Owning a gym (or just about any business) can occasionally feel like I’m alone on an island. While I have employees around me at all hours of the day most days of the week, I’m still the only business owner on-site for as many as seven months of the year.
There was a time when my business partner Eric sat two offices away on a year-round basis, giving me an outlet through which I could vent or brainstorm, but with him now spending the bulk of his time at our second location in Florida I‘ve had to relinquish that privilege.
So, what’s a gym owner to do?
My best solution to date has been to build out a comprehensive and engaged network.
In my world, there are three different, yet equally important networks to consider. Here’s a look at all three, along with my rationale for maintaining each:
I’m on board with the cliche “your network is your net worth.”
First, fellow gym owners.
“I like talking to you, haha, you make me feel better. I feel like very few people get it and share this same experience, we need to hang more.”
This is a text message (hence the lack of attention to grammar) I received earlier this week from an accomplished gym owner. We were firing back and forth a steady stream of thoughts relating to structuring employee compensation packages, long-term business development, and more. He wasn’t necessarily looking for advice so much as he was looking for an empathetic ear.
All of us need to have an outlet to discuss problems that are unique to gym ownership, as few outside of this competitive space can appreciate the unexpected headaches that come with balancing athlete and parent expectations while simultaneously building a team that often features contributors coming from varying of stages in life.
If you haven’t done so already, extend an offer to the local gym owner who you don’t see as an existential threat to your operation to grab a cup of coffee and chat. You will likely find that your troubles are not as specific to your own situation as you might think.
Second, a “challenge network.”
I first came across the term “challenge network” just a week or two ago while listening to this fascinating podcast interview Tim Ferriss did with well-known author and college professor, Adam Grant. During their conversation Grant mentioned that he makes a habit of surrounding himself with people who are unafraid to call him on his bullshit, for lack of a better term.
As I thought about my own professional situation, I quickly came to realize that I also employ a fairly strong-willed challenge network, and I mean that in the best way possible.
My business partner and I routinely punch holes in each other’s ideas long before dollars are sunk into ambitious projects, my Director of Performance here in MA never hesitates to tell me when a decision I’m about to make from a management or leadership standpoint will be poorly received by the rest of the team, and my wife is sure as hell going to tell me I’m dead wrong when outlining my stance on difficult issues relating to my business while at the dinner table.
I’m surrounded by people who call me on my bullshit, which is why I rarely make unfixable mistakes. If you also own a gym, you need this type of network in your world.
Lastly, the fitness outsiders.
If there is one single opportunity for growth and innovation that I see in our industry that stands head and shoulders above the rest, it would have to be making a habit of stepping well outside of the fitness space to identify trends and ideas. As currently constituted, our industry is made up of a well-intentioned collection of people who read the same handful of books, attend the same handful of seminars, and listen to the same handful of gurus.
This is a problem, as we’re effectively commoditizing our service offerings by creating a never-ending series of cloned fitness businesses. As a result, consumers bounce around comparing prices instead of authenticity and skill.
This is exactly why I publish a newsletter each week specifically featuring my four favorite recent pieces of content from well outside of the fitness space. I spend my week scrolling the feed of the Harvard Business Review, Ad Week, Business Insider, and more in search of novel concepts that are readily applicable to the day-to-day operation of my business, and then I pass it along to my list. (check out the newsletter archive here and if it seems to be your speed, feel free to sign up on the left side of the page)
I also take this habit offline and apply it to my day-to-day interpersonal habits. I’ve assembled a network of entrepreneurs who I immediately default to in times of confusion in my efforts to run a gym, and nine times out of ten they see things I’ve failed to identify for myself.
This past summer I rounded up this eclectic collection of friends and got us all together for dinner and a live recording of the Masters of Scale Podcast in Boston. There were entrepreneurs from the consumer goods space, insurance, personal finance, software tech, and fitness (myself and Eric). We ate, we drank, and we discussed each other’s challenges and recent victories. While the fitness space may have been a topic of conversation for a portion of the night, it was likely for the benefit of the other owner/operators at the table who were also looking for ideas from outside of their own field.
Long story short, it’s okay to identify as “the fitness guy” as a business owner, but it’s probably not a great idea to socialize exclusively with people who also fit that description. There’s a big world of business lessons out there waiting to be learned from people who don’t have the slightest interest in the cost of a new power rack.
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