Do YOU Have a Fitness Business or Just a Job?
Hi folks, I want to comment on one of the most critical components of your fitness business…. Staff!
I talk to business owners right across Australia and New Zealand and the biggest problem that they have when trying to build their business is getting and keeping good staff. If you a doing all off the training, the book work, administrative tasks etc. and you don’t have staff in your business, then in all reality, you don’t have a business, you have a very stressful job!
If you have two or three staff who are dictating to you what hours they can do and what hours they want to do, then at any stage, your whole business could collapse like a pack of cards if they decide to leave. I hear lots of horror stories of business owners being held to ransom by greedy staff who basically blackmail the business into getting more money, hours etc.
I have personally seen my business almost go bust when I had staff member (a manager in this case) quit and….take half my clients with them! I was dragged back into the busness and had to mend some seriously damaged relationships and start to build it up all over again. I used to say things like “No one can do it like me” and “My clients just won’t work with someone else” and I hear the same thing from fitness business owners everywhere. If you cannot duplicate yourself in your business then frankly folks you are always going to struggle.
Like one of our new VIP members who has been in his business for 20 years and is financially very successful but is still doing 60 to 70 hours a week, split shifts everyday and doesn’t have a life. I was devastated when I was told by a Business Broker that my business that I had worked so hard for 5 years to build up was worth nothing! Nada! Zero! “But I have lots of paying clients” I said, “but they all want to work with you” he answered “and as soon as you leave , they will too!” and I realised that I had been working my butt off to have a very stressful JOB.
Maybe YOU would love to help more people and make more money but doing another 15 hours of PT would mean you wouldn’t ever sleep so you hold yourself and your business back because you have no way of getting staff to do what you and your clients want.
That day with the Business Broker was when I changed my whole approach to my business and, when I was able to get that system to find, hire, train and manage staff, I finally got an asset that is growing everyday, week and month without me in it. My Staff work in the business like it is their own and they also know that I have a ‘bubbling pot’ of applicants who are ready to jump in when needed if they are not pulling their weight. This has given me a huge boost of confidence and allowed me to really put the foot on the marketing accelerator and leverage off the efforts of others.
Are my staff happy? You betcha, they love working in a business that is growing and growing even during this economic environment and they also get the X factor. The X factor is critical to you keeping good staff and building a culture of excellence in your fitness business. What is the X factor…..Recognition and Reward! Do this consistenly and you will create a team of loyal, committed staff who are constantly trying to do better.
If you would like to find out more about the system that changed my fitness business forever then go to www.PTduplicator.com
Cheers
Ric Isaac