Hey this is Mark from the UK. My little bro (were identical twins…but I’m 9mins older so I get the title!) and I own a studio in Bedford. We run semi private Pt, 1:1 (ughh don’t do it!), Boot Camps & Strongman and a few other things on the side ;-).

Its pretty cool, as we have expanded so that all of the above can go on at the same time. There’s a way to improve your hourly profits!

If you wanna connect with us go to www.facebook.com/thedoublevisionconditioningcentre

We haven’t got a massive number of clients (182 at last count), but hey my brother and I don’t have to train anyone, have 3 trainers, 1 admin and a salesperson and never have to do anything someone else says.

Oh and we get to train twice a day and the money ain’t bad either ;-)

Lets get straight into it.

Systems, systems, systems. I bet if you read marketing blogs you cant get away from the fact everyone tells you to systemize…..but have you done it?

Don’t think you need to?

Do you find yourself answering the same questions from your staff?

Do you constantly think of what you need to do? And I don’t mean big levers, I mean things like – Call my no shows yesterday – Send a content email to my list – Order supplements etc etc

Is 80% of your time spent “running” your business?

Yep. Thought so! You need systems!

Screw it I say business NEEDS systems.

We are systems geeks. Give me a question yo ill solve it, but you can bet I wont be solving it again.

I simply add it to our online manual and get our admin to put the code in the right diary.

I run our Lead Conversion, General Manager & CEO systems at the moment, and all of this is done by 9:30am (I do get up at 6:30am-but that’s for important stuff like reading Sam’s blogs!). So it takes me 1 ½ hours to ensure our business runs and grows. Not bad hey!?

That’s not to say I am not spending the rest of the time making sure we grow at an even faster rate. I spend most of my time thinking about ways of improving. The difference between you and me is I only think about something once, as from then on its in the diary and I don’t have to worry about it any more.

So what can you do right now to make your life easier?

How about these 5 (5’s a good sales number right?)

 

Make a super easy to follow template for your systems (ours are called action sheets)

People tell you to record what you do day to day. Cool but then you end up with shit loads of notes everywhere. Why not make an action sheet template load it on your ipad 2 (you gotta get one) and then when you complete a task write down the rough steps.

No but I don’t have time. Bullshit, you do. Just stop speaking crap to the other trainers at the gym or your admin. These sheets will be YOUR business!

 

Focus on your client fulfillment first

This was driven home to me literally yesterday.   We hire coaches for everything, business, nutrition, training, life. And we try and get the best.

What happens when you hire the best…..they get super busy because they are the best.  If their client fulfillment systems are not sorted and tight then guess who suffers? The client!

And guess what happens? Yep i will be thinking twice when it comes to agreeing on my next eft amount (you are using eft right??).

Why do I want someone who has rushed through my work?  I don’t. Your business should make everyone’s experience identical so that as you grow your clients do not suffer.

 

Do not wear “every hat”

Now this is an Emyth term (I bet you have heard of the Emyth-but have you implemented it?), and I’ve lived it the hard way.  Basically as soon as you are able to, give your staff single jobs to focus so that you allow them to give their all.

When we were smaller we had our trainers split the business systems and train people.

They would do everything from sending private messages to clients “from us”, to posting welcome cards to new joiners.

Hey this worked well for all of 2 months, and then they were getting too busy with clients. Now their training didn’t suffer, but the systems and their lifestyle did.

But the training runs the business right? Wrong! the systems run the business!

Now we have a full time admin based at our gym. She came in and it took her 1 week to train as all she has to do is follow the diary and the systems.

Oh and by the way she is 18 years old and an apprentice (government scheme over in the UK) which means she has zero experience.  How’s that for hiring the minimal qualified and cheapest for the role (don’t know that phrase? Read emyth!)

 

Listen to Sam about firing

So I learned this one recently as well. I’ve always managed to train my trainers to be awesome and to really care about the client’s results.

But I’ve done this by naturally telling them when they’ve done well but also coming down really strong when they do something wrong. Even the smallest thing I take seriously if I can picture it snowballing into bad habits or it affecting the clients experience in anyway.

As a result they all know what is expected of them and its works great.

Now you’d have thought I’d have done this with ALL my employees, particularly my admin. But ill admit as she’s a girl (we only have male trainers at the moment) and younger I didn’t.

Hey and guess what? She started thinking she was super important….And guess what its not her the person that is important, its the systems she runs!

Now I had to go through the whole thing of explaining that to her, time that should have been spent at the beginning.

To tie that all up, once you realise that its the systems that run the business and people run the systems, you won’t be afraid of getting rid of employees giving you hassle.

As Dan Kennedy so eloquently states “If I wake up thinking about you 3 mornings in a row and I’m not sleeping with you. You got to go!”