Earlier this year I made the resolution to learn how to make bread. Baking is one thing that has defeated me most of my life. There is no great reason for it except that I don’t love the precision of measuring and timing. I love cooking, but you don’t have to be quite as exact on things. Don’t have lemon juice? Throw in lime juice – good enough. Can’t find the teaspoon to measure, grab a small cereal spoon. It’s pretty tough to mess up majorly just by being off a ¼ tsp when you’re cooking. When you’re baking though – there is a massive difference between all purpose flour and almond flour. Try substituting baking powder for baking soda, and you’re going to have problems. The few people who can help you make adequate substitutions are chefs – and I mean really good chefs who know the science behind food.
So why am I telling you about my 2022 ventures in the kitchen?
Because a recipe is nothing more than a system for how to make something. Just like in your gym, sometimes you can easily substitute one thing for another. You don’t have a spotting block? No problem, stack up a few panel mats. You can’t afford an email marketing platform yet? OK – let’s make it work with Gmail (it’s not perfect, but it’s possible!) But some things need a recipe. They need an exact system of how to operate in order to be effective.
If I told you I want you to spend $250 on marketing this month. I might tell you to run a Facebook ad. A lot of people out there, would head over to the Academy tutorials and follow along. They’d select conversions or website traffic, ensure there is a pixel on their site, target the exact audience and go step by step. Others would go off the recipe and hit “Boost Post.”
I did it, Danielle. I’m done.
So how do you know when you can substitute and when you need to follow the strategy exactly? That’s where we come in. Here at Next Gen, we have gyms who range from brand new gym owners (or long-time gym owners who have done things the same way since year one) to those who are killing it and doing only the parts of the business they enjoy WHILE taking a regular paycheck and taking great care of their staff.
When there is a task to be done, they can easily reach out and say, “How precise do I need to be here?” We know the answer because we’ve been doing this day in and day out testing the methods in our own gyms for years. We know what can be adapted and what can’t. We know what can be substituted and what can’t. If you’ve been part of programs before, you may have tried and tried and nothing worked. That’s where I believe NG is different. Maybe you were using all purpose flour, but you’re gluten free (that’s literally a recipe for disaster for some people!)
So, let me ask. Are you someone that follows the recipe to a tee or do you like to come up with your own substitutions and measurements? Has it worked in the past? Let me know!
