As a fitness business owner - even if you’re just starting out and you’re a one-man operation – you’re essentially a manager. Look up the word manager in the dictionary and you’ll find a definition something like this: somebody who is responsible for directing and controlling the work and staff of a business, or of a department within it.

Enter Fitness Business Time Management

If you’ve ever worked outside of the fitness industry, say in an office or retail, managers spend a lot of time in meetings discussing ways of improving business, and time management is a major concern. The cost of labor is the largest expenditure for many companies and managing the time that staff spend doing certain tasks can mean the difference between profit and loss.

But how does that apply to your little fitness business?  Well let me put it like this, why are you doing tasks you shouldn’t be doing – and yes that may mean cleaning your studio – when you could hire someone else to do it for a measly few bucks an hour?

If the answer is “I can’t afford to hire someone” my response is you can’t afford NOT to hire someone! How is vacuuming your studio moving your business forward?  All that’s doing is wearing you out, prolonging the hours you work, and diluting the income you get from doing more lucrative things – the reason you started your own business!

This is where the 5% rule comes in.

Yes you’re bursting with enthusiasm and you work like a maniac to get everything done, but where’s it getting you? Your wife’s sitting at home AGAIN patiently waiting for you to take her out to dinner and the kids want to see the latest Batman movie – with YOU!

You’re going to have to take stock and start delegating if you want to build your business and become successful.

Write a List

Start out on a typical day with a notepad, or use your cell phone – it doesn’t matter how you do it. Make a note of everything you do, down to how long you spend answering the phone and what the call was about and – most importantly – was it worth you answering the phone if it was a time-wasting solicitation call?

At the end of the day sit down and analyze what you’ve done and how much you’ve earned.  I guarantee you’ll be pissed off by the time you’ve finished. That’s good, because now you know what you shouldn’t be doing!

Why are you constantly checking your FaceBook page? Why do you check your email every 10 minutes? Why are you unclogging the toilet? Why are you wasting an hour with yet another walk-in salesman who has nothing useful to offer your business?

Why aren’t you making a decent living and taking your family out for an early dinner and a show? Well duh!

You should be spending a portion of every day earning the maximum amount of income and dealing with the minimum amount of bull#&$# AND moving your business forward.

Write Another List

You didn’t start your own fitness business so you would be a slave to it. Now, analyze how much time you spent during that typical day that somebody else could have done.  I guarantee 95% of the run-of-the-mill crap could have been handled by somebody else.  Did doing that 95% of things move your business forward? No, I thought not; it just wore you out.

So here’s what you do. Figure out when the best time is for you to do essential tasks.  Yes of course you have to interact on your blog or FaceBook Business page. Do you think more clearly in the morning before you leave for the studio or after a cup of coffee at your local Starbucks? Make a resolution to ONLY do those tasks when you are functioning best.

When do you see the best results from your daily workout? Allot that time to yourself and tell everyone else to leave you alone during that time. Turn off your phone; put a Do Not Disturb sign on the door!

I know it’s hard at first, but if you want to succeed in this business you can’t be a wimp. It’s your frikkin’ business – you’re in charge!

When you look at your list it will be liberating! Let’s face it, there are thousands of people out there looking for jobs. Place an ad and have applicants apply via email with their resumes – don’t let them walk in and don’t do phone interviews yet.

Ask your partner or someone else to go through the emails while you get on with promoting your business, or go to an agency and let them do all the work of finding you the most qualified and suitable assistant. By now you know exactly what his/her job description will be – yep, doing that 95% of things that are bogging you down!

You will feel like an enormous weight is lifted from your shoulders when you go through this process, and as you can see I’m a big fan of lists.

You Guessed it – Another List!

Okay so you’re brilliant at what you do but nobody can remember everything.  Luckily with all the tools and apps you can load on your phone or computer your business and life can be run much more efficiently without the need to remember every little thing.

Make a list each night of the essential things you have to do the next day (and that must include family birthdays etc!) and stick to it.  Don’t overdo it. Remember this is essentially to make time management easier and not stress you out more - so be realistic.

95% of it again will be everyday "stuff" – reminders to tell your assistant to do certain things, pay bills, order more business cards etc., but make sure that at least 5% of your scheduled tasks are designed to move your business forward - and remember, the majority of that stuff you won’t have to do yourself!

It’s time to cut out the fat.

 

This entry was posted on May 5, 2013 at 10:46 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Boot Camp Business, Boot Camp Strategies, Lifestyle and Self Improvement, Mindset and Lifestyle, Personal Training Business by Steve Hochman | No Comments Yet