Chapter 2:
Method
Working hard but going nowhere? Learn how to identify and prioritize the work to move your business forward now.
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In 2013, I was on a call with two brothers, Jeff and Vern. These guys had grown up bodybuilding and owned a gym in Traverse City, Michigan, USA.
We had been working on their business for a few months. But, I still didn’t know much about their daily operations.
So I asked Vern to walk me through his typical day.
He’s what he shared:
I wake up at 3:30 a.m.
I take a shower and have coffee.
I drive to the gym.
I sit in the parking lot, in the dark, and I pray.
Then I get out of the car, unlock the doors, turn on the lights, and set up the gym.
I train clients until late morning.
I have some food and get my own workout in.
I do some more admin work in the afternoon.
Do some sales in the early evening.
Then I head home at the end of the day, have dinner, and go to bed by 8 p.m.
I wake up at 3:30 a.m. the next day and repeat.
I was in shock. I couldn’t imagine the energy and effort it took to do this! I asked him, “How many days a week is this your normal routine?” He shared this was his typical schedule of 5-6 days a week. I asked how long he had been operating this schedule. He shared this had been his routine for the last 20 years!
I couldn’t believe it. Two decades?! I blew my mind. At this point in my life, I couldn’t imagine living this schedule for a week— let alone a year, or God forbid, twenty! How was this even possible for a human being to sustain? The commitment. The dedication. The sacrifice.
If anyone deserved to be successful as a fitness business owner, it was this guy! Drive and work ethic weren’t the problems here. Vern had been giving everything to his business (and then some!) for 20 years! The problem was, he wasn’t clear on the smart work to focus on. And, until his business changed, his life wouldn’t either.Â
That’s the crux of the problem for most fitness business owners. If you excel at serving clients but are average at business, you risk becoming a hamster on a wheel. Working hard… yet going nowhere. And I don’t know many people who can sustain that level of energy and effort Vern displayed for 20 years.
In this chapter, I will teach you our battle-tested method to grow fitness businesses to 6-, 7-, and 8-figures. You’ll learn how to step back from operations. Then, identify your biggest growth opportunities. And create a 3-step plan to move your business forward right now. Let’s dive in…
Maximize Growth: 3 Steps to Identify and Solve Your Fitness Business Problems
If you want to make a change in your business, you first must increase your awareness. Ask yourself, “What don’t you know right now… that you need to better understand to transform?” Nobody wants to work their butt off for 20 years going nowhere. But they get stuck in this trap because they don’t know there’s a better way!
So where do we start solving this problem? There are a million things you could do. With limited time and energy, you must be clear about the right steps to ensure efficiency.Â
- Should you invest in advertising?Â
- Do more marketing?Â
- Should you raise prices?Â
- Should you decrease prices?Â
- Should you hire more staff?Â
- How do you better manage the staff that you have?Â
- Should you be doing the bookkeeping?Â
- Should you outsource the bookkeeping?Â
The list of questions and decisions to make is endless. And the worst part is that getting 1 or 2 of these decisions wrong can put you out of business!
Businesses in our industry are failing every day. People like Vern are still waking up at 3:30 a.m. grinding, trying to break through. Your business may be at risk of failing—maybe that’s why you’re reading this book now. Solving this problem for many years has become my obsession.
I’ve spent almost 20 years playing this game for 53,000+ fitness businesses worldwide. I don’t know anyone who has spent as much time as I have solving these problems for fit pros and gym owners. I am very skilled at this work. But I struggled for years to help my team and clients. They couldn’t see what I could. I needed to find simpler ways to help everyone understand the decisions to make and when to make them.Â
Which is what led me to create our method I’m going to teach you now, called the NPE BUSINESS GROWTH SYSTEM™. To find and fix your fitness business problems, follow these three steps in order:
Step 1: Strategy
Get clear on WHAT to do. Strategy is the most important success factor in business. Without the right strategy, you’ll work hard and go nowhere.Â
Lots of business owners make the mistake of thinking that growth is all about marketing. If you want to grow your business, you need to generate more leads, make more sales, and have profit has to go up. It’s that simple, right?
Well, I can tell you that it’s not! Generating leads is only one part of the problem. If you try to solve this problem without knowing other factors, you could make things worse!
After 18 years of data collection, we’ve learned that fitness businesses succeed by solving three key problems:
- Money: Improving revenue, profit, and cash flow.
- Clients: Generating high-quality leads, closing sales, and retaining clients.
- Team: Increasing the capacity of your systems and people to perform without you.
But solving these problems isn’t a one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter solution. The nuances of solving the right problems—in the right order and sequence—can make or break your success.
A discount promotion might attract leads who won’t invest in their health. If they buy, they’ll often churn after a month or two when a competitor offers a better discount. Your sales and marketing efforts don’t boost profits. They reset you to the start when clients cancel after 2 months. If your labor costs are too high and you add more clients to the model, you’ll find it hard to drive operating profit. More leads and clients will mean more pain in operations. It won’t generate a return on your investment.
How do you determine what to focus on within the specific areas of money, clients, and team?Â
You start by completing a full assessment of all areas of your business. You’ll identify a lot of things to work on. But you can’t work on everything at once, and working on the wrong things will keep you stuck. With rare exceptions, I recommend this order. First, get your money right. Then, get clients. Finally, build your team. In that order.
I invite you to take 3 minutes to assess your business’s health at npefitness.com/score. You’ll get a personalized growth report. It will recommend your top three growth strategies to focus on for the next 90 days. Once you’re clear on your priorities, it’s time to get your tactics sorted.
Step 2: Tactics
Knowing what to do is the first step. The next is learning HOW to do it!Â
If you wanted to build a house, and you have the blueprints from your architect ready to go, that’s great. But without a hammer, nails, and some wood, nothing is going to happen!
Which is why we say the HOW involves two parts:
Processes: you must learn the step-by-step processes required to get things done.
Tools/Assets – you’ve got to have the right tools to do the job.
This is where you have the opportunity to buy speed. Instead of wasting years on trial and error with a blank page, there’s a better way!
I often talk with business owners who paid $5,000 to an agency or freelancer for a fancy website. They thought it would kickstart their marketing and lead generation. Fast forward six months. They’re $5,000 in the hole. Their website isn’t running, and they have no new leads.
In 18+ years, we’ve built, tested, and refined hundreds of SOPs, tools, templates, and campaigns. They help fitness businesses increase profits, get more clients, and build healthy teams. You can download and personalize these playbooks and tools. Then, use them to drive results in your business right away.Â
Start by downloading the workbook at www.npefitness.com/workbook. Once you have the processes and tools to make progress. It’s time to focus on WHO will do the work. This is a crucial step. Many business owners try to do everything themselves. They end up overwhelmed and stuck. Others hire the wrong team members. They waste time and money on training and fixing mistakes. Don’t get stuck here. Let’s continue…
Step 3: Execution
If getting people fit was as simple as writing programs and ensuring they had gym memberships, fitness coaching would be easy, right? Unfortunately, fitness (and business) success never works that way.
Even with the right tools and knowledge, you will face many challenges.
You have a child or spouse who gets sick and needs your support.
A team member quits without prior notice or requires termination.
A hurricane or disaster breaks your air conditioning unit or heater. Someone needs to replace them at a huge cost in time and money.
Everyday life tries to pull you off course with your priorities.
In the early stages of building a fitness business (Stage 1 or 2), you don’t have a full team to delegate to yet.
You must stretch and optimize your time, energy, and resources. This means working in the business (operations) and handling urgent issues. While also staying focused on strategic priorities to move your business forward.
We call this pressure.
And the more pressure you get put on you, the more painful it will feel. You’ll get scared, uncomfortable, and want to shrink back into your comfort zone. But don’t! This is where the magic of growth happens. You’ve got to continue pressing forward. Learn, grow, and transform.
There are a few powerful growth hacks that will keep you moving forward here. First, set boundaries with your time, energy, and focus management. Second, set up good project management systems. A good system should organize all tasks, files, notes, and more with your priority projects. Third, have daily and weekly appointments with yourself (and/or your team) to regroup. Finally, find others who will challenge and inspire you to grow. Growth is never an individual sport. The right mentors, coaches, and peer group will play a crucial role in your success.
What’s next?
Then what? What happens at the end of 90 days?
And you go back and repeat the three steps to update the 90-day growth plan all over again.
How long do you keep repeating this cycle? For as long as you’re in business!
No matter where your business is now, you must solve three big problems to start and grow a fitness business. Get your money right. Your clients right. And build your team. In that order.Â
Solving the right problems, and in the right order and sequence, is critical. Get this right and you’ll see liftoff. Get this wrong and you might end up making your business worse (not better)!
Don’t wing it. Even under pressure, take time to clarify what to do, how to do it, and to focus on the right tasks. Follow these three steps: 1) strategy, 2) tactics, and then 3) execution… in that order!
Keep reading and in the next chapter I’ll share more on the how to avoid the biggest mistakes that can block your success… even when you’ve done everything else right.
Exercise:
Curious about how your business stacks up right now?Â
And what should be your priorities for the next 90 days? Â
Take 3-minutes to complete a benchmark health assessment now.
You’ll receive a personalized report that walks you step-by-step the health of your business in multiple areas. And shows you how to define your strategic priorities.
Action item:
Take the 3-minute assessment at www.npefitness.com/scoreÂ
Download the workbook at www.npefitness.com/workbook
Attend live workshop
3 systems to increase profits, get clients, and build a healthy team
