“How will your fitness business evolve?” It is an interesting question for fitness business owners because so many of us started our fitness business because of a passion for health, for helping others and for living a fantastic lifestyle.

We often take the “if we build it they will come mentality” to our facilities. No fitness professional got into this with a goal of being tied to a desk doing all the crazy amount of administrative work that is needed to run any business. Yet time after time I hear stories from the trenches of start-up fitness business were the owner is trying to do all the scheduling, billing, accounting and member management leaving them with less time to do what they love, getting people active. 

Is this what happened to you after you started
your fitness business?

What fitness professionals do not realise is that their business evolution is not predetermined, they have choices. The first choice you need to make is if you want to cut the tether to your desk by getting some help.

One of the best pieces of business advice I ever received did not come from a business coach or mentor but from a cardiologist. He was a personal training client that I trained for ten years and his wisdom was paramount in both my personal training studios' success and also my sanity. My wife and I were about 3 years into running our gym when our good friend passed on his wisdom. He saw that we worked tirelessly in our business training clients, doing administrative tasks, hiring new trainers and of course trying to get more clients. He took us to dinner and asked us a simple question “Have you ever seen a doctor answering the phone or scheduling the appointments?” We thought about this and of course the answer is no. He went on to talk about himself and his self-realization that he is a fantastic cardiologist, one of the words best in fact, but he does not claim to be good at the business side of things so he hired people to do that.

This was his advice do what you are great at and hire for all the
other stuff and your business will succeed.

Let’s face it when was it that a client said to you “wow you have such great administrative organisation and that is why I train with you”, never right.   

Within a year we had started the first version of Volo up and running and we automated all of the administrative parts of running a fitness business. Not only did we have a system that allowed other people to do the administrative processes in our business but we could check out what was happening from anywhere in the world and instantly pull reports to check out our business. It was the best decision we ever made for our company.

We choose to not evolve into a life of servitude to our desk and instead broke free and empowered our trainers and clients with the ability to manage their own schedules by booking online. We also automated and simplified our billing and invoicing meaning we could go on vacation and still get paid. This is what online studio management software will do for you andyour fitness business.

Here are some other great articles on how to make choices in your business:

• Set the PACE
• Creating strategies

There are lots of different ways that you can grow your business, you just need to choose how you want your evolution to be.