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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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)
3. 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.
4. 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
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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?
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.