A Post on A Fitness Marketing Timesaver Tip By Jim Labadie
Here’s part 4 of our fitness marketing time saver series.
So you want to live the life that most people dream about?
You want to run a fitness business a few hours a week while other people do all the work for you.
Sounds great, right?
But I’m going to tell you one of the biggest reasons most people don’t have a prayer in hell of reaching this goal.
One word: Guilt.
If you subconsciously feel guilty about leveraging other people to work in your business for you, well, you’ll more than likely do everything in your power to prevent your dreams from coming true.
Guilt is a scary son of a bitch. Sometimes you feel it consciously. But most often, it lurks beneath the surface. You might not even realize it, but there’s a real good chance that right now, guilt is one of the emotions sub-consciously running your life.
Now, you can ignore this advice at your own peril. Or you can stop in your tracks this very second and ask yourself if there’s a chance you’re working yourself to the bone because you have extraordinary feelings of guilt about being a business owner.
“Why do I get to work a few hours a week while all these trainers are doing the work for me?”
“What makes me so special?”
“Do I deserve to be so happy?”
Your belief systems and emotions are running your life. The real question is, which direction are they taking you?
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I feel that guilt has never really bothered me. I actually want people to do the work for me while I can spend more time with my family and have more time to take vacations.
I want to get to this point but I know it takes a little time and alot of hard work.
I feel that sometimes what has stopped me has been fear. I guess fear of failure and not being able to achieve my goals.
This is why I always repeat to myself when I feel like scared of anything…Failure in NOT and OPTION..Success is MY only Option.
Either that or I listen to that 8 mile song by Eminem
wow, what a powerful topic. yes, i think i feel “guilty” not so much as if other people work for me ( after all i am paying them !) but my problem is: i don’t deserve it , am not good enough to earn big bucks !!
how can one get rid of this ??? once and for all ????
thanx, t.
Hi, Guys.
After a number of years of personal study and working in an unrelated field, I decided to pursue my passion for fitness. I’ve tried to learn as much as possible about the training side, business side, etc. over the last few years. I started off working for someone else, and while I have enjoyed it, part of me has been intrigued by the prospect of having my own business. But I have seen several noteworthy coaches state that the step from trainer to business owner is a large one and you often have to cut back on or cut out training in order to more fully immerse yourself in the ownership side of things. In addition, they have said that you need to invest many years at becoming a great trainer before you even consider owning your own facility.
Do you think that it is possible for a relative newcomer to the field (moreso in terms of years of experience than knowledge possessed) to open and manage his own training center/business while hiring others to actually handle the day-to-day training? In my mind’s eye, I picture having a place with the needed equipment versus the fluff stuff, options for soft tissue care, nutrition consulting, etc and bringing in local professionals from related fields to help out. I’m fully aware that Rome wasn’ t built in a day, but another part of me says that anything is possible if you give it a chance, connect with the right people, and invest your time wisely.
I love the thought of establishing a fantastic facility and providing people with another option to the cookie cutter chain gyms, but part of me keeps saying that I am supposed to pay my dues for a number of years before I’d be able to or would have the right to take this step, that is, if skipping years of training and moving directly into “business owner mode” on some level is even possible.
I’d definitely appreciate any thoughts on this matter, and thank you for your time and all of the knowledge you provide.
Great thoughts Jim, and oh so true! When I hired our first trainer I felt like I still needed to be at the gym to make sure everything was running smoothly. Well, what was the point of hiring someone if I was still there? I quickly realized that in order for the business to grow I had to pass off some of these roles and responsibilities to someone else.
The reasoning was two-fold. One, I needed more time to develop the business, I needed to be responsible for the tasks that directly effected our growth. I didn’t need to be doing the daily tasks within the gym. Two, I don’t want to be the work-horse, that’s why I started by own business in the first place. I’m not saying it isn’t hard work because it is but if you’re still putting in the long hours of a typical trainer/coach then you aren’t really owning a business you’re working in your business, and there is a huge difference.
In fact just last night I mapped out the next two years of my life, and although it contains a lot of big picture tasks/projects that are work related, it also includes a lot of ‘Me’ time. Guilt no more.
I totally had to deal with this guilt issue. I opened a personal training studio and made a few mistakes because I felt guilty about asking people to do things. Now, over a year later I am now dealing with these issues and running a more efficient business. Great article!
Jim,
I think you have hit it right on the head, and it really is the difference between the slavish J.O.B. ( just over broke ) mentality, and the freedom of controlling your own life. Wealth grows exponentially, and the person working for you can with the same amount of effort, and time become just as free. IF THEY WANT TO..
I agree. I remember back in college there was this girl I thought was a total leech. She had this other girl we all called her groupie that ran around after her like a loyal puppy. Anyway, Leech-girl made her “groupie” change majors so they could take the same classes. Eventually, Leech-girl had “Groupie-Girl” doing ALL of her work for her. At first, I thought Leech-girl was a total loser.
Ten years later, I now see a diabolical genius in what Leech-girl did. She graduated with honors (her GPA was higher than mine!). I remember feeling so “More Honorable Than Thou” about doing all of my own work; achieving on my own effort. Now, I feel like the sucker. I worked harder that Leech-girl for poorer results. Nobody cared that I worked hard for my GPA and “Leech-girl” cruised and party through school off another student’s sweat.
I’m over it. If I can find a talent who’s willing to do my work for me — THEN I TOTALLY LET THEM! It frees up time to do stuff I really enjoy. Great advice!
Jim,
That’s why I’ve always tried to operate under the win / win business model. When I hire trainers, currently I have 12, I pay them a fair wage, and offer support and guidance for them to grow in the business.
When I say “grow in the business”, I don’t mean just in my business, but the industry of personal training.
I’m a firm believer that we (business owners) should serve as role models or mentors to our staff. If there’s a superstar in my business, I’m more than willing to support them when they spread their wings and fly away.
That being said, it is a two way street, and I expect them to abide by their employment contract.
As long as there’s mutual respect and an open line of communication, guilt should never enter into the picture.
No Guilt.
I know this might sound harsh, but I like to tell it like it is.
Jeff and I have paid some heavy dues so to speak to be where we are today and we continue to grow, and invest in our business and make sacrifices.
So getting other people to work for us is just part of the growing process.
We treat our trainers with the utmsost respect, we help them grow through training opportunities, we pay the very well and we give them other financial incentives such as supplement sales or affiliate sales.
When I was working a full time job and running our business and had a 2 and 3 year and two 8 year olds running around here I was working towards the time when someone else could help me with all of this.
thank goodness it is finally here.
@Jack – Jack, learning on your own dime can be a very expensive mistake. IF you don’t succeed that is. The prudent thing to do is to learn the business on someone else’s dime. Learn from an established business what works instead of going through the school of hard knocks.
But look, nobody can make the decision for you. The thing is, you really, really have to think before you make a huge leap like this.
Jim
Great comments, everyone! Thanks so much for adding your two cents. Pat, Nick and I are in Boise and our Mastermind meetings start in a couple minutes, so I gotta run.
But I did want to mention Greg gives some incredible insights. Don’t forget, he’s a true industry veteran that has built a business that lasted more than 20 years.
Good word Jim, definitely timely. I think there are many people who want to help our clients out so much that we feel guilty for either asking for money for every little thing or guilty over our price if its a premium.
One thing that I’ve had to remind myself is that exchanging money for anything is one of the greatest displays of trust we have in this society, we are all so skeptical so recieving money for something truly means you’ve built the trust of the person and in turn they will be much more likely to a.value b.use/follow what you give them.
Keep the thinkers coming Jim, that’s why we love ya!
I appreciate all the comments. I am a mother of 3 kids under 10 and own a boot camp business. When I started, I ran 2 boot camps and taught all of the sessions. Now I run 10 boot camps and I as of this next camp, I will only be running 2 sessions a week (we run 23 sessions a week). I will now spend all my time focussed on growing the business. I am a member of the Boot Camp Blueprint and all the ideas in it are great but when you are training, you don’t have time to implement them. This is going to change. Yes, I do have guilt at times. When I hand off a training session, I would have guilt over the clients I was handing over to another trainer. But I have come to realise that if you provide a quality program and hire the best people, you are actually doing your clients a favour. I am starting to outsource and even though times are tough economically, my business is looking great.