10 Lessons Learned During a Year of Blogging

Today marks a full year of existence for PeteDupuis.com and the blog I’ve somehow managed to maintain.  In 52 weeks I’ve published 48 blog posts and learned valuable lessons along the way.

Before I get in to it, let me begin with a disclaimer: I am NOT pretending to be some sort of authority on writing.  In fact, I second-guess 100% of the material I’ve prepared each and every time my mouse hovers above the “save and publish” button.  I’m simply sharing some insights I’ve accumulated since getting started on May 18th of 2015.

For those of you who have been kicking around the idea of starting your own blog, I hope this list allows you to accelerate creation of content you’re proud of.  For those of you who have a blog but temporarily abandon your mission of writing regularly, I hope this list lights the fire you need to get back in the game.  Lastly, for those of you who are already crushing it on a daily or weekly basis on your own site, thank you for inspiring me to stay consistent.

Here, in no particular order, are my ten favorite blogging lessons learned in year number one:

1. If you don’t look back on your original material and cringe just a little bit, you’re not evolving as a writer

This is a message I’ve heard Eric Cressey share with other fitness professionals when discussing the evolution of his programming strategy, and it also holds true in relation to writing.  I took an inventory of my year-one blogging output during the past couple of days and began to see the same handful of mistakes and tendencies my editor (wife) has been kind enough to point out just about every week as she reviews my material. 

There’s nothing wrong with making mistakes along the way, but failing to address them is not acceptable if you’d like people to take your material seriously.

2. Abandoning ideas entirely is wasteful

CSP Strength Coach Tony Bonvechio once told me that he knows within the first 200 words whether or not he’s got something of value to share.  As it turns out, I have about a dozen 200-word “under construction” posts sitting in my Google Drive as I write this.  While I routinely walk away from a concept, I never abandon it entirely. 

On countless occasions I have been prompted to revisit an old idea and build upon the concept after encountering a new book, presentation, or discussion that forced me to think a little bit differently about my approach on a given topic.  Some of my most popular material was conceived and temporarily abandoned several months before publishing.

Speaking of 200-word posts…

3. If your content is sound, post length doesn’t matter

When I stumble upon a period of writer’s block, my best course of action is to revisit my “Abandoned Posts” folder for ideas.  One such idea sat buried at the bottom of that folder for months until I finally decided to stop waiting for two or three more complimentary bullet points to magically appear.

Instead, I posted a 249-word blog titled Are You Sabotaging Your Ability to Convert Leads?  It was the 5th most popular blog I’ve posted to date.  I’ve yet to come across a reader who said: “The concept presented in that blog post was fantastic but damn you for not giving me more.”

4. Don’t ever stop practicing the execution of the content you’re discussing

Cressey Sports Performance is the foundation of my credibility.  In nearly nine years of running my business, I have accumulated enough memories and experiences to continue writing about my craft for weeks, months, and (hopefully) years to come.  Walking away from the fundamentals of running our business would eventually make my content stale and redundant.

I count on the evolution of our business and brand to stimulate new and unique thoughts on a daily basis.  Fresh experiences make for unique content.

5. Read. Read. Read. Then read more.

You know that nine years’ worth of ideas and experiences I mentioned in tip #4?  Accumulating this material may have been part of the job, but extracting it from memory in preparation for writing is not.  Reading business-specific books like Zero-To-One help me to connect concepts with experiences and create content gold.

The more I read, the more I write.  My cure for writer’s block is immersing myself in other writers’ material.

6. If you think you’ve got your audience figured out…prepare to be disappointed

I recently emailed my wife a first-draft of a blog post with the subject “this is garbage but I’m struggling for content this week.”  She suggested a couple of minor grammatical adjustments and said it looked good to go.  That post went on to be the most shared, liked, and trafficked post in the history of my blog.

Similarly, I’ve seen more than a few of my posts go essentially unnoticed despite my thinking that I’d finally prepared something “really good.”  I’ve come to terms with the fact that sometimes my audience consumes my content differently than I perceive it, and that’s ok.

7. Provocative gets hits

I probably shouldn’t have referred to the post “Because My Boss Sucks” is a Shitty Reason to Open a Gym as garbage.  However, I wasn’t all that enthusiastic about it because the points made were not particularly new to my readers.  I guess that when it comes to gym ownership, most things worth saying once should probably be repeated!

This being said, I am almost positive that this post got attention because I used the word “Shitty” in the title.  My initial instinct was to tone it down, but thankfully my wife pointed out that it brought an edginess that complimented the message and I ultimately decided to roll with it.  Provocative blog titles (within reason) can occasionally draw just enough attention to entice new people to check out your material.  Lesson learned.   

8. Authenticity is key

I’m fortunate to be surrounded by a number of talented writers.  My business partner Eric has managed to attract more than 100,000 followers spanning multiple platforms thanks to a style that features a unique (and often scientific) take on strength training for the overhead athlete population.  On the other end of the spectrum, Tony Gentilcore successfully blends strength-training concepts with a combination of current events and stories about his cat in a style that is best described as “weight lifting infotainment.”

Both approaches have been immensely successful, but that doesn’t mean they’d work for me.  Much like I preach that gym owners should stay in their own lane when it comes to building gym culture (i.e. don’t try to appear eccentric like Mark Fisher Fitness if you’re not Mark or a part of his team), I’d also strongly encourage aspiring writers to let their true personality and strengths shine through their material. 

I will never be comfortable taking a mathematic approach to describing the nuts and bolts of operating a fitness business in the way that Eric delves into anatomy in his writing about training baseball players.  I will also never effectively tie pop culture references into my content the way Tony seamlessly does.  I will tell stories that convey messages…stories that I’ve experienced…stories that I’ve lived.  Assuming I stay the course, no one will ever be able to say my material lacks authenticity.

9. Consistency matters

48 blogs in 52 weeks…I don’t blame you if you’re you asking yourself “why not 52 in 52?”

The first week that I failed to publish was that of the 4th Annual CSP Fall Seminar.  When it comes to the logistics of putting on a 150+ attendee event, everything else gets pushed aside to make sure things get done. I get a pass on that week.

The other 3 missed weeks took place in succession during the holidays.  “Taking a week off” suddenly became two, and then three.  If I was lucky enough to have readers who looked forward to my weekly post at that point in time, I probably lost a few of them due to my unpredictable publishing schedule. 

Once I finally got back on track I decided to standardize the time of the week that I write (usually Tuesday mornings), and the time of the week that I publish (Wednesday or Thursday).  By locking in a routine, I’ve managed to lock in some consistency that has led to a bigger audience.

10. Speak to one distinct population at a time

I mentioned earlier that these lessons were in no particular order, but I think I may have saved the most important for last…

I have three types of readers: gym owners, personal trainers, and personal trainers who dream of one day being gym owners.  In hindsight, the most mediocre blogs I’ve written were attempts at speaking to all three populations simultaneously.  I got so caught up in trying to be everything to everyone, that I lost track of the importance on speaking clearly to one specific audience.

The numbers don’t lie…my three most popular posts of year-one were as follows:

1. “Because My Boss Sucks” is a Shitty Reason To Open a Gym – directed toward personal trainers who dream of opening their own gym some day

2. Three Reasons We Don’t Offer Free Consultations – directed toward gym owners

3. How To Stand Out in a Crowded Fitness Industry – directed toward personal trainers

Thank You

I want to thank everyone who has set aside time to read even just a single one of my blog posts during the past 365 days.  I’ve immensely enjoyed creating this material and look forward to another productive year of writing.  Make sure to join my newsletter and stay tuned for more!

If Your Employees Enjoy Themselves, Your Clients Will Too

A couple of months ago I had a consulting client in to CSP for an in-person consultation.  We scheduled the sit-down to take place during the hour before clients arrives so that he could transition from my office to the training floor as we were kicking off what was expected to be a busy mid-winter day.  The insight I share relating to training environment and gym culture is effectively hammered home once you can "see it in action."

We weren't ten steps in to the gym when a football came flying past our faces and into the hands of a sprinting Greg Robins.  A half-dozen professional baseball players stood just twenty yards away, nodding their heads in approval as Greg had "run the proper route."

The visiting gym owner proclaimed: "He must be mortified that you walked through the door at that exact moment and caught him messing around."

He wasn't.  As a matter of fact, he proceeded to run an even cleaner route moments later right in front of me.  Greg (and every other member of my coaching staff) knows that I appreciate the importance of relating to our clients and demonstrating that we don't take ourselves too seriously while on the training floor.

If our guys want to sling a football around for ten minutes prior to kicking off a training session, I am all for it.  We place an emphasis on professionalism around here, but not entirely at the expense of delivering an enjoyable work and training environment.  Seth Godin put it best when he described Coldstone Creamery's customer service model in All Marketers Tell Stories:

"If the scoopers aren't having a good time, why should the customers?"

Does My Gym Need an Admin?

So you’re an entrepreneur wearing many hats…

I’ll bet you’re wondering if it is time to find yourself some help at the front desk so that your business can “make the jump.”

Without a complete understanding of your training format, business model, and current team, I am entirely ill equipped to tell you when the “right time” is to hire someone to handle your administrative tasks.  What I can tell you, however, are the questions I asked myself before determining that it was the right time for Cressey Sports Performance to add an Office Manager into the mix. 

Ask yourself this…

Are my responsibilities associated with being the jack-of-all-trades within my business impeding my ability to deliver a quality customer service experience for paying clients? Are emails left unread for extended periods of time because the phone always seems to be ringing? Are those ringing calls being pushed aside in favor of responding to the needs of the clients standing right in front of me? Are the clients standing right in front of me being asked to wait as I finish giving the pitch to the unanticipated “walk-in” inquiry?

If your answer to these questions is “yes”, it’s time. 

It’s time for you to stop working in your business, and start working on your business.  It’s time for you to embrace the art of delegation.  Allow someone else to check people in and schedule training sessions so that you can start working to maintain the impressive growth pattern that is forcing you to make this decision in the first place.

But before you do…

Be honest with yourself

Don’t add payroll because you aspire to answer yes to these questions. Add payroll because you’re business is busting at the seams. Until then, embrace the art of multi-tasking, because you’re not quite ready to “make the jump.”

Internship Commencement Address - 3 Reminders for New Coaches

Last May, nearly 12 years to the day removed from our own graduation ceremony, my college roommate Kevin was tasked with the responsibility of delivering the commencement speech for the undergraduate students graduating from our alma mater, Babson College.  He put on his cap and gown, collected his honorary doctorate, and proceeded to drop some real world knowledge on a couple hundred young professionals who dream of being one of the first ten employees at “the next Facebook.” 

How cool is that?

I realize that I’m unlikely to find myself in the same situation.  I can, however, take it upon myself to brainstorm a commencement speech directed toward a whole different type of program graduate: a Cressey Sports Performance (CSP) Intern. 

We’re about to release our 130th CSP intern into the wild.  If I had to put on a cap and gown and share some insights with each of these coaches who have suddenly become an extension of my brand, these are three important lessons I’d choose to reiterate.

1. Someone is always watching. 

“It is our choices that make us who we are far more than our abilities.” 

 - J. K. Rowling 

A few years back we decided that the time was right to add an additional full-time coach to our staff.  Since it is our policy to only hire through our internship program, we had narrowed down our list of potential candidates without even formally announcing that we were “looking.”  Eric arrived at our staff meeting that week with a list of three candidates he felt might be a fit, and proceeded to announce them to the group.  Almost immediately, multiple team members raised their hand to informally “vote” against one candidate in particular. 

The intern in question was intelligent enough to thrive within our coaching format, assess and design programs for athletes effectively, and put his best foot forward when in front of a client or Eric himself.  What this coach did not concern himself with, however, was making friends with his colleagues.  He never once trained without his headphones in his ears during staff lift, avoided engaging with other team members outside of the facility, and isolated himself from the team during a time when we were developing a staff that would ultimately dictate the entire culture of our gym and the brand that represents it.  He wasn’t a fit.

As an up and coming coach, you should spend more time making friends, and less concerning yourself with making a positive impression on the boss.  You’ll find that you’re far more employable if everyone other than Eric likes you, as opposed to only having him on your side.

2. Choose employment wisely.

“The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who knows why will always be his boss.”

 - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’d rather see a job applicant with a gap in their resume where they spent a year “finding themselves”, than a collection of short-lived employment scenarios.  There are few things that frustrate me more than seeing a former intern who I vouched for during an interview process quit on a job just weeks after starting because they decided it wasn’t the right fit.  Unless an employer blatantly lied to you during the hiring process, anything less than six months of coaching under their roof before leaving looks to me like not finishing what you started.

If you become a perpetual job hopper, you will forever be a “man who knows how.”  What you will not become is a “man who knows why”, because the truly valuable learning experiences come after an orientation or onboarding process. 

If you take your time with the job search and avoid pouncing on the first opportunity that presents itself, you’re far more likely to settle in to a position that proves to be a good fit. That’s not to say you aren’t allowed to leave a job that is making you miserable – but with proper introspection and diligence in your search, you will inevitably avoid putting yourself in positions where you repeatedly want to leave.

3. You don’t need any more internship experience. Go make some damn money.

“Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk - and to act.”

-       Andre Malraux

There are two kinds of intern candidates I encounter: those who see how an internship at our gym provides them with the skills they need to dive in to our industry head first and begin making a positive impact almost immediately, and those who see the program as a piece of a puzzle that requires a series of letters of recommendations from names like Boyle, Cressey, Robertson, etc. 

I call the latter group “career interns”, and I strongly encourage you to avoid falling in to that trap.  I am not claiming CSP’s program to be superior to any of those listed above – to the contrary: a couple of hundred hours spent learning under the roof of any one of those fitness facilities will put you in the top 10% of coaches on the staff of just about any gym in the country.  To spend additional months and years accumulating unpaid hours and bullets on your resume only delays you from pushing the industry forward with your own great contributions.

This is a serious responsibility

Training athletes, general fitness population, or even your significant other is a responsibility that requires attention to detail and an appreciation for the risks associated with bad coaching decisions.  While the barrier to entry in our field is painfully low, it doesn’t mean that we can coast along carelessly and embrace the mentality that personal training has to be a temporary fix or some sort of professional mid-life crisis.

In closing, I’ll tell you what Seth Godin had to say on a recent recording of The Tim Ferriss Show.  When asked what insight he would share with graduating students, he said:

"You are more powerful than you think you are.  Act accordingly."

"Real" Fitness Business Talk with Pete Dupuis

I'm back from another successful Fitness Summit out in K.C. and find myself buried in email, phone calls to return, and all kinds of other CSP-related tasks piling up on my desk.

It's a good thing Tony and I arranged a nice little "content swap" on our flight out to Missouri!  Those of you who enjoyed his answers to my business questions last Friday will hopefully enjoy the insight I shared on his site today.  

#TFS16 - Come for the info. Stay for the Smirnoff.

I needed a good image to sum up the Fitness Summit weekend, so naturally I went with the picture I found on my phone of Mark Fisher realizing he'd just been "iced" by David Bromberg in the hotel lobby.

Check it my pseudo guest post on Tony's blog here: "Real" Fitness Business Talk with Pete Dupuis

Business Q&A With Tony-G at 30,000 Feet

So I was sitting on the couch last night, thinking about the fact that I’d be hopping on a 3+ hour flight to Kansas City with Tony Gentilcore the following morning (Fitness Summit weekend is upon us), and wondering what I should blog about this week.

And then I had an idea…

What if I were to jot down a few questions relating to Tony’s experience in 6-months of his “I’m not a businessman…I’m a BUSINESS, man” Experiment and then simply slide my laptop in front of him once we hit a cruising altitude?  He wouldn’t say no to that, would he?

He didn’t.

Here is some awesome insight for any of my readers who are considering making the jump from employee to owner.  Tony has experience in corporate fitness, big-ish gym creation and design (CSP), and studio-based fitness instruction.  He’s seen and done a lot.  Take notes, people.

PD: Coming from a facility of the size and scope of CSP, what are the environmental and/or cultural factors you spend the most time working to recreate in your new space?

TG: There’s been a great degree of “expectation management” on my end on this front.

I guess the appropriate response here is to state that it’s pretty much impossible to recreate CSP’s culture and environment. And, frankly, it’s never been my intention to attempt to do so.

Don’t get me wrong: much of who I am as a coach – my general approach and philosophy – has its core deeply embedded in CSP’s roots.  That, I think, will never go away.

However, when I decided to branch off on my own, my goal wasn’t to try to recreate CSP.  I’m still very much interested in getting people strong, helping them move better, possibly win a fight against a grizzly, and doing whatever I can to help people become the best versions of themselves possible…but the culture and “vibe” is still being developed (for lack of a better term).

People are deadlifting their faces off, I drop f-bombs incessantly, and there’s no shortage of techno blaring between the walls; my personality is nudging the culture in many ways. But it’s important for me to keep things in check and not marry myself to the idea that I need to “recreate” anything, or that it’s about ME in the first place.

Because it’s not.

Mark Fisher discusses the concept of culture all the time. It’s kind of his bag. There are ZERO gyms in the world that do what Mark Fisher Fitness does.  Unicorns, dildos, spontaneous dance parties, and naked glitter paint whateverthef*** are par for the course there.

The thing is: he didn’t seek out those things when he and his partners opened up their gym, and truthfully, I think he’d be the first one to say he has no idea how MFF became synonymous with Unicorns in the first place. It just sorta happened.

That said, Mark has always said that the culture at MFF – via a combination of himself, his business partners (Michael and Brian), as well as the STAFF, and the CLIENTS – is what resulted in dildos and Unicorns.

It’s about the PEOPLE; everyone. Not any one person.

In short: Matt Damon should totally train with me for the next Bourne movie.

PD: You waited nearly a decade to begin truly branding “Tony Gentilcore.”  What are the pros and cons of waiting as long as you did, and would you approach it differently if you could go back in time?

TG:

Pros: I didn’t propose to my wife until four years into our relationship. We got married at year five.

You can only imagine how many times we were asked, five months in, “soooo, are you two gonna get married?” from our parents, friends, and acquaintances.

We allowed ample time for our relationship to marinate, develop, and to figure stuff out. I mean, shit got real when we moved in together and adopted a cat. But we had a lot of tough discussions about finances, family stuff, and why I suck at washing dishes before we decided to get married. We had to duke things out to a degree.

When we were ready, we were ready. We were all in. And I feel our relationship is all the better for it.

In the same vein, with regards to my career, I waited until I was truly, 100% ready before I decided to take a big leap and venture off on my own.

Mind you, I started writing/blogging/website shenanigans back in 2006.  I’ve written over 1700 blog posts, hundreds of articles for various websites and magazines, and only now, 15 years into my career, that I feel I’m kinda-sorta ready to maybe write an ebook or produce a fitness product.

I just had my first t-shirt made and there are some trainers who haven’t been in the industry more than six months who are releasing books.

I’ve spent 10 years “building a brand within a brand,” which has helped tremendously and helped to soften the thud of the “WTF did I just do” moment in the initial days of leaving CSP.

We opened CSP in 2007. Business is not my strong suit. I still have a hard time differentiating between the terms net and gross income. But I had eight years watching and listening to you and Eric talk business…I absorbed a lot.

That’s a pretty baller “pro” if you ask me.

Cons: I don’t really have any, other than having to listen to Eric play “Linkin Park” radio on Pandora for so many years. My ears can’t stop bleeding.

PD: What’s been your biggest and most unexpected challenge since leaving CSP to be a one-man show?

TG: I miss being around the staff. Part of what made CSP so valuable was the immense amount of learning I was immersed in.  The opportunity to talk shop and bounce ideas off the other coaches is what helped keep me sharp.  Sure, I know a thing or two about a thing or two, but having the day-to-day contact with the coaches and staff at CSP is priceless and something I really miss.

I don’t miss Tank….;o)

PD: What’s the most under appreciated aspect of working with athletes primarily in a one-on-one format at a time when everyone seems to be preaching the importance of semi-private training?

TG: Technically I don’t train any of my clients in Boston one-on-one, and very much still follow the semi-private format I grew accustomed to at CSP.

I assess everyone in a one-on-one format, write full programming, and typically train anywhere from 2-5 people at a time in my studio.

That said, there have been more opportunities for me to work with people in a one-on-one setting, and it’s been sorta refreshing going back to my roots.

You forget about the importance of building interpersonal relationships with people and how cool and interesting everyone is. You tend to miss out on that component when only using the semi-private format.

PD: If I told you I’d pay for you to enroll in a single business school course to help improve your business acumen, what would it be and why?

TG: Is there a course on how to build Excel spreadsheets?  If so, I'd take that.

"Because My Boss Sucks" is a Shitty Reason to Open Your Own Gym

Aggressive blog title?  Maybe a little bit.  But 100% something you'd hear me say if you spent a day hanging around CSP.  As it turns out, there are plenty of irrational justifications for opening your own space.

• “I’m sick of giving this commercial gym so much of my hard-earned money.”
• “I want complete control of my schedule.”
• “I need more autonomy on the training floor.”
• “I’m tired of people telling me what gym clothes I need to wear to work.”
• “I want to spend less time working “floor hours” and more focusing on what I do best, coaching.”

All qualify as motivations to open your own gym…just not good ones.

Just a few quick questions...

If you think that opening your own shop is the solution that will allow you to suddenly free up the time and resources necessary for you to embrace the great aspects of coaching that got you into this industry in the first place, I have a few questions for you:

Where are you going to find the time to learn about lease negotiation?  That 10-year lease with rapidly and unexpectedly increasing CAM charges seems a little dicey.

How comfortable are you reviewing a proposed business insurance policy?  Did you catch that terrorism coverage they tried to sneak in there despite the fact that you’re gym is going to be located in Nebraska? 

Looking forward to learning the ins and outs of payroll taxes?  How about educating your self on the difference between employees who should be 1099’d and those who should be issued a W-2?

Are you ready to paint the walls, pay to keep the lights on, and assemble all of the equipment?  Now that I think of it, are you ready to pay for all of the equipment?  Did you realize that every time you break an exercise band or see a client mistakenly drop a 45-lb plate on a muscle clamp that comes out of somebody’s paycheck?  Lucky you.  That’s your paycheck now.

Did you set aside a few hundred dollars to pay for your employees to renew their CPR certification?  I’m pretty sure they’re not looking to pay for it if YOU decided certification was mandatory.

Did you realize that if your gym performs reasonably well, and you choose to accept credit cards for payment, you will end up giving thousands of dollars to Visa, American Express, and any other credit providers you choose to accept?  Speaking of which, did you realize you’re going to need to open another bank account for that?

Remember the last time you walked in to your commercial gym locker room and had to work through three different bathroom stalls before you could find one without urine on the seat or toilet paper plugging up the bowl?  Well when you start “living the dream” and open your own gym you don’t get to walk past those first two stalls anymore.  Time to bust out the rubber gloves, my friend.

How much thought have you put in to the language of your company sexual harassment policy?

Is there already money set aside to have a decent website designed?  How about the $250 fee you’ll need to pay if you want to trademark your gym name and logo?  Trust me when I tell you this…you’re going to want to do that.

Should I keep going?

I could go all day long with these questions.  My point isn’t to tell the world that running a gym is an awful experience.  Instead, I’m hoping to help you make an informed decision before chasing a dream.  Opening a fitness facility because you’re a personal trainer who doesn’t want to answer to anyone but his (or her) self is kind of like buying a house without the benefit of a proper inspection or down payment set aside.  Sure, it looks great from the curb, but there are a whole bunch of headaches awaiting you under that roof – and they ain’t going to fix themselves for free.

I often tell CSP interns that I aspire to operate a business that runs so smoothly and efficiently that they can’t help but want to open their own gym at the end of their time with us…but I also want to talk nearly all of them out of doing so.  Roughly 80% of all small businesses fail inside of their first three years of operation.  Most of the gyms that find themselves on this list are there because their decision to open was an emotional one, as opposed to an informed one. Do your due diligence first. Then you can decide if opening a gym is a gamble you want to take.

Standardizing Your Training Model Increases Coaching Effectiveness

“What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”

– Herbert Simon

When I read this quote I imagine the Nobel Laureate referring to the poverty of attention that the coaches you employ experience when asked to wear ten different hats because of the extensive list of services you offer.

You name it...we've got it!

We can help any kind of client! We’ve got one-on-one personal training. We’ve got semi-private group training. We’ve got large group training. We’ve got spin classes. We’ve got yoga. We’ve got hot yoga!  We’ve got women-only training. We’ve got self-defense classes.  There's no end in sight to what we can do for you.

Photo: www.marketingtechnologyinc.com

There are plenty of problems that come with operating a business featuring a dozen different service offerings, but the biggest of these issues is the lack of depth that results. Being seen as a mile wide and an inch deep is anything but convincing if your goal is to be perceived as “the best” fitness instruction provider in your market.

Ask less of your team...get more

Figure out a way to standardize your training model and then focus on being exceptional at delivering an amazing experience within the confines of that single coaching format. 

Roughly 99% of the athletes that walk through the doors of CSP pay for semi-private group training.  Our coaches are continually refining their ability to instruct athletes in a predictable format instead of worrying about bouncing from one supervision model to the next. There’s never confusion as it relates to expectations for coaching responsibilities or client needs.

Stop asking each of your team members to be a jack-of-all-trades. Instead, provide them with the tools they need to be a master-of-one.

Are You Sabotaging Your Ability to Convert Leads?

You insist that you can close anybody if given the chance to demonstrate your coaching skill set, but your selling strategy doesn’t reflect your attitude.

What do I mean by this? 

I mean that despite needing just a single in-person training session to establish yourself as a worthy investment, you can’t seem to stop discussing 3, 6, or even 12-month package rates before even locking in the initial visit.

I too believe that I can close any lead that happens to set foot inside of our facility.  With a couple dozen framed MLB jerseys hanging on the walls, and a training environment that features high energy and meticulous coaching, the training space effectively sells itself.  The problem is that walk-ins are rare, and I need to close the majority of our leads over the phone.

photo credit - www.carsalesprofessional.com

Guess what I don’t do…I don’t allow the conversation to revolve around the fact that it costs more than $700/month to train with us 4-days per week.  Our monthly training fees are dictated by anticipated weekly training frequency, but that really doesn’t matter before we’ve booked an assessment.  What matters is that the first step in the process of training with us is to schedule an initial evaluation, and that will be a very manageable $99 investment.

Let's not put the cart before the horse...

I’ll worry about selling you on the initial assessment.  Our facility, our training environment, and our team will take care of “convincing” you to take the steps beyond that.

Your Adjacent Possible - An Opportunity to Innovate

In last week’s post I made an argument for the importance of finding a niche within the fitness industry.  I explained how and why I would go about securing a specific area of expertise if presented with the challenge of starting fresh.  What I didn’t do, however, was explain how we stumbled upon the opportunity to capture market share within the baseball-specific strength and conditioning segment back in 2007.

I often catch people off guard when explaining that Eric Cressey became “the baseball guy” within the fitness industry without having played the sport competitively beyond little league.  How did Eric, and Cressey Sports Performance as a whole, manage to capture so much market share within this niche without having “walked-the-walk” on baseball fields at a high school, collegiate or professional level?

This summer we will celebrate the 9th anniversary of business operation here at Cressey Sports Performance.  It was on July 13th of 2007 that Eric, Tony and I set out on a mission to create a self-employment scenario which would allow for us to show up to “work” every day in gym clothes and listen to loud music.  Long before becoming “the baseball guys” within the fitness industry, we were the guys trying to identify anyone willing to give us their money in exchange for our services.

No one ever specifically told us to identify a niche and capture it.  We discovered the opportunity within the baseball community for a couple of simple reasons.  For starters, our first gym was a 2,200 square foot unit carved out of the back corner of a pitching and hitting instruction facility.  You couldn’t enter our space without walking past five hitting and pitching “cages”. 

The second reason we attracted baseball players was Eric’s unique working knowledge of the shoulder.  His time spent both instructing and playing tennis as a teenager had resulted in shoulder damage that arguably warranted surgical repair.  In the years following this diagnosis, he spent extensive time trying to identify a training approach that would allow for him to avoid going under the knife.  While not his initial intention, he accumulated a wealth of knowledge that could be immediately applied to training the baseball community.  As it turns out, throwing a baseball is surprisingly similar to the mechanics of serving a tennis ball.

This tennis-to-baseball transition is a nice illustration of how we embraced the concept of the “Adjacent Possible” in order to capture our unique niche here at Cressey Sports Performance.

A theoretical biologist named Stuart Kofman coined the term Adjacent Possible.  It is applicable to every industry or field in need of constant innovation.  Steven Johnson described it best in a piece he wrote for The Wall Street Journal in 2010: 

As we opened our doors for business eight years ago, our team included a shoulder rehabilitation specialist (Eric Cressey) and an accomplished strength coach with division-1 baseball playing experience (Tony Gentilcore).  As a result, the baseball-specific strength and conditioning niche sat well within our “shadow future” if we were to be effective in reinventing our present.

Eric realized that baseball players were an underserved population when it came to off-field training, so he took his unique shoulder assessment and programming knowledge and applied it to the adjacent community of overhead-throwing athletes.  Since that time, CSP has managed to innovate by delivering baseball-specific individualized training materials to athletes hailing from all 30 MLB organizations.

By employing a collection of strength coaches who are masters of their craft, we are able to maintain control of our niche.  Their working knowledge of the needs of the baseball community is unparalleled, and allows for us to remain at the cutting edge of our segment.  Resting on our laurels would render our first-mover advantage within this niche moot.  There is always someone willing to outwork you if you slip up.

Creating a profitable niche within the fitness industry is about more than simply identifying an underserved population and claiming a first mover advantage.  Every type of athlete has a unique set of problems.  In order to solve unique problems, you need to acquire unique skills.  You could read every single word of shoulder-related material Eric has published and cover every study he’s ever consumed during his own self-study, and still be more than 1,000 in-person shoulder assessments away from the volume of hands-on experience he has accumulated during his career.      

Before you can create true innovation by tapping in to your Adjacent Possible, you need to accrue the career capital that will allow you to differentiate yourself with a rare and valuable skill set.  Master your craft by focusing on deliberate practice.  Consume as much continuing education material as much as you can.  Work with athletes from all walks of life.  Step outside of your coaching comfort zone. 

Achieving expert status with your specific craft puts you that much closer to the opportunity to capture a unique niche.  If you’re lucky, that niche may lie within your adjacent possible.

Identifying An Untouched Fitness Niche

“The leader doesn't always win when they're playing the other guy's game.” – Gary Vaynerchuck

You may not realize it upon first glance, but this sentence perfectly encapsulates the argument for becoming as niched as possible in the fitness industry.  Our field is full of leaders, and many of them achieved that status by being exceptional at serving one or two specific athletic populations.   

These leaders have captured first-mover advantages within both their respective segments of the industry, and their geographic footprints.  As time passes, it becomes increasingly difficult for aspiring competitors to successfully play the leader’s game, on the leader’s turf. 

What do I mean by this? 

I mean that it’s bad business to set up a baseball-specific training facility within an hour drive of either of our Cressey Sports Performance locations.   

It’s a terrible idea to open a gym in southern Florida targeting football combine-prep athletes and expect to avoid being trounced by the guys at Bommarito Performance Systems.  (they prepared roughly 10% of ALL guys invited to the 2015 NFL Combine according to Forbes)

It’s an especially bad idea to open a spot in midtown Manhattan featuring transformation challenges knowing that you’re just blocks away from the guys at Mark Fisher Fitness, who basically wrote the book on this service model with their Snatched in 6-Weeks program. 

Getting the idea? 

Peter Thiel put it best in his book Zero to One when he said: “Tomorrow’s champions will not win by competing ruthlessly in today’s marketplace; they will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique.”

Time to stop playing the other guy’s game 

You can peacefully coexist with the leading gym in your respective market, just as long as you’re not trying to beat them at their own game.  Next week someone could open a world-class training facility catering to dancers directly across the hall from CSP and do just fine.  The key to their success would be originality and catering to an underserved target market.    

I recently had the pleasure of joining Greg Bradley to record an episode of the Fitness Business Experience Podcast.  We covered a ton of ground in an hour, and one topic we spoke of in great detail was the idea of niche development.  Greg asked me to explain how I would go about identifying and capturing a new niche.  How would I go from zero to one if I wanted to secure my own unique part of the fitness industry? 

I told him that I’d take it a step further than simply picking a sport.  I’d go as far as targeting those playing a specific position.  Based on my own athletic background and areas of interest, I’d attempt to become “the guy” for strength training for soccer goalkeepers. 

Why so specific?  

If you want to avoid playing the leader’s game, you’d better be prepared to create a new one. 

A quick Google query told me that no one is currently publishing content relating to goalkeeper-specific strength and conditioning.  There are coaches offering positional instruction and camps that feature a strength training component, but nobody has claimed the role of articulating the unique training needs of this population in the same way that Eric Cressey did with baseball players (and pitchers in particular) beginning close to a decade ago. 

One of our current interns at CSP Massachusetts listened to this edition of the FBE podcast last week and made sure to drop by my office the next morning to see if I’d elaborate on my goalkeeper niche comment.

“Do you feel like that’s a large enough segment to target?”

I would be lying if I told you that I had investigated the answer to this question prior making the statement.  At the time of the recording, I was trying to make the point that you need to drill down beyond the sport level if you want to find an untouched population.  Scalability is the other side to the coin. If the numbers support the concept, an opportunity exists.

In 2014 (most recent figure I could find) the U.S. Youth Soccer Federation reported a registration figure of 3,055,148 soccer players.  If we are to assume that one out of every eleven soccer players is a goalkeeper, this leaves us with roughly 277,000 net-minders playing the game in just this country.   

Let me repeat: just this country. 

We’re talking about the most popular sport in the world, and the internet essentially allows any of us to speak to a global population.  This is an opportunity to become the thought leader with a very specific (and viable) population who's success is contingent upon athleticism.  Why hasn’t anyone tried to grab this segment yet?  Why hasn’t anyone taken a stab at being “THE GUY who knows how to design strength training materials specifically for soccer goalkeepers?” 

Being “The Guy” at anything leads to immense benefits 

At least once each week I field an inquiry to CSP that begins with: “I know you guys train primarily baseball players but…”

The “but” in this scenario can go in all kinds of different directions.  But my daughter is a field hockey player who needs to get stronger for tryouts.  But my son had an ACL reconstruction last year and needs to get back in to the weight room.  But I am interested in powerlifting and thought maybe you guys would be able to help me with my deadlift technique. 

What these callers are really saying is “I understand you are the go-to guys for training baseball players, so I figured that anyone who is the best at training one population is probably far better than average at working with most others.” 

Someday soon a fitness professional will earn a reputation as the go-to resource for goalkeeper-specific program design and content.  Achieving this status will inevitably lead to additional inquiries from field players, people from other athletic populations, and general fitness candidates.  If you focus on being so good in one category that a substitute doesn’t exist, you’ll soon find that your niched reputation is anything but limiting.

Become a Better Business Owner by Experiencing an Employee's Role

Once a week, on Saturday mornings, I “return to my roots” and assume the responsibilities that come with managing the front end of our business.  Clients check in, make payments, schedule future training sessions, and more.  It is the definition of a customer service job, and for the first 5 years we were in business, it was my primary role.

There was a time when I knew the name of every person who came through the door, parents included.  Now that my energy is typically directed toward business development endeavors, I seem to have lost my magic touch at the front desk.  Many faces are unfamiliar to me and I’ve lost the intuition necessary to seamlessly anticipate client needs and questions.  I’m just not as good as I used to be. 

The good news is that this isn’t a problem.  I hired Stacie to be good at running the front desk, and she is.  She’s damn good at it. 

My first 5 years “out front” were spent creating and defining the role that would ultimately become the CSP Office Manager.  I now take different value away from the experience each time I sit down and start greeting clients.  Here’s a look at three ways that running the front desk at CSP just a single day each week makes me a better business owner and manager of people:

1. I manage better when empathetic to the current demands of the role

The role of Office Manager here at CSP is probably the most underappreciated and misunderstood.  It is easy to stand on the customer side of that desk and assume that the key to success is simply incessant smiling and maintaining an upbeat attitude, but you really have no idea how challenging that is until you’ve had the pleasure of enduring a 5-7 hour shift in this position. 

There are impatient parents.  There are young athletes who continuously disregard our requests for advanced scheduling.  There are those who “forgot” to let us know they needed new programming until the moment they’re due.  There are the athletes who repeatedly ask you to reprint their programs because they forgot or lost their copy.   There’s the insufferable caller who refuses to leave a voicemail and would rather hang up and redial 15 times in a 3-minute span until you answer. 

These are all issues that you could encounter during the first ten minutes of a typical front desk shift.

It is important that I periodically expose myself to this collection of unavoidable headaches so that I have an appreciation for the daily hurdles Stacie needs to get over as she does her job.  Greg Robins once told me that the definition of true leadership is being willing and able to do what you ask of others, and I think this applies to my weekly participation at the front desk. 

2. Better understanding of my staff’s soft-skills

I have 100% confidence in each of my coach’s capacity to deliver quality training advice and instruction while on the gym floor, but their ability to sell varies dramatically from one staff member to the next.  Some of my coaches find themselves at ease while explaining to an athlete that two weekly training sessions at CSP would be far more appropriate than one, while others are terrified to ask for the additional investment from a client. 

Every time I operate at the front desk I have the chance to observe these staff members in action as they engage with parents in the office.  There’s more to excelling as a coach at CSP than being the best at program design.  Those who demonstrate a capacity to articulate our training model and pricing structure prove to be especially versatile as we continue to grow our business. 

Some staff members could stand to be better at closing a sale, while others need to improve their ability to articulate assessment findings and training objectives in layman’s terms.  In any case, I am only able to assist in personal or professional development of my team if I am aware of room for improvement.  My time at the front desk affords me the chance to identify these opportunities. 

3. Engagement with customers allows me to better understand client perspective

My understanding of “the state of the CSP family” is typically guided by what Stacie chooses to tell me at any given moment.  She’s got her finger on the pulse of our business and routinely brings me in the loop as it relates to client gossip, trends she’s seeing among our clientele, and any other noteworthy happenings in and around our gym. 

The only better way for me to go about acquiring this information is to go directly to the source by chatting with clients and their parents every Saturday.  Our clients are dying to give us feedback…we just need to remember to ask for it.  Could we be open at more convenient hours?  Have any of my employees provided a distinctly memorable service experience?  Are we doing a good job of explaining our service model before, during or after an initial evaluation?

I can’t make modifications to our systems and services if I’m unaware of our client’s wishes, and the most effective way for me to identify these wishes is with face-to-face conversation.   

Entrepreneurs should never stop wearing many hats

The key to maintaining my entrepreneurial spirit is remembering that this business we’ve created actually found its identity while I was sitting at the front desk.  My understanding of our niche, the psyche of our clients, and the personality of my team is almost entirely founded in my time spent greeting clients upon arrival, and sending them on their way at the conclusion of their training sessions. 

I am not now, and never will be, above the customer service role of running our front desk.  Wile the bulk of my time is best spent creating and executing a growth and development plan for CSP, I should never stop making time for the occasional shift "out front" in order to stay in tune with the needs of our business.

4 Things We Did Before Worrying About Brand Development

Guess who thought it would be a good idea to book a 20-hour trip to present at a seminar 1,500+ miles away on the same day that we lose an hour overnight to daylight savings?  This guy.

Despite my current sleep-deprived status, the first annual Cressey Sports Performance - FL Spring Seminar was a great success.  I’d like to extend a huge thank you to the Cresseys for (briefly) hosting me, and to all of the fitness professionals who set aside an entire Sunday in sunny Florida to focus on their own professional development.

I made my way south to deliver a presentation entitled “Business Before Branding,” which highlighted some of the most important lessons we learned nearly a decade ago while getting CSP up off the ground and running.  I was initially inspired to prepare this material following a conversation with a young strength coach at the The Fitness Summit this past spring.

Just moments after concluding my presentation, this gentleman approached me for feedback on his logo.  My first impression was that he’d created a really nice design, though my tune quickly changed when he informed me that he didn’t have a gym, clients, or a business model; he just knew that he wanted to own a facility some day. 

My message to him was fairly simple: any time, energy, or resources you have right now should be directed toward creating something tangible.  Logo modifications can wait until there is a business behind the artwork.  I wish I had delivered the feedback Gary Vaynerchuck shared following a similar question in his book, #AskGaryVee:

“STOP it. You cannot properly market something if you don’t even know whether it’s any good. You’ve got to develop it, feel it, taste it, put it out in the wild, and reverse-engineer it so you know it’s serviceable and valuable to consumers.”

That should have been my response.

Some CSP statistics that may surprise you

Believe it or not, we were open for business for 293 days before our Cressey Sports Performance website went live.  In fact, we strung together more than 1,200 days of operation before realizing we needed to get CSP up on Twitter. 

Can a new strength & conditioning facility expect to survive (and grow rapidly) for ten months without anything other than a Gmail account?  Yes!  As a matter of fact, it is possible.

Over a ten-month span, we managed to execute initial assessments with 239 new clients, coach 5,300+ individualized strength training sessions, and build brand awareness purely through word of mouth.  Most importantly, we did it all with a small team that featured “a business guy” and a pair of strength coaches. 

By the time our website went live, we’d outgrown our first space and opened a 6,600 square foot facility we were proud to showcase.  We’d also created the systems necessary to really begin scaling our business.  We were ready to start worrying about branding.

Here’s a look at four things that took priority over branding during our first 293 days of operation:

1. Solidifying Our Training Model

From the very beginning, Eric had a firm rule: under no circumstance would our business model dictate our training model.  By this, he meant that we weren’t going to pack the gym with as many athletes as possible if it meant that we were going to be delivering generic training materials.  In our eyes, semi-private group training was the optimal service model, and we continue to implement this today. 

Our ultimate success has always been driven by client results, and the key to this component of our model is individualized program design based on the findings of a thorough initial assessment.

We spent close to ten months getting the kinks out of our systems.  We worked to identify the perfect client-to-coach ratio, appropriate training session durations, and other components of actually delivering a memorable training experience.

2. Standardizing Assessment & Programming Strategy

No amount of “talking shop” is going to prepare multiple coaches to design training materials that share the same look, feel, and intent.  While Eric and Tony possessed the same basic philosophy of strength and conditioning, they still needed to spend the better part of the first year of CSP getting on the same page as it relates to assessment strategy, program design, and exercise terminology.

We knew we wanted to build our business aggressively, and the key to being able to do so was in locking down a standardized training methodology before adding additional coaches to the team.  Employing a 5:1 client-to-coach ratio is borderline impossible when multiple staff members are responsible for program design and every one of them has a different way of labeling a lunge variation.

3. Syncing of Coaching Styles

Much like exercise terminology leaves plenty of room for interpretation, coaching instruction can be delivered in a wide variety of ways.  You can get away with six different ways of cueing proper technique for a trap bar deadlift if your gym staffs a collection of independent contractors who “own” their clients and coach in an entirely one-on-one format.  You can’t, however, do so if you count on multiple coaches to deliver the same message and training experience to 100% of the athletes who come through the door.

Our semi-private group training model now allows for clients to engage with up to 10 or 12 coaches during a given training session at CSP, so delivery of effective coaching instruction is contingent upon standardization of cues.  I encourage every staff member to let their freak flag fly high during conversation between sets, but the message needs to be consistent when it comes time to supervise a coaching-intensive movement.  Eric and Tony spent much of those first 293 days deciding on exactly what that message would be and we can continue to scale the model today because of their efforts.

4. Creation & Standardization of the Selling Process

Whenever possible, I give the pitch for CSP training services.  Leads are directed to my attention and it is up to me to turn them into paying customers.  My job is to bring people through the door with cash in hand and an interest in our training model.  I leave it up to my coaches to deliver an experience that will result in us enjoying the lifetime value of a dedicated client.

In order to put my staff in the best position to create the type of experience I’ve mentioned, it is important to standardize client expectations from day one.  This starts with my articulation of the training model during the selling process.  If I fail to clearly explain the collaborative coaching strategy we employ, the nature of our training environment, or even appropriate training attire, we run the risk of clients feeling misled or confused by the experience.  The best way to avoid all of these issues is to ensure that whomever is selling your service has perfected your pitch, and more importantly, the value proposition behind it.

With zero fitness industry experience as of the day we opened CSP, I felt less than prepared to fly solo during the initial selling process.  Eric allowed me to shadow him while explaining the services and training model for about two days before throwing me in to the fire.  “You’ve got an MBA…you’ll figure it out” was essentially the extent of his motivational selling instruction from there.

Instead of spending my time and energy worrying about creating a catchy hash tag or viral marketing effort, I was more worried about making sure I knew how to sell what we would eventually be promoting the crap out of.  It probably took about 293 days to polish up my approach, but I figured it out. 

Before worrying about the nuances of each social networking platform…

Make sure you’ve established the systems and services that you’re going to be publicizing before really diving in to your branding efforts.  The beautiful thing (and arguably worst thing) about the fitness industry and gym ownership in general is the low barrier to entry.  If you can afford a power rack and some weights, you can proclaim yourself a gym owner.  With this in mind, there is no need to chase investors during your early stages, and therefore no need to lose sleep over brand management right off the bat.

Feel free to shoot me an email if you’d like to discuss the growth and development of your own fitness business. I’d love to help!

Sidestepping the Paradox of Success

Raise your hand if you’ve heard (or read) me preaching the importance of finding a unique fitness niche in order to improve your chances of running of profitable gym.  If you’ve read more than one of my posts, you’ve likely got a hand in the air.

This time around I’d like to hit you with a little curve ball.  I want to discuss the potential pitfall that comes with successfully capturing a specific segment of our industry and becoming “the go-to guy (or girl)” in that area. 

I’ve just finished reading Essentialism by Greg McKeown, a book that was recommended to me roughly two dozen times before I finally pulled the trigger on picking up a copy of my own.  In it, McKeown discusses what he refers to as “the paradox of success.”  The paradox of success is what most people would call a good problem to have.  What most new fitness entrepreneurs fail to realize is that a good problem to have is still a problem.

According to McKeown, there are four distinct phases of the paradox of success. Here’s a look at each phase, and a description of how we handled the development of CSP during each step in the process.

Phase 1: Clarity of purpose leads to positive outcomes

The turning point in the story of CSP came back in the fall of 2007 when we chose to embrace our unexpected local reputation as “the baseball guys”.  Instead of running from this unofficial title in an attempt to position us as everything to everyone, we selected an untapped niche and began laying out a game plan for capturing it.

We put every high school ballplayer we worked with into a free CSP tee shirt on the day of the initial assessment.  We attended more spring and summer baseball games than I can count.  We networked our way on to the radar of the most influential personalities in the Massachusetts baseball community.  We began to make connections with local college coaches, MLB affiliated scouts, and anyone else with an opinion on the best way to develop a young baseball player. 

We hustled six to seven days per week for about a year and a half before deciding to take the liberties of actual days off.  We earned first mover advantage in the baseball-specific strength and conditioning niche. 

We had clarity of purpose.

Phase 2: The “go to” guys for baseball see increased options & opportunities

Increased opportunities initially translated to more foot traffic in our gym and a full assessment schedule.  The options began to roll in and people started floating ideas of opportunities that would pull us outside of the walls of CSP.

Come on out and warm up our team on game days!  Give an arm-care demonstration at our parent’s open house night!  Open a satellite facility in this building I own just a couple of towns over!  Partner with us to open a world-class baseball complex in Florida!  You should license the CSP training model!  Sell me a franchise!

Options.  So many options.

Phase 3: More options = More demands on time = Diffused efforts

I recently recorded an edition of The Fitness Business Experience Podcast where I mentioned that we’ve made more than our fair share of mistakes in nearly a decade of operation.  One of those tactical mistakes was jumping at the first satellite facility opportunity that presented itself, resulting in us spreading ourselves thin on resources.  We sent our first employee, Brian St. Pierre, to a hitting and pitching instruction facility just 20-minutes down the road to coach high school athletes two afternoons/evenings a week. 

This “project” lasted roughly 18-months before we opted to transition away from the opportunity and place our focus entirely on developing CSP’s business under just one roof.  McKeown would say that pursuing a satellite facility while our business was in its infancy was less of an opportunity, and more of a demand upon our time and energies that would lead to a diffusion of efforts.  He would be right.

Phase 4: Distractions undermine the clarity that led to initial success

Our brief foray into managing a satellite facility taught us the important lesson that without having rock solid systems in place, scaling your model quickly will only serve to exhaust your employees and convolute public perception of your brand.  We’d earned the chance to open this second spot because of the positive word of mouth that resulted from athletes experiencing our unique gym culture and training experience.  In hindsight, pursuing a growth opportunity simply because we could wasn’t a great excuse to do so.

As soon as we began spreading our existing resources over two locations, we began struggling to continuously deliver the quality service that had put us on the map in the first place.  Instead of hiring quickly and throwing more resources at what was trending closer and closer to sunk cost status, we chose to pull the plug.  In effect, we got out early enough to sidestep the full implications of the paradox of success.

How your gym can sidestep the paradox…

The most important thing you can do right now is to post your company’s mission statement and core values in plain sight and make sure to read them every day.  I’d imagine they are more focused on helping individuals than they are on scaling a brand.  Make sure your employees see them.  Make them visible to your clients.  When it comes to your company values, don’t just talk about them.  Be about them.

Unless your objective is to spread brand awareness all over the fitness world as quickly as possible, you should possess a singular focus on creating a training experience that the industry and community cant help but talk about.  It took us nearly eight years to open our second CSP location in Florida, yet I’d imagine that most of my readers were aware of our brand before that point.  We got on your radar by seeking “so good they can’t ignore you” status.

The key is to avoid jumping at what Jim Collins referred to as "the undisciplined pursuit of more" in his book How the Mighty Fall.  You should have no problem doing so if your actions reflect the words in your mission statement.  As I said before, success-related growing pains are a good problem to have, but a problem nonetheless.

Pump the Brakes on Bashing Higher Education for Fitness Professionals

With increasing frequency, I find myself answering the question of whether or not academic degrees are “worth it” to achieve success in the fitness industry.  Until recently, this question was usually specific to fitness-related degrees.  Now that I am finding more and more opportunities to share my insights with fitness professionals and gym owners, people also want to know whether or not my undergraduate business degree and MBA were necessary. 

Great questions.

(For those of you interested in Eric’s answer to the fitness-related degree question, you can find an extremely thorough explanation here and here.  In short, his answer boils down to “it depends”.)

Photo credit snaap.indiana.edu

In his book titled Conscious Capitalism, John Mackey said that his success in creating Whole Foods Market was partially attributed to his decision not to attend business school because it left him with “nothing to unlearn.”  It seems to me that an increasing number of fitness professionals are beginning to embrace a similar attitude to Mackey’s.  Is higher education for fitness professionals and gym owners getting a bad rap?

When it comes to building and operating a business such as Cressey Sports Performance, application of common sense is more important than any specific individual skills obtained during college or graduate school.  My prior exposure to accounting principles and marketing strategy helps, but there’s no substitution for the simple policy of: don’t spend more dollars than you collect. 

Boom!  Business 101 in just six words.

This being said, both my undergraduate business degree and my MBA were absolutely worth it…just not necessarily for the reasons you’d think.

Here are three very important lessons you’ll learn in college (and graduate school) that are immensely valuable for anyone looking to jump in to the fitness industry.

1. Nobody cares if you fail

In the beginning, I was not a good student.  In fact, I’d describe myself as a bad student up until right around the start of my second semester of college.  I coasted along with a mediocre work ethic, had the tendency to fall back on the excuse that I was dyslexic, and assumed that a good SAT score was all it would take for me to attend the college of my choice.  I was an idiot.

When you’re living under your parents’ roof and attending middle school or high school, there are all kinds of safety nets keeping you from complete and utter failure.  When I had a couple of less than stellar weeks of academics to start a term, a progress report was sent home requiring a parent signature.  Parent/Teacher Conferences were also the norm.  Someone always seemed to be paying attention to my productivity. 

My first semester at Babson College was the kick in the pants that I needed to begin understanding how the world actually works.  (A d-minus in calculus will do that for you.)  I learned more important lessons during the fall of 1999 than I had in the 18 years leading up to it.  The most important takeaway was that nobody cares if you succeed once you’re done with your formative years. 

When you get to college, no one is concerned with whether or not you showed up to class on a given day or remembered to do your homework.  No one holds you accountable if you don’t carry a passing average past a mid-term exam.  You pay for the opportunity to pursue a degree, but the school has little incentive to worry about your performance once your money is sitting in their bank account.

Once you decide it is time to dive into the real world and become a strength coach, personal trainer, or whatever type of fitness professional title you’d like to apply to your resume, you’ll realize that no one actually cares what level of success you achieve.  I’m thankful to have learned this lesson during college because it kept me from burning bridges professionally when “real life” kicked in.

2. Your ability to network will drive your earning potential

During the first five minutes of my very first college class, I listened to a professor make a statement that sticks with me to this day:

“You guys really want to succeed in the business world?  Learn to play golf.”

Photo Credit: www.back9network.com

While the suggestion was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the message was important: business is about managing relationships and being an effective conversationalist.  Striking a golf ball with accuracy is of little importance, but having the ability to comfortably “talk shop” between strokes on the course is a skill that translates to success in multiple facets in life.

I was reminded on a daily basis during my college years that my classmates would become the foundation of my professional network at a time when LinkedIn, Facebook, and any other type of social networking platform did not yet exist.  We were constantly asked to complete group assignments that required us to master the art of shared responsibility and a collaborative task-driven work dynamic that you are unlikely to experience at any point in high school.

My higher education experience forced me to learn to “play well with others” in a professional setting.  I am a better colleague, manager of people, and contributor to the fitness industry today because of these networking skills acquired while attending college and graduate school.

3. Growth and development lie outside of your immediate comfort zone

By bypassing the pursuit of higher education in favor of entering the fitness industry, you miss the opportunity to surround yourself with ambitious individuals with other areas of interest.  If you secure a coaching job in your hometown, socialize with nothing but other fitness professionals, and only concern yourself with getting better by attending fitness events, you’ll never have the chance to learn from people from outside of your field.

I am a firm believer in the concept that you are the product of the five people you spend the most time with.  As it turns out, my business partner is the only one of “my five” with any interest in, or connection to the world of fitness.  This allows me to source professional ideas and concepts from individuals with unique perspectives and business experience that isn’t grounded in time spent on a gym floor.

Of the people who have had the biggest influence on my professional development beyond my business partner, one is a guy I met as an undergraduate student who now makes his living as a venture capitalist, and another was my academic advisor during my MBA program.  Take into consideration the fact that Eric and I met as the result of our college selection, and you’ll see that three of the biggest influences on me professionally became a part of my life thanks to my pursuit of higher education.

It’s about more than accumulating book smarts

One of the most common statements I hear from participants of our CSP internship program goes a little something like this: “I’ve learned more in the past four months of coaching here at CSP than I did during four years of college.”

Though I can appreciate the compliment in this claim, I feel inclined to point out the fact that we will not even consider intern applicants under the age of 21 with less than two years of college under their belts.  Whether students realize it or not, their time spent in school helped them to develop the emotional maturity and soft skills necessary to handle one’s self on the training floor at CSP.

There is a ton of value in obtaining a degree that isn’t found within the pages of a textbook.  

3 Reasons We Don't Offer Free Consultations

*Disclaimer: I fully understand that many fitness professionals are bound by the obligation to provide free consults per the policies of their employers.  Who am I to get in the way of the service offerings and corporate policies of the likes of Equinox and other big-box gyms?  With this in mind, this post is geared toward those of you who have flexibility in your service model and pricing structure.  Enjoy!

I’ve “entered the unicorn”…

I had the opportunity to present at the Motivation & Movement Lab hosted by Mark Fisher Fitness this past weekend in New York City.  Harold Gibbons described the objective for the event as “Perform Better meets The Fitness Summit”. They NAILED IT.  My presentation was titled Innovative Selling Strategies for Fitness Professionals and it covered exactly how I go about converting Cressey Sports Performance leads into scheduled initial assessments.

The unique (and fantastic) thing about this event is the part-presentation, part-workshop format.  Presenters were tasked with preparing a 20-25 minute talk which would be followed by a 45-minute breakout session where we “workshop” our ideas.  Coming in to the experience, I expected to breeze through the presentation piece and struggle with the group discussion component.  In the end, my experience was the exact opposite.  Condensing a concept into a 25-minute presentation window is far more difficult than standing in front of a room and plowing through 50-60 minutes of content on a PowerPoint deck. 

For those of you who have an upcoming public speaking event on the books, I encourage you to pick up a copy of Talk Like TED.  I have made a habit of rereading this text prior to every speaking engagement I book.  Each time my presentation topic changes, I find that the material in the book resonates differently with me.  As Todd Bumgarder said to me at Saturday night’s social event, “the way we interpret the material we’re reading in any given moment is entirely about context.” 

A tour of MFF with Michael, the "Business guy"

One statement I made that sparked intrigue…

Nearly every time I deliver a presentation, one or two specific statements or concepts will lead to the bulk of the follow up questions.  This time around was no different.

I mentioned that in nearly nine years of running CSP, we’ve never formally offered a FREE initial evaluation.  If you want to walk through our doors, you’ll need to find $99 to get things started.  What followed was extensive elaboration on this policy during our breakout sessions, and even further discussion as I sat on the expert panel at the end of day one. 

How do you justify not offering a free first visit?  Are people turned off by an initial charge?  How many of them do you convert to business at the end of the assessment?

All reasonable questions.

Why we charge for the initial evaluation at CSP

I have a good friend (and former intern) who has extensive experience managing the personal training team in one of Massachusetts’ busiest commercial gyms.  He recently explained to me that only 30% of the members who were offered a free consultation with a personal trainer upon opening a membership actually took advantage of the opportunity.  This may be a solid conversation rate from the perspective of the commercial gym owner, but not for the independent contractor who doesn’t see a single penny of the monthly membership dues these potential leads are paying.  A 30% conversion rate tells me that 7 out of 10 people decided that something for nothing was actually worth nothing. 

Prior to opening CSP, I paid for (and underutilized) memberships at three different commercial gyms in a four year span.  I was offered the free consultation each and every time.  I declined, each and every time.

Albert Einstein is famous for saying that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”  With this quote in mind, and taking into consideration my own prior exposure to “free consult” offers, rolling out a CSP initial assessment protocol that featured a FREE component would have qualified as an insane move on my part.  Why not try a new approach?

These are the three ways I justify having an initial assessment charge:

1. I sell with conviction

Eric Cressey had multiple college degrees on the day we opened up CSP.  He’d brought the Magnificent Mobility DVD to market and was on the cusp of releasing Maximum Strength, a text that would soon sit on the bookshelves of Barnes & Nobles.  Why, then, would we expect people to come through the door assuming that he owes them something for free in order to prove himself?  Would you walk into a salon and expect your first haircut for free so that you could decide whether or not you were going to take the jump and invest some money in coloring or highlights? 

I understand that a free initial offer is a textbook lead generation tool, but it does not need to apply to the kind of experienced fitness professionals who take the time to attend seminars on the weekends and to read fitness-business-specific blogs such as this one.  Your time is valuable.  It isn’t mandatory that you decrease its perceived value by slapping a $0.00 price tag on it.

2. I’m not handing out samples

A free consultation is like the sample of General Gau’s that you grab as you race past Panda Express on your way to a glorious Sbarro calzone.  It’s a passing indulgence.  To me, the term “free” screams: Unlimited supply!  Generic!  Vanilla!

A $99 initial evaluation at CSP is the first step in the process of addressing your own unique training needs.  It’s an informational and enlightening 90-minute window where we’ll closely review your injury history and training experience.  We’ll see if we can identify any faulty movement patterns or flexibility limitations that might need to be addressed.  We’ll articulate the importance of a thorough warm-up before training.  We may introduce you to some corrective exercise.  You’ll learn how to properly hip-hinge. 

This is a comprehensive experience.  If you had to assign a fair market value to this service based on my description, would you say it was $0.00?  It’s time for me to rethink my approach if you did just that.

3. Extreme(ish) Investment

Mark Fisher gave a fantastic presentation at this past weekend’s event covering the transformation program that really put MFF on the map: Snatched in 6-Weeks.  He explained that one of the seven “hell yeahs” of the Snatched program was extreme buy-in.  At a price point somewhere in the $800 range, this program is anything but cheap.  By making an extreme investment in one’s health, a Snatched client feels inclined to see it through right down to the very last session.

We see this psychology hold-true on a smaller scale here at CSP when we charge a fee for our initial assessment.  Clients who spend $99 to get the wheels in motion feel an obligation to extract as much value as they possibly can from their initial investment.  This is accomplished by committing to a month of individualized programming design based on the findings of our evaluation. 

An investment on day one serves as an unofficial declaration of commitment to the process, while execution of a free consultation feels more like an experiment that you may or may not decide to pursue further.

Don’t Forget…

My last piece of advice is to embrace the role as a price leader.  Premium services should command premium price points.  If you believe yourself to be “the best coach in your area”, then your service costs should reflect your confidence in this service…right down to the initial visit.

If you are pitching someone who has taken the time to send you an inquiry email, call for an explanation of your services, or drop-in to see you in action, they’ve already demonstrated that they see value in your offerings. 

After all, they found you.

10 Problems That Come With Managing a Mature Fitness Business

It's all rainbows and butterflies at first. 

When you start from nothing, everything you do helps to set a record.  One tough realization we all eventually come to in the weight room is that once the "newbie gains" conclude, you can't achieve a personal best every time you step up to the bar.  Nonetheless, for a little while, we all believe we can.  

It’s hard not to run your business with the same mentality when you’re the new guy on the block and people seem to keep finding their way through your doors to see what your gym is all about.  Continuing double (or even triple) digit growth year after year? Sure, that's sustainable!

It probably isn’t.  And that's okay.  

We’ve all been told that starting a business is hard, but there doesn’t seem to be much discussion regarding the troubles that come with plugging forward in an established business.  Things WILL go wrong, and you have the choice to react poorly, or learn a lesson and move forward.  I've done both. 

Here are ten difficult lessons you’ll eventually learn if you are fortunate enough to see your business transition from “new” to “established” status:

1. Long-time clients will leave

Much like your favorite local bar, every gym has its regulars.  These are the clients that helped lay the foundation of both brand and culture within your service business. 

As you get caught up in the whirlwind of growth within your operation, you may fail to realize that the circumstances of your client’s lives change over time.  People move, jobs change, and expendable income fluctuates.  Eventually, you’re going to lose a client for reasons other than your ability to deliver a quality experience or service.  It’s not your fault, but it will sting. 

Try not to take it personally.  Change is a part of life.

2. Great employees will move on to new steps in their career

We made our first official hire at CSP back in the spring of 2008 when we brought Brian St. Pierre on board.  Brian was fresh out of college and he had a passion for both strength training and performance nutrition.  He was hard working, entrepreneurial-minded, and forthcoming about his goal of eventually pursuing a masters in nutrition. 

We looked a lot younger in 2008...So. Much. Blue.

We had the pleasure of employing Brian for three great years, and CSP became a special place in part because of him.  He’s since chased his dream and managed to secure employment at the world-renowned Precision Nutrition, holding the title Director of Performance Nutrition.  How cool is that?

It isn’t our job to monopolize the best talent in our industry for selfish reasons.  Our job is to provide clients with life changing training opportunities while positively influencing our field as a whole.  I’m proud that we had the chance to influence Brian and his career path.  

3. You’ll have to fire a client or two

This is a problem that you’re unlikely to encounter while in the early stages of operation.  After all, how many new gyms can afford to turn away business?

Business will get better with time, and you’ll eventually find yourself seeking operational efficiencies as you juggle tasks and responsibilities.  Sooner or later a crummy customer is going to help you come to the conclusion that your time, energy, and resources are better spent focusing on clients who require less nurturing and bring a consistently positive attitude to the gym.  Just because your high maintenance clients show up with cash in hand, doesn’t mean you have to accept it.  

Your time is valuable.  Firing the occasional client can make you more efficient.

4. A star client will get hurt

I realize that not every gym has the opportunity to work with athletes.  Those that do, however, need to be aware of the reality that their star pupil is vulnerable to injury just like each of his or her peers.  We can provide all of the arm-care resources under the sun to help a baseball player to minimize the damage that comes with throwing a baseball, but it is unlikely that CSP will ever entirely eliminate the risk that comes with the sport.

We’ve had players do everything right on and off the field with respect to preventative maintenance who still fall on some bad luck as it relates to injuries.  You can’t beat yourself up over it.  Focus on improving your training philosophies and protocols as you reflect on what you’ve learned from the experience. 

5. The cost of doing business will increase

If you’re in the game long enough, you’re going to see the cost of doing business skyrocket.  For example…

We provide health insurance for our coaches here at CSP.  In nearly eight years of operation, I have seen our monthly per-person cost for insurance coverage move from $147.50, to $322.50.  Our coverage package has not changed.  Our employees schedule their annual physicals and fill the occasional prescription.  Otherwise, we’re low-maintenance, inexpensive clients.

Think about those numbers for a second.  The cost of health insurance for my team is now more than twice as expensive as it was back in 2007.  With a team of 8 coaches, that can mean an increase of more than $15K in annual health insurance costs.

Photo credit: southjerseybiz.net

6. You’ll take a big risk all over again when signing a new lease

Every gym owner should aspire to survive the duration of his or her first gym lease.  If you find yourself eye to eye at the negotiating table with a landlord looking to re-up at the conclusion of your term, you’re doing something right.

In most circumstances, you’re going to need to commit to an additional 3-to-5 years of rent.  In our case, that means a commitment to nearly $1M in rent dollars over a 5-year span between our two facilities.  Every time you sign a new lease you are taking a risk reminiscent of that which you took the day you signed your first one.

7. Someone will discuss your brand in a negative light

We all have competition, and competitors will not enjoy seeing you thrive.  Someone will inevitably bad-mouth your business, and the best response is no response at all.  Rise above the negativity.  Exchanging public criticism of your competition will only make you look immature. 

my son's new favorite word is "cheers"...he's really good at it

8. Those lacking integrity may “repurpose” your material

I recently had a consulting client bring it to my attention that a gym in his market had plagiarized a great deal of the copy from our CSP internship page.  This prompted me to run a quick Google search of a very specific sentence from the Expectations of All Applicants portion of our program description.  If you’d like to see a true demonstration of laziness, go ahead and drop this sentence into a search engine: “Present yourself in a manner that will reinforce your status as a role model for impressionable young athletes.”

I made it through the first ten or so examples of blatantly cut and pasted material from our site before I decided that heading on to page two of search results would only serve to make me more angry.  Who would have thought that the copy I wrote back in 2008 would bring so much value to so many people’s businesses?  I honestly don’t know what my recourse is in this scenario.  All I can say is that plagiarism demonstrates a lack of integrity.

The lesson here is that if your intellectual property is the differentiator upon which you make your living, you need to copyright (and trademark) your material immediately.  You should also think long and hard about reusing other people’s material and passing it off as your own because once you’ve been labeled a cheater, it is a hard label to remove.

9. You’ll “age-out” of your targeted demo

If you own a fitness business that works with a specific target market (like baseball players), you are eventually going to be much older than the athletes you are targeting.  Eric and I had an easier time getting inside the minds of 18-22 year olds back when we were 25.  We now find ourselves in our mid-30s, and growing rusty when it comes to trendy applications such as Snapchat and Periscope.

We can either change with the times and work to employ coaches closer in age to our ideal demographic, or declare that “the old way is better” and watch the industry pass us by.  We’ll go with the former option, thank you very much.

10. Your personal priorities will change

When we started this business, we were young, unmarried, and far from being parents.  At that time, my priority list looked like this:

1. Turn CSP into a monster of a business and brand
2. Repeat number one

Today, my list looks a little more like this:

1. Be a good husband and father
2. Maintain and develop a strong business and be a good employer
3. Publish business-specific content and consult for other gym owners

There’s nothing wrong with seeing your priority list change over time.  The problem comes when priorities begin to change and you realize that you’ve yet to create systems and assemble a team that can take on the responsibility of helping you advance the development of your business while you work to juggle new responsibilities. 

Congratulations

If you’ve had one, two, or even ten of the problems outlined above, it means that you’ve been in the game long enough to have an established fitness facility.  This is commendable in an industry featuring so much competition.  I wish you luck, and hope that you continue to encounter some of these issues. 

You’re obviously doing something right. 

Resume Building 101 for Fitness Professionals

I’ve got resumes on the brain.  Reviewing 159 of them over a 3-day span will do that to you.

Monday was the application deadline for our summer internship program here at Cressey Sports Performance (CSP).  While we typically receive roughly 200 internship applications in a given calendar year, upwards of 70% of them are specifically for our summer program, due to the traditional academic calendar.  Just over half of our applicants for the 2016 summer internship are either pursuing a degree in a related field, or will be receiving one this May.

Thanks to the size of this record-setting applicant pool, only 6.3% of candidates will ultimately be offered a spot in our program.  There is no room for error during the application process when spots are this limited.  As far as resumes go, I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Some interesting statistics from this applicant pool:

• 22 of the 159 applications (14% of the pool) were formatted incorrectly despite the fact that requested submission format is featured in bolded and underlined red text within the directions
• 11 candidates submitted incomplete applications, forgetting to include a resume or brief essay
• Only 12 of the applicants were female (a blog for a different day)
• 4 candidates forgot to include the second “e” in “Cressey”…I wonder if anyone ever submitted an application to “Harvrd University” and received an acceptance letter?
• Close to a quarter of the applicants referred to our business as “CP”, as opposed to the “CSP” we legally (and publicly) changed it to 18 months ago

The majority of these mistakes are trivial, but they are the difference-makers when it comes to sorting through 159 applications.  I even had one candidate who was exceptional for the first 90% of his application materials wrap things up by failing to remove [INSERT COMPANY NAME HERE] from his essay template.

During my senior year at Babson College every student had a mandatory appointment scheduled with the Center for Career Development where a faculty member would review and approve our resume for “release” into the world of job applications.  We were taught that when it comes to crafting a readable resume, proper formatting and brevity were of the utmost importance.  What felt like an inconvenience at the time ultimately proved to be a valuable lesson for me.

Nearly 1,000 resumes reviewed - here's some advice

More than 900 internship applications have crossed my desk since we began offering a formal program in the spring of 2008. I have come to some firm conclusions on what makes for a solid candidate on paper.  Here are four resume tips for fitness professionals trying to score jobs that require more than a certification hastily picked up on the internet:

1. You don’t need more than a single page to do it right

Of the 82 applications that arrived from students pursuing a college degree, 64 submitted resumes that were two or more pages long.  Think about this for a second…more than 75% of our candidates with zero years of post-college professional experience have so much experience that they can’t fit it into a single page.  I do not believe that there should be a firm one-page rule in place for resume design, but I am a firm believer in concerning yourself with relevance.  Which leads me to…

2. Irrelevant content wastes time and space

Before you hit “save” on your next resume update, I want you to ask yourself a couple of questions:

Does the likelihood of me securing this strength & conditioning coaching position hinge upon my technical skill set that includes “Microsoft Office Proficient” and “Extensive Adobe Illustrator Experience”?

Will my summer of mowing lawns six years ago be the differentiator I need to stand apart from the crowd?

Will the person reviewing my application be impressed that I made it to the third round of open casting calls for Season 7 of American Idol? (I didn’t make this one up)

I am not advocating for resumes stripped clean of unique professional experience; I’ve written on multiple occasions about our affinity for candidates with military experience and/or backgrounds in small family business.  Instead, I’m saying that every component of your resume should serve a purpose as it relates to the position you are pursuing.

3. Modify EVERY TIME you apply for a job

Much like we differentiate at CSP by offering entirely individualized training materials for every client, you have the opportunity to differentiate yourself from other candidates by presenting an entirely individualized resume crafted specifically with the job in question in mind.  It is obvious to me when a resume or cover letter has been designed to be generic enough to be sent off for multiple job opportunities.

If you’re going to include a “Professional Summary” or “Objective” section, make sure to craft your words strategically.  I’d encourage you to custom-fit the articulation of your skill set and interests to match the role.  This doesn’t mean that it is ok to fabricate experience.  It means that a generic resume stating: “I am passionate about fitness” will be far less impactful than one that includes:

Objective – Secure an internship at Cressey Sports Performance where I will have the opportunity to apply my unique academic background, professional experience, and enthusiasm for helping others through fitness.

4. Find someone to edit your work

Abraham Lincoln is known for having said: “He who represents himself has a fool for a client.”

I share this mentality as it relates to preparing important job application materials.  He who edits his own resume and cover letter for his dream job may soon need to find a new dream.

I had the pleasure of updating my resume for the first time in nearly a decade this past weekend.  I spent close to an hour fine-tuning the formatting and copy.  When I was done, I forwarded it along to my wife and asked her to edit.  She found a typo, poorly articulated segments, and content she deemed to be irrelevant to the opportunity for which I was preparing a current resume (speaking to the students of the SUNY Cortland Fitness Development Program). 

Every change she suggested was appropriate.  What I had prepared was not bad, per se.  It just needed another set of eyes to give it the necessary finishing touch.

Don’t let a lack of professionalism dictate your career ceiling  

Colleges and universities need to begin emphasizing (or reevaluate their delivery of the message of) the importance of professionalism and attention to detail during the job-hunting process.  Every time a degree is awarded, the student becomes an extension of their school’s brand.  When I consistently see poorly formatted and edited application materials coming from graduates of the same program, it not only hurts the candidate’s chances of being offered an interview, but it also decreases the likelihood that I take future applicants from the same school seriously.    

In summary: Keep it simple, keep it relevant, and concern yourself with attention to detail.

3 Hiring Mistakes to Avoid

On more than one occasion during recent weeks I have found myself saying that I feel like an old man attempting to play a young man’s game.  While 34 years of age isn’t necessarily what most would call old, it isn’t exactly young in the eyes of my clientele.

Back in the summer of 2007 when we started our fitness business Eric and I were both 25 years old; a sweet spot where we were just young enough to be perceived as “cool” by the high school athletes, fairly recently removed from college life, and adult enough to be comfortable looking a parent in the eye and asking them for money in exchange for training services.  Unfortunately, time waits for no man, and I now find myself decades older than some of the athletes walking through our doors today.

This is not to say that I have suddenly become less effective at doing my job.  Instead, the value I bring to CSP’s day-to-day operation has shifted away from intensive client interaction and hands-on customer service, toward a role that emphasizes people management and strategic business development.  This change in job function is possible because we’ve assembled a team that can pick up right where I left off as it relates to blurring the line between service provider and friend.

While identifying quality resumes is easy, finding the right “fit” is a whole other story.  Here’s a look at three of the biggest mistakes a fitness service provider can make when hiring to expand (or replenish) a team:

1. Lack of Diversity in Personalities

If you do what you always did, you’ll get what you always got.

There’s an understandable comfort zone that comes with hiring people who remind you of yourself.  We already spend more time in a work setting than we probably should, so why not assemble a team of people just like us so that we’re guaranteed to enjoy the company of our colleagues?

This approach is fine if your goal is to remain stagnant as far as typical clientele goes, but businesses need to evolve to survive the test of time.  Ideally, every gym should have a blend of available coaching and personality styles in their arsenal.  You may need a coach who relies on tough-love in communicating the message.  Sometimes it takes a personality with a slightly softer bedside manner to ease a 14 year olds anxiety coming into an uber competitive environment like CSP.  Maybe the key to boosting profits in your boot camp program is finding the biggest, most extroverted personality you can get.

If you simply hire a friend you love training with you are missing an opportunity for your business to accommodate a broader spectrum of clients.  You are also putting yourself one step closer to being dispensable as far as coaching needs go.  Which leads me to…

2. Failure to Embrace Free Thinkers

If your training philosophy isn’t changing in some capacity over time, you’re likely offering a dated training experience.  In discussing programming evolution, Eric once said: “Change is all around us, and if we’re not recognizing that and changing with it, we’ll be in a bad position in no time.”

Photo Credit - adsoftheworld.com

When it comes to hiring, bringing on board a “yes-man” will inevitably stifle evolution of your programming philosophy.  I want CSP’s monthly staff programming meeting to be populated by a collection of strength coaches who are willing to rock the boat if it means that they are able to influence appropriate change in our program design offerings.  Conflicting opinions can be a good thing, as long as we collectively agree on a unified approach by the time this type of meeting ends.

3. Missing the Opportunity to Make Age-Appropriate Hires

The further removed I find myself from high school, the more difficult it is to have organic conversations with most of the athletes populating my gym.  When Tony Gentilcore transitioned away from CSP this past fall it both modified the personality of our business, and opened up a spot on the team that needed to be filled quickly.  While I miss getting to hang out with Tony every day, his departure was an opportunity for us to evolve our team in a direction that would compliment the needs of our youthful target market. 

I recently asked Tony if he could put his finger on the moment when he began to feel a little out of touch with our youngest clients, and he said: 

“I was sitting on the wrong side of 35, and clients looked at me like I had three heads every time I made a Party of Five or Melrose Place reference. Today, more than 90% of my clients are over the age of 30 and conversation between sets seems to flow effortlessly.”

We decided to fill Tony’s coaching spot with Nancy, a 22-year-old fresh out of SUNY Cortland’s Fitness Development Program.  Though Tony’s extensive coaching and programming experience will be missed, Nancy will help CSP as a whole to connect more authentically with the athletes who keep us in business.  She will also bring some much needed gender diversity to our coaching staff, better positioning us to capture a piece of the softball-specific strength & conditioning market.

Hire Strategically

On boarding and properly training a coach is both time consuming and expensive.  Take these three potential mistakes into consideration as you review coaching candidates for your business and you’ll be considerably more likely to make a solid hire. 

My Favorite Thing About Owning A Gym

I’ve decided on my favorite aspect of owning a fitness facility.  Aspiring gym owners are probably not going to like it.

The best part of owning your own “performance enhancement center” isn’t working with professional athletes or avoiding the obligation to cater to the needs of the fat-loss community.  The supposed autonomy that comes with owning your own shop doesn’t come in the form of “making your own hours”.  In fact, you can go ahead and kiss your predetermined and predictable schedule goodbye because that’s as good as gone the moment you decide to open the doors on your own space.

The best part about owning your own gym is the part of the process most people dread: the laborious hours spent hauling equipment, laying flooring, and getting your hands dirty in general. 

This past summer, CSP-Florida Co-Founder Shane Rye managed to grind out 52 consecutive days of work between his gym and on-field coaching duties.  And you know what?  He didn’t bitch about it once.  He realizes that what makes or breaks a young business is the level to which equity holders are willing to go to ensure its success during the earliest stages. 

Shane, Eric, Brian and Tim’s fingerprints are all over the success found in our Florida location.  Eric actually jumped in on the demo process down there and his fingerprints are now all over this toilet as well:

Every once in a while I find myself reminiscing about “the early days” of our business, and none of those memories ever feature specific client training sessions or the high profile athletes we’ve accumulated over the years. 

Instead, I end up laughing about the initial 14-hour workdays culminating with heavy farmers carries at 10:00pm in a space featuring broken windows and no air conditioning.  I remember the 48-hour span where we relocated an entire gym across town using a rented U-Haul truck featuring a lift gate that sat two feet lower than the loading dock at our new space.  You ever try to lift a functional trainer out of a dark truck and on to a loading dock at 3:00am on a school night?  It sucks.

This past Friday I spent my day off replacing the turf in CSP’s pitching cages.  It took me and three other guys a little over four hours to get it done.  I walked away with a sore back, a cut on my right hand that probably could have used a stitch or two, and the memory of a morning at CSP that will likely stick with me for years to come.  When an athlete, parent, or other fitness professional walks through our door and tells me that they love the look and feel of our gym, I can take pride in knowing that I helped to drag all of this shit in here and set it up just right.

In addition to my desire to personally impact the look and feel of our business, here are three reasons why you’ll always see me cutting the turf, mounting the speakers, and hanging the jerseys:

1. Hard work is hard

Owning your own business isn’t supposed to be easy.  Sometimes things need to happen at inconvenient times, under inconvenient circumstances, and the owner needs to suck it up and get it done.  This is why Eric, Tony and I realized early on that our best interns and employees seemed to be products of small family businesses.  We’ve learned that the blue-collar entrepreneurial nature that successful small business owners typically possess is inevitably baked in to the work ethic of their kids.

During elementary school and middle school I had the pleasure of spending the occasional snow day riding in an oil truck alongside one of my dad’s employees.  We’d move from one house to the next hauling a hose from truck to house, delivering home heating oil in miserable conditions. 

So what if your friends are sledding…mom and dad couldn’t stay home from work today so you’re going to learn the value of earning a few bucks the hard way.

By no means does my role at CSP involve continuous manual labor.  My point is that getting your hands dirty every once in a while and stepping outside of your comfort zone for the good of your business is important.  Hard work is hard.  Deal with it.

2. You discover other people’s true character

There are two kinds of clients in my world:  The ones who ask you why you haven’t rolled out the new rolls of turf in the pitching cage yet…and the ones who ask what time you want them to arrive the next day so that they can help with the process.

Chris Carmain and Ryan Leach fall into the latter category.  These two are aspiring professional baseball players who showed up close to 4 hours before CSP opened last Friday to help me and Matt Blake lay some new flooring.  They didn’t ask what was in it for them.  They volunteered and never shied away from unpleasant work.  All they requested was coffee and the opportunity to be the first two guys to throw when we finished the job.

We’ve accumulated a whole lot of clients like Chris and Ryan over the years, and I am immensely grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to welcome them into my network.  While we intentionally align our business with the most recognizable professional athletes on our client roster, the heart and soul of the CSP Family is made up of athletes willing to give up their free time to help me do the dirty work of maintaining a facility.

3. Opportunity to lead by example

“Leadership is being able and willing to do what you ask of others.” 

This is CSP Strength Coach Greg Robins’ definition of leadership.  He discussed the concept in great depth in a guest post on my site this past summer, and I agree with every word he had to say.  I could have assigned a couple of my employees the responsibility of giving our pitching cage a facelift last week and they would have done a fine job.  However, I also would have been perceived as having “big-leagued” (a popular term in a facility overflowing with baseball players) a task that I didn’t want to be burdened by.

Roll up your sleeves.  Demonstrate a willingness to execute the projects that your employees are dreading.  The message needs to be clear: we’re all in this together.

Make some memories

Back in the summer of 2006 I began the One-Year Full-Time MBA Program at Babson College.  From Memorial Day until Labor Day, we got pummeled with homework, exams, and a curriculum that had us on campus 12+ hours a day at least 5 days a week.  There were moments when it felt like a living nightmare, but I survived.  I then eased my way through the lighter workload of the fall and spring semesters leading up to graduation.  When I look back on all of it, I think fondly of the summer experience, and can barely recall classes and projects that took place during the rest of the year.

Owning your own fitness facility has turned out to be a whole lot like my graduate education process.  The early stages will push you to the brink of insanity, but you’ll eventually settle into a comfortable rhythm.  When all is said and done, nobody reminisces about rhythm.  The hard part is what you’ll remember, and for some reason it will all seem enjoyable in hindsight.

Accumulate some sweat equity.  You won't regret it.