First of all, I just wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone that commented, messaged & even phoned me yesterday โค๏ธ
I was super nervous about telling the world I had sold the gym, in my mind that I was going to get a load of negative comments & backlash
Yet, it was all positive, confidence boosting support
Which quickly goes to show that some of the stories you create in your head, are just that, STORIES ๐ช
Anywayโฆ When Holly & I sat on the weekend & decided that this was the week to tell you guys, we also spoke about things that went well & what didnโt go so well
Therefore today, I want to share some of the stuff we would change if we where to open again
Starting with:
1๏ธโฃ Get Pricing Right Straight Away!
This might have been our biggest mistake by far
You see when we initially opened, we knew no-one in Cardiff, we simply moved as there was a studio going spare
In my mind โAGAIN ๐คฃโ, I thought it would be a tough crowd to convince to join, we are new to the area, no-one is going to pay the prices I was charging down in Southampton
So I put a completely different offer togetherโฆ
ยฃ50 a month ๐คทโโ๏ธ
Yes, I know most of you are going to be laughing, while the other half are going to think this is a good price
& yes, you should be laughing ๐ค
ยฃ50 does not go far when you are running a Studio
VAT, Tax, Staff, Fixed Costs & Variable costs eat very quickly into that price
At that price we would need a MINIMUM of 300 clients to get to ยฃ15k a month
As we closed the business, we finished on ยฃ117 a month, taking off VAT at 20%, gives you just over ยฃ90 per person
Making that ยฃ15k mark a much easier tasks to get too!
The reason this was our biggest mistake, was that we left it too late to up it ๐
This takes u perfect into our next biggest issues
2๏ธโฃ Managing Our Finances Better!
Now my biggest frustration with this one was myself getting in the way of myself ๐คทโโ๏ธ
I treated the gym as more of my testing ground, donโt get me wrong, I love the gym, the clients & what it was about
But I wanted to see what results I could get from the marketing, what process, ads copy, funnels & systems worked best to get clients in
So I could pass it all onto our ads clients ๐ช
This then came at a cost ๐ข by not properly managing the business, by not really checking the numbers & not really having the operating systems in place
The studio never really made a decent profit, month on month
Getting clients in, was the easy part, after all, I did the ads & mastered lead gen & coaching the staff on sales
What I didnโt do is master the retention, the finances, the growth of the business
Breaking even on the front end was always the aim & that is what it always should be, making a profit is a MASSIVE bonus & not making a massive loss is good thing
Where the money really comes is the long term clients
In the end, we had nailed it! Retention from front end has increased massively, but like I mentioned yesterday, a number of other factors, just brought it all to a close
So what did we change?
It was how we started each 6 week programme ๐
Instead of letting them start whenever they wanted, clients had to start on a specific date, in groups, we started a new 6 week programme every 3 weeks & post retention rate beyond the 6 weeks was night & day different with this set up
๐ okay! This part is going to be difficult to write about & itโs 100% aimed at no-one in particular, I just want to share my thoughts with you allโฆ
3๏ธโฃ Working with My Staff!
There are very few business that you can launch & stay as a one-person band
If you really want to be able to hep more people, help yourself more & create a life that works for you
You need to hire staff & donโt get me wrong, we had some great staff down at the studio
Butโฆ just like the management of the finances was almost non-excitant, managing the staff was also the same
It wasnโt until the last year of business that we started doing weekly staff meetings
That we started writing tasks, steps & manuals down & at this point, it was really too late
If you do some digging, you will see that an employee doesnโt show their true colours until around 6 weeks in, then by 3 months in, that is when you start to see performance drop or what to expect from that staff member moving forward
No-one is ever going match your desire for your own business, I would never expect a staff member too, but what I didnโt do is manage the staff correctly, which then effected the retention, the finances & your own personal stress
4๏ธโฃ WTF is a KPI ๐คฃ
Right thenโฆ If you want a stressful, struggling business of any kind, then you do what I did
& just think a KPI was another pointless acronym ๐คฏ
If you want to have a succesful, profitable, almost stress free business, then you do everything & anything you can to master this 3 letter term
Key Performance Indicators
โ This is what you rate, manage, praise & sack your staff with
โ This is how you see the issues, struggles & gaps in your business
โ This is how to increase profit, reduce your stress & most of allโฆ CREATE THE BUSINESS YOU DESIRE
At FitPro Lead Gen & LeadDec now, the management staff do literally everything they can each week now, to not have the dreaded RED box on their KPI sheet
Green = target hit / Orange = almost hit / Red = failed
Honestly, those 3 ticks above, if I put this into place when we had the gym, who knows if I would be writing this post today
Like I said at the start, I really appreciate the support from you guys, but most of all, I love all the personal messages I have had, many asking for some advice
The only person stopping you from hitting your targets is you ๐
You got this ๐ช
David ๐
