I spent 24 hours in London this weekend with a trusted consultant/mentor.
We basically spent 5 hours questioning every single thing we do within the business to see the impact it was having and whether it's something we should look to keep, change or discard completely going into 2025.
It brought up A LOT of stuff so expect some very reflective blogs over the next few weeks haha!
One of the main things was around 'doing more' instead of doing less but better and I think this really is something that can be taken into your own health and fitness journey (and indeed life).
I am very much a Type A do more and more right now type of person, if you hadn't already noticed.
I went into the meeting with 101 ideas of things we could add, new models or classes and ideas for support away from the gym.
He talked me out of most of it...
Why you may ask? Well there is a couple of things.
Now I am going to preface this by saying the check in process away from the gym is our KEY priority next year, we do want to streamline this and have a few ideas I'll share at the end of this blog and over the next few weeks on how we plan to do it.
However here is why we decided against a lot of the suggested ideas and it goes back to our business mission statement, which is:
'To use fitness as a means to handle whatever life throws at us and train consistently while seeing results but more importantly enjoying the process'.
The key part here is consistency.
On average members stay with us for over 2 years and fitness becomes part of their life in the same way they go to work and brush their teeth (and this is true for a lot who leave us as well).
We want to create autonomy where people have us in their corne and value our guidance but we aren't a crutch for them.
In my humble opinion weekly check ins go directly against this.
Checking in with a coach week to week year round is in my opinion crazy. Here are just a few reasons why:
-You aren't creating autonomy with health and fitness, the coach is becoming your crutch.
-You are adults. There is (I'd imagine) a lot going on in your life without tracking 101 different things and having to formally check in with a coach.
-We see people day to day and have team meetings on people who haven't seemed themselves, have struggled or have done really well.
-There isn't much to report week to week, you as the client almost feel you need to make up struggles so you have something to talk about (believe me I've been there as a client).
Here is my controversial take...
I think some coaches do this so you think they are giving value rather than actually giving value.
This is not a dig.
I've been there as both a coach and a client, it's only through years of experience and working with 1000s of clients that I come to this opinion.
To be clear we DO believe in doing this for periods of the year.
This is why we run nutrition accelerators like the muscle gain programme or fat loss challenge. We will also have members that go through stages where they need a bit closer support for a period of time.
I suppose the other realisation is the value of having a professional in your corner.
If I hadn't spoke to my mentor I may have done some crazy stuff but having somebody to guide me helped show me the path.
It's a bit like us as coaches.
To many people's surprise a lot of our job is telling people to do a bit less. We regularly talk to people about going overboard with different things like nutrition tracking, steps or exercise.
It's the same within our Small Group PT sessions, we regularly slow people down and tell them to focus on the quality of what they are doing rather than how much they get done.
Again the value of a professional.
So next year our aim is to do less but do it even better. To give an insight here are our key focuses for next year.
-Continue making our Small Group PT experience the best in the country by up skilling coaches, investing in new kit and listening to member feedback.
-Have a better method of tracking strength progress (we are almost there with this).
-Have 3 methods of extra support for members.
Coaches corners where people can hop online and ask any questions, quarterly calls or face to face meetings rather than forms and our renowned accelerators.
-Streamline and improve classes with clear distinction of which class is best at which stage of your fitness journey.
-Soften the gym up and improve on areas around the gym floor like reception and bathrooms. Without going into a sob story we held 2 leases for 7 months this year (unexpectedly) which really ate into budget and caused some hairy moments. As such we didn't have as much ability to do up non-gym areas or buy kit as we would have liked too, that's now changed.
So that shows that we are following our own advice and picking a few key metrics to improve upon.
I also did a bit of personal goal-setting and tried to take my own guidance.
I am doing an ultra-marathon next year so my main motivations are around running, the reality of this is that my strength training will likely take a hit, that is just the nature of the beast.
As always we are always open to ideas. As a young business we don't get everything right but it will NEVER be for a lack of trying.
Just continue this when setting your own goals. What are the 2 or 3 things that REALLY move the needle and attack them with all you have.
P.S. One of my goals is my blog for coaches or business owners. Check it out if that kind of thing interests you.
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