What's Your Job?
How much of YOUR time do you devote purely to working on your business and marketing each week?
If you answer "a couple of hours" or "I catch up on weekends" - well these are bad answers. Very bad. Unfortunately, they accurately mirror the way far too many fitness entrepreneurs think and conduct themselves.
Lets' talk reality: If marketing and growing your business isn't your primary responsibility, what is your job? And who's the "breadwinner" who is bringing in the money? --- who will either be stolen away by an astute competitor or go off on his own as soon as he wakes up to the fact he's carrying you.
By the way, instead of marketing, what ARE you doing? Are you a bean-counter? You can hire them dirt cheap. Are you "too busy" doing the "important stuff?" Are you your own glorified secretary? Or if you are a multi-hat, do-it-all-yourself-guy, how do you have all the time of your workweek allocated so there's no time left for marketing? (Just for the record, you should be catching up on everything but marketing over the weekend.)
Oh, and if you deliver the services you sell, as I do, and you spend all your time delivering, you'd be better off working for somebody else.
This, you see, is the greatest obstacle to maximum income for every "busy" entrepreneur: taking on lesser responsibilities and delegating and/or neglecting the most important responsibilities and the most profitable activities.
We are first talking about a vital ATTITUDE SHIFT in the life of the fitness business owner. As I've often put it, the switch from "doer of the thing" to "business builder and marketer of the thing." To the trainer who says he has no time for business building or marketing because he is seeing clients all day, I say two things: one, it's a lie - you are also writing programs, writing checks, going to lunch with people who can't contribute to your success, ordering supplements, surfing the net, etc. But two, close your book off one full day a week, see no clients, and devote it totally to working on your business and marketing it. "I can't afford to do that," you say. I say you can't count.
I would say, incidentally, that one of the big commonalities amongst the many major "success stories" in our industry, is this attitudinal change. After making the thinking change, then we are talking about BEHAVIORAL CHANGES. Re-allocation of time and energy. Firm scheduling of time for your chief responsibility. Raising fees/prices as need be to reduce the amount of your time devoted to delivering services, to liberate time for working on your business. Fire 5%, 10% or 20% of your lowest value clients to liberate time for working on your business. Fire the employee requiring the most babysitting to liberate time for working on your business.
Once you embrace this approach you'll see your business literally explode.
If you answer "a couple of hours" or "I catch up on weekends" - well these are bad answers. Very bad. Unfortunately, they accurately mirror the way far too many fitness entrepreneurs think and conduct themselves.
Lets' talk reality: If marketing and growing your business isn't your primary responsibility, what is your job? And who's the "breadwinner" who is bringing in the money? --- who will either be stolen away by an astute competitor or go off on his own as soon as he wakes up to the fact he's carrying you.
By the way, instead of marketing, what ARE you doing? Are you a bean-counter? You can hire them dirt cheap. Are you "too busy" doing the "important stuff?" Are you your own glorified secretary? Or if you are a multi-hat, do-it-all-yourself-guy, how do you have all the time of your workweek allocated so there's no time left for marketing? (Just for the record, you should be catching up on everything but marketing over the weekend.)
Oh, and if you deliver the services you sell, as I do, and you spend all your time delivering, you'd be better off working for somebody else.
This, you see, is the greatest obstacle to maximum income for every "busy" entrepreneur: taking on lesser responsibilities and delegating and/or neglecting the most important responsibilities and the most profitable activities.
We are first talking about a vital ATTITUDE SHIFT in the life of the fitness business owner. As I've often put it, the switch from "doer of the thing" to "business builder and marketer of the thing." To the trainer who says he has no time for business building or marketing because he is seeing clients all day, I say two things: one, it's a lie - you are also writing programs, writing checks, going to lunch with people who can't contribute to your success, ordering supplements, surfing the net, etc. But two, close your book off one full day a week, see no clients, and devote it totally to working on your business and marketing it. "I can't afford to do that," you say. I say you can't count.
I would say, incidentally, that one of the big commonalities amongst the many major "success stories" in our industry, is this attitudinal change. After making the thinking change, then we are talking about BEHAVIORAL CHANGES. Re-allocation of time and energy. Firm scheduling of time for your chief responsibility. Raising fees/prices as need be to reduce the amount of your time devoted to delivering services, to liberate time for working on your business. Fire 5%, 10% or 20% of your lowest value clients to liberate time for working on your business. Fire the employee requiring the most babysitting to liberate time for working on your business.
Once you embrace this approach you'll see your business literally explode.
posted by Pat Rigsby at 6:19 PM
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