or small group offerings.
Remember that if you treat them like members they become members.
This also replaces the older 14-day trial we used to
recommend. The 21-day is a smarter version that has proved to attract more
leads and has more perceived value. Do not use this tool to attract potential
members, get leads into the door, and then drop close the person the first
visit hard. Trial works because people expect to get a few visits in before
they decide to become a member. Lying to them by promising them a trial and
then banging them hard once they are in the door will work against you over
time.
I still believe in offering incentives, such as a kick ass
messenger bag and a free month, if they sign up by day 10. Incentives still
work if they are positive and you should be thinking carrot not a bull whip on
the ass, which is what the old take away drop the price today and today only
close is.
The Paid Trial Membership
If you are a mainstream club, run this at half your monthly.
For example, if you charge $39 per month for one member then run a paid trial
for 30 days @ $19. If you are in a super competitive market, then you might try
30 days @ $9 to mess with the low price guys down the street.
Training clubs should be in the 30 days for $49-89 range in
most markets except in New York or other major metro areas where it could be as
high as $129. Again, most trainers fight this concept because they are afraid
they have to train too many people too cheaply, but put everyone into groups if
you can and give yourself a chance to get some new blood into the business.
Most training clubs average about 4-7 new sales a month but
you can’t grow until you average 15 or higher and you can’t do that if you
don’t get leads into the door. Also remember that you can be too elite and many
of you slowly starve your business because you are so worried about offending
the 20-30 clients you started with your first few months.
Closing rates for all trial memberships of any kind should
be about 60-65% of everyone through the door over a 30-day period of time. If
someone starts at the end of month, just count that person in the month they
sign up and don’t go back to the first month. All we are looking for here is
gross average and the number of new members you get over a 30-day period.
The Extended Paid Trial
I like an extended paid trial that allows the guest to get
fully involved over a longer period of time almost as a course they would sign
up for at a community college. Phil and Michelle Dozois and Alwyn and Rachel
Cosgrove both do forms of these quite successfully and we have had huge success
in our women’s-only club on Cape Cod using versions of the Biggest Loser to
attract women we now know would have never shown up through any other
marketing.
You can call this program NewYou60 and it is targeted at the
person who is not experienced in fitness. It is an extended trial for 60 days
and includes everything you can offer, such as nutritional guidance, full
training, full classes and anything else you can throw into the mix.
Pricing for this depends on the market but you can be
aggressive here. If you are using it as a true trial, keep it in the $69-99
range. If you have the stuff and team to add value, then price it in the
$149-249 range and include items such as workout journals, team weigh-ins, tee
shirts, etc. that give it a course feel.
This would work well in markets where you have competition
but you also have been marketing for a while and need a new tool to pry out
those leads that haven’t responded to the paid trials.
Use one of these for your marketing starting in January and
stick with that tool for at least 90 days. You can mix these and follow one,
90-day period with another using a different tool since each one is designed to
target a separate potential member.
Remember that "to know you is to love you” and that trial
marketing is designed to get leads into your club for an extended period of
time where you can prove your patience and caring attitude. As always, you are
still looking for a 60-65% overall closing rate, or conversion into regular
members, no matter what trial you use.
Market well and kill it next year.
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| We Chose to be Who We Are |
Perhaps the most amazing thing about the broken housing
market is the blame game that everyone connected seems to playing and the
complete lack of any type of responsibility by anyone, which is also something
I see everyday in this industry too.
There was an article on one of the news services talking
about how bad the housing market was hit in the lower west side of Florida, and
although it is showing signs of life and coming back, there are still many
homes in foreclosure and people in trouble. The troubling part is that no one,
and I mean absolutely no one, is accepting any responsibility for the position
they are in now.
One particular woman stood out. She rode the wave, cashed
out of her house, acquired a new loan, which of course was done with little
down and little qualification, and purchased a house dependent on her ability
to pay her bills if nothing at all changed in her life. She also took the cash
equity she had accumulated in her first house and spent it on a car, trips and
updating the new place.
Now she lost her job and is getting foreclosed and is
blaming the terrible banks and mortgage companies for "letting” her get into
this mess. It also went on to say that she cashed out the equity and spent it,
saved nothing, had little reserves and in other words should have never, ever
been in that new house.
Why doesn’t anyone blame her for being stupid? She made the
decision, she spent all her cash, she saved nothing and she signed the papers
by choice. Her situation is 100% her fault no matter how much she whines and no
matter how sad the situation is.
Sadly, there are too many fitness business owners in the
same situation. They hire stupid staff, don’t train them, follow 13 different
advisors looking for the magical cure, leverage all their money into ego
projects, refuse to change when things don’t work and then blame everyone else
for their lack of money, failing marriage and failing business. People arrive
at bad places in their life through a long string of decisions that constantly
lead to the present. You not only made the first decision, you probably made
them all and where you are is where you deserve to be.
Here are a few rules of life and personal responsibility
that can be listed in just a sentence or two:
- You hired them, they are
only as good as you make them: Too many managers or owners are so insecure
that they hire people they can step on or dominate and end up with people
that can’t perform at any level. Don’t blame your people, blame the person
who hired them and then didn’t train them. Bad employees who are
constantly in trouble? Stop hiring children and start hiring adults and
always try and hire people smarter than you are.
- If you are wearing it, you
ate it: Fat is self-induced. Lack of fitness is self-induced. I would like
to blame my travel schedule for 10 pounds but it is my lazy ass that won’t
get up before the workshops and move.
- If you’re unhappy in your
marriage, you are the one that agreed to get married. Stop blaming your
spouse for not "letting” you reach your potential. No one is holding you
back except yourself and your unwillingness to fight for what you want.
Yes, your significant is a pain in the ass and if you don’t like it pick
up your ass and move it somewhere else.
- If your kid is a prick it
is because you made him that way: The schools didn’t ruin the kid. The
friends didn’t ruin the kid. You had him and he is a prick because you
didn’t do the work.
- If only my boss would….:
It isn’t your boss that is stopping you from being brilliant, it is your
inability to stand up and get a job you like and can do. It is smarter to
work hard in a job you love than being forced to work hard in a job you
hate and now you have to bust ass to just keep a crappy job.
- If you’re broke, stop
spending money: I know your cell phone is six months old…poor you, but
walk away from the spending the money. If you don’t have six months of
reserve capital for your life in the bank you don’t understand money. This
is especially true if you are still living in your parent’s house, but
drive a nice car. Grow up, get your own place and own life and be thankful
that you realized what a loser you are and moved on.
- But you don’t understand
how bad this area is: I do understand, which is why they make big bus
things to haul your butt to cities where things are better. Yes, sometimes
you can’t simply pick up and leave but more often than not you can make a
break. Seek the money and where it can be made.
- I tried that once and
failed: Everyone fails and that means everyone. Failing at something
doesn’t mean you are a failure; it just means you weren’t ready for the
adventure. If you do fail, take the responsibility and move on and just
win bigger next time.
- My parents are anchors:
There is often truth in this one but if you are over 18 ignore the bad
advice and do what you have to do. Letting the mistakes of your parents
ruin your chance of ever trying is wrong on so many levels. Parents want
to protect their children but you have to try, fail, try and win before
good stuff will ever happen. Learn from the younger kids and just ignore
the old people.
- I am not good at…: Not
good at sales? Take a course. Not good at program design. Take a course?
Not good with money. Find someone who is and have that person teach you.
There is a big difference between being uneducated in something and just
plain stupid.
- Weird personal habits
getting in the way? You choose to smoke, drink too much, eat too much,
cheat on your spouse too much, do drugs too much, waste too much time and
whine too much. All that can end today.
Personal responsibility is what separates the doers and
makers in our culture from the wanters and the needers. The current slang now
is the "1%.” This group of people control wealth and make money because they
have taken responsibility for who they are in life, the companies they build
and the wealth they create.
The grunge guy in the sleeping bag at the park, who still
lives in his mother’s basement and smokes a few dozen doobies a day (yes,
showing age here) who cries unfair has yet to take responsibility for anything
in his life. Have big school loans? You now have an education and if you
couldn’t afford it then don’t go and no one made you major in novels of the 17thcentury.
The quality of your life is simply controlled by the
responsibility you choose to accept versus the power you are willing to give
others. Stated again, we chose to be who we are.
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| Where Will You Be in Your Life Five Years from Now? |

This simple question has also become the most powerful
question I can ask anyone who has come to me for help and guidance through the
years. My point is, if you don’t know where you are going then no one,
including me, can help you get there.
The point of this discussion always returns to one of the
most basic concepts of personal development: if you know where you want to go
we can build a plan to get there together, but if you are unclear on the
direction you wish to travel there isn’t a person in your life who can offer
guidance that matters.
It is save to say after over 30 years of coaching and
mentoring, I can bluntly say that most people have no idea of what they really
want from their lives, but most seem oblivious to the question and what it
means in their life. But if you continue to ask more deeply you will also hear
that these same people are fairly sure that they don’t have "it" yet. "It" is
defined as the big thing, the meaning of your life, the goal you believe you
should have that will lead to a fulfilled and satisfying life.
The point of contention is, just what is "it?" In other
words, would you recognize "it" if it ran you over with a bus? "It" for most
people is defined as something out there in the future that they will figure
out someday but right now they would rather not think about it too much.
Thinking requires growth and for many bus tracks on your back are preferable,
and easier to take, than a few hours spent working and defining what your life
could be.
This lack of definition leads to the randomness in so many of the
careers of the people I have met through the years. Too many in our line of
work are simply doing whatever job was available and it is rare to find anyone
who has planned his or her life's work.
Most are doing work they don't like, for people they don't
respect, living in towns that don't interest them and even stuck with
significant others that they might have outgrown years ago and who work against
finding your own direction and fulfillment. The first step toward achieving
personal growth, and defining a life that you create yourself, is to take
responsibility for your own life and choose to live at a higher level rather
than accepting whatever comes your way. Again, why should you just take what
you get rather than go after exactly what you want in your life?
Life is motion, and the process of constant progress toward a
fulfilled life is the most important work anyone can seek. Happiness and
satisfaction are the result of this progress, which can only be defined as your
ability to set, target and achieve what you want, and only what youwant, and not wasting your life chasing the dreams of others.
What magic are we seeking here? Focusing your life forward,
and answering where will you be in five years, is the simple act of writing
goals that clearly state what you want, when you want it, and who you will be
personally when you get there.
Focused goal setting is the tool you use to set your life in
motion. We all have dreams that keep us occupied during idle times, while doing
boring work or during that last five minutes before we fall asleep. But these
are just dreams and fantasies and none will ever be achieved unless you
constantly create written goals to turn those dreams into reality.
What is a goal? Goals are definable targets set in the future.
Definable means that once you achieved, you can clearly recognize that you have
accomplished that step in your life.
Achieving goals requires you to focus your energy, time and
thought into the process by first stating the goal and then working backwards
by developing all the small steps it would take you to get there. For example, if you want to own your own
business, you might first clearly define what this business will look like, how
much money does it take to build it and where will this business be and how it
will work.
Once you know this, you can create a series of steps over time
to get there. In other words, start with the goal at some date in the future
and then build a series of steps in that time period working backwards to get
there. If it is a worthy goal, it will take more of everything you have and are
to reach it, and often the bigger the goal the more reward on arrival.
It is important to understand that goal setting is just not
"things.” Goal setting is who you want to be someday, where you want to go
professionally, how you want to live your life and what you want in that life.
This information, and a new workbook I am creating for our
clients next year, derived from what I have called the Starbuck’s moment. For
over 25 years I have gone quarterly to the corner shop and set for several
hours projecting my life ahead. What do I want to achieve in business? How do I
want to improve my life? What do I want to learn? Where do I want to live and
how much money do I need to get there? All these questions and more filled many
journals over the year and the process has defined my life and has kept me
focused on the things that make me happy and that lead to the biggest rewards
while keeping me from chasing the flash of the moment that is bright and shiny
but doesn’t get me to where I want to be.
Over the years I have been teaching this quietly to clients
and asking them to do the same thing before we work together. As noted above,
if they know what they want then putting a plan together to help them get there
is a lot easier.
An outcome of this teaching is that a consistent theme
appeared, which became Life in 3s™. Just set 3 goals, today, this week, for the
month, for the year, for three years and for the next five, and you will
achieve more than you ever thought was possible. Mastering goal setting is
simple: get three things done today that moves you toward the big things and
those larger life goals will take care of themselves. One day at a time focused
on getting just a few things done that makes you happy and that will lead to a
life fulfilled.
The Art of Setting Goals
Setting goals is not hard and the word "art” refers to the
fact that goal setting is personal and will reflect who you are and what you
want. Here are a few guidelines to get you started. The exercises themselves
will help keep you focused but after awhile you might just resort to blank journal
for your quarterly review:
- Write the goals as if they
are already done: For example, "I will be living in Denver, Colorado in
five years working as a chef in a downtown restaurant.”
- Concentrate on what you want
in your life and eliminate what you think you should be doing to satisfy
others. It is your life and you need to live it on your terms chasing your
own dreams.
- Don’t be afraid to write down
everything that pops into your head. Keep your work private and don’t be
afraid to write what you really want even if it would be embarrassing now
for someone else to read it.
- If it isn’t in writing, then
it isn’t real. Goals written become the threads of your life. Goals
unwritten remain dreams.
- Forget the limits. Think big
and create big.
- Goals equal time/How much
time do you have left in your life and what are the most important things
you want from that time
- Make the goal so clear you
can visualize and see it in your head
- Don’t forget the small goals
- Write "I am” rather than "I
will”
- Realize that goals will
change over time as you age and mature
- Write every three months
(your Starbuck’s moment) for the rest of your life/In a life fulfilled
there is always more to see, do and accomplish
- Accept full responsibility
for your life. Your life is your fault and there are no excuses or no one
to blame. Living in the past achieves nothing and the future seldom turns
out as bad as we fear. Live today, set a path for tomorrow and take full
responsibility for who you are and who you will be
Areas you might explore during your goal setting session and
some examples:
- Personal development (finish a course/sign up
for a workshop/take camera courses/work on your personal health and fitness)
- Family (spend time with your parents/plan a
family vacation/quiet time with your significant other)
- Money (new ventures/growing your personal
income/financial planning/retirement goals/expanding your business/start a
savings plan)
- Career/occupation/your life’s work (getting
further education for your job/attending workshops/learning new skill sets that
give you an edge/planning to change careers and what you might need)
- Fun/trips/adventures (run a marathon/enter a
triathlon/plan a ski trip/plan a month off to hike the mountains)
- Future dreams (anything counts here that is
important to you/career changes/major life changes/moving to the city of your
dreams/opening your first business/getting married)
- Retirement (how much will you need/when is the
date/when would you have enough to live your life on your own terms even if you
decide to keep on working/where would you want to live)
- Spiritual life/giving back in your life (If you
have a good life what are you doing to give back or share with others/what are
you doing to explore your spiritual side)
- Your business (what can you do to grow it/where
is it going/how will you eventually get out of it/do you want to open another
one)
- Toys (what toys, loot, personal goodies are on
your someday list)
Here are some exercises you can use to get started. These are
only just a guide and the more often you work with these the more variables
that will pop into your head. The first time you do these, you might do them in
this order:
- Your Day in 3s: What three
things can you do tomorrow that will move your life and your dreams
forward? Buy a box of index cards and write three things, one on each of
three cards, and carry those cards with you that day. Don’t end your day
until those three things are done. Do this every single day, even the days
you don’t go to work. Remember that the single item on the card might be
anything from calling your parents to enrolling in an advanced course.
Just three things, done everyday, add up to a solid three months of
accomplishments.
- List three things you will
start tomorrow, and make them part of your life for the next three months,
that will enrich your life. (Examples: spend an hour a day reading to your
children, spend 30 minutes walking and holding hands with your spouse,
calling old friends or mentors, reading something everyday for 30 minutes
that motivates you)
- List three things that you
will get done during the next 30 days that will improve your career, your
life, your money, your business and your family, or any other area that is
important to you.
- List three things that you
will do in the next 90 days, which might be part of the smaller 30 day
goals, that are important to you
- Where will you be one year
from now? What do you want from your in one year? What do you want from
personal development in one year? How about your business, family,
community, friends or life. You might have three things for each of the
categories.
- Where do you see your self
three years from now? Write three big things you want to accomplish in
three years in all the categories listed earlier.
- Where do you see yourself in
five years? Where will you live, what will you own, where will you be in
your career, how far are you along in five years financially and toward
your next life and career?
- What three things have you
left undone in your life during the last few months, or longer, that you
need to fix (a fight with a friend, a client that left angry, old
arguments that were left unsettled that make no sense now). Fix them now
and move on. Leave nothing undone because you many never get a chance to
fix it.
- What are the three "Big
Things” you want from your life? What are the three biggest things you
want to accomplish in your career, life, business, or personally? Remember
that these can change as you grow but write three things down during each
session.
- What are the 25 things you
just have to do before you die? Write this list and start checking things
off now. Why wait until you are too old to care?
This is by no means a complete list but it is a good start.
Remember that the act of writing something down makes it real in your mind and
you will be surprised how much of your list gets done between three month
sessions. Start now, take care of yourself and create the life you want.
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