Is a Bigger Business Harder or Easier?

I have conversations on a weekly basis with gym owners that are struggling. They are stressed, overworked and most of the time not satisfied with the amount of money they are bringing home. A very common statement I hear when I help people set growth goals is this: “I cannot imagine going from 200K in gross revenue to 500K, I can barely handle what’s going on right now.” What they don’t understand is this jump in revenue takes some different skill sets and some very hard decisions. What got you to 200K in revenue probably won’t get you 500K.  If it does, it will probably drive you crazy. I call this shifting from stage 1 to stage 2. Stage 1 is anywhere from 0-200K Stage 2 is 200-500K NOTE: These revenue numbers are specific to the small personal training gym. The first key to being able to succeed here is a commitment to doing less$10-$20 per hour work. The people I see struggle the most with this are the ones that are mentally and physically drained from doing too many sessions and mindless paperwork. It’s very hard to make challenging decisions like, when you should hire another coach, what to do for marketing, or how to improve your sales process when you’re always running on fumes. Being a business owner is hard enough, to do it burnt out is a recipe for failure. The key to moving from stage one to stage two is stepping into unknown territory. It’s comfortable to run sessions, it’s easy for you. Hiring, marketing, sales, leadership: that’s another story. What got you to where you are today will not get you to the next level. My gym right now is bigger than I ever imagined, but, I do the least amount of work now than I’ve ever done before. Bigger is harder because there is more on the line and it forces you to do things that you are not comfortable with. But the most dangerous thing to do is to stay where you are right now. Vince