Volo Innovations

Below is a quick top ten list of items that need to be looked at either for the first time or at the start of your yearly planning.  

1. Mission statement: This is why you do what you do. What you use to motivate staff, your definition of your company and your identity all need to be in line with your mission statement. Do a quick gut check here because you need to decide if you are living the dream and staying the course or has your path changed in which case you should update this valuable statement.  Check out our training studio mission here

2. Demographics: These are the people you serve and this needs to be regularly checked to make sure things have not changed and the people you are targeting are coming. Understanding that you are all female or a sports specific gym is important

3. Geography: A quick look at who is using you is important but where those people are coming from and how they get to your services is equally important. You do not want to run a sport specific boot camp in a senior's complex, remember the average time a gym member will travel is only 20 minutes by any mode of transportation so location, location, location.

4. Hire: You cannot do it all no matter how hard you try it just does not work in the fitness industry. Hire, delegate and strategize on how you are going to grow your company is the most important thing when starting a fitness company. No one person should be so important that they cannot be replaced, this includes you. Some say start by replacing yourself others say transition off yourself. I believe it is an individual decision but I can honestly say that only the people who can remove themselves will be successful.

5. Accounting: Volo automates your business, our software handles scheduling, billing, creating invoices, and setting up of automatically recurring payments. A pretty powerful piece of software but if you don't do your accounting it is game over. Someone needs to be in charge of paying bills, checking the bank accounts and paying employees or your business will fail.

6. Sales & Profit: I love this topic, people always yip about getting sales and more sales means more money well actually no it does not. The most important thing any business can do is generate a profit, of course you need sales to do this but your sales could remain the same and you can increase profit through better management or inventory control. Look at your business and find the areas where you can increase profit then go out and generate sales.

7. Service: Fitness is a service first and a product second. Please remember this you need to put the customer, client or member first in our industry. They need to feel a WOW factor every time they come in or they will go somewhere else for training or yoga or nutrition these are the add-on services that will boost your profits per member now that is good business.

8. Staff: I like to say you have two major assets in a fitness business, clients and staff, everything else is just dressing. Treat them right, compensate them well and ask for their opinions. Every person you hire should bring something to the business if they do not then don't hire them if they are not contributing then fire them. Sounds harsh but remember we are service industry with tight profit margins and one bad employee can cost you thousands in lost revenue.

9. Equipment: Take a look around you and see if you are using the old out dated gear or are you cutting edge new trend kind of gym. You do not take a knife to a gun fight, same thing for the fitness business now you cannot train athletes with just power lifts. Get the right equipment and stay up to date on the new gear.

10. Education: When was the last time you did some continuing education in either business or an area of fitness that your business is centered around? Often I speak with studio or business owners that have let their own certification or knowledge lapse; this is fine if you are an absentee owner but if you are involved in the business then set the example, perhaps bring someone in to do continuing education for you and your staff!

Follow these ten business tips and you will always remain ahead of the competition. Your business will be set to capitalize on new trends and service the clientele with a big WOW factor that brings in more business.

photo credit by Kevin Dooley