Are you someone who believes you need to forge your own way? Do you find that lessons learned first-hand are better and more poignant than lessons learned through someone else? Or maybe you believe that if you are to achieve true and lasting success you must believe in yourself enough to take risks. You are capable, smart, and dedicated so you can achieve success without assistance. 

I started as a business owner with this mindset. I was a military officer with overseas leadership experience and full-time police officer. I was 100% confident in my ability to plan and solve any problem that presented itself. I knew cheerleading and had been on the best collegiate team in the state and had pioneered the All-Star Industry within the Pacific Northwest. So, after three years of struggling, working for free, using my own money to pay gym expenses, I realized that although I was getting better at being an owner, I was often taking one step forward and two steps back.  

I needed help learning how to run a successful business.  

Yes, I could teach myself how to do this. I could read books, listen to podcasts and create my own education, implementation and accountability plan. However, in the end, I would be just like the kid who learns tumbling from Youtube videos. I may accomplish great things, but they would never be as great as they would be if I had a qualified coach.  

The first step is to recognize how much you might benefit from help. 

The next pitfall is more deceptive though.

Maybe you feel like you’ve made it! You have reached a point in your business where you are feeling successful. You are productive, you set quarterly goals and you usually even achieve them. Enrollments are up, staff are working well, and you are taking a regular paycheck. You have cracked the riddle of running a successful gym! You don’t need anyone else’s help, because you’re doing amazing.

Some people are right. Others have a false sense of security. We see this in our gym when an athlete takes a season off to “work on their tumbling.” Do you usually see that athlete back the next season with stronger skills? 

This false sense of security can actually happen at any point in your business but tends to trend around 12 months of monumental success. We’ve set the goals, put in the work, seen the results, and now we can take the much-needed break.  

The meetings we diligently held every week with our management team, we start to miss/reschedule them. Other things became more important. The strategic planning, yearly and quarterly goals we set, and KPI’s we attacked with vigor get rinsed and repeated. The eagle eye we had on our business and its operations starts to focus on other things. The business coach/mentor we used to meet with regularly – well, other things have taken precedence.

This is one of the most dangerous times for a gym because as fast as you grew, you can lose athletes even faster. You’ve omitted the second set of eyes on your numbers and the person who you hired to push you the most. The financial loss will generally be a trickle, but there are always warning signs but because we are not tracking our metrics or meeting with our coach, no one sees it coming.

The best protection from the complacency of success is to have an impartial mentor/coach who continues to hold you accountable, re-orients you on foundational principles and aids you in your new endeavors without allowing you to lose focus on what built you to where you are. Whatever stage you are at in your business, Next Gen can help. Join us on our mission to help gym owners on their road to becoming successful both on and off the mat.