#JTInTheRaw Show 50: In Your Fitness Business You Can Achieve More By Doing Less!

Your chance of achieving 2 or 3 goals with excellence are high.  The more goals you try to juggle at once, the less likely you will be to reach them!

If you aim for 4 to 10 goals, you will have excellence in 1 to 2 goals.

If you aim for 11 to 20 goals, you will have excellence with none of those goals.

Today I am going to share some insights I have gained from this book: The 4 Disciplines of Execution.  It’s a beauty!

Welcome to #JTInTheRaw show 50!  I never thought I’d get this far.  I committed to 12 shows and then said I’d keep going if people liked what I was sharing.  Each week my show is viewed 500+ times within the first 24 hours and is shared an average of 15 times.  The message this sends me is I am helping you.  Am I?

I’m grateful for my regular viewers, my regular sharers and especially grateful for people who watch one week and come back the next!  Thank you for all your support!

So here’s to another 50 shows!  What do you think … keep going with #JTInTheRaw?  Hit like if you want me to keep going . . .

So what’s in this week’s show:

• A confession
• Achieving more by doing less
• An extra special shout out
• And a MASSIVE announcement

Let me start with a confession . . .

This week I realised what a dumb arse I am!

I spent 3 days focussing on a competitor. Feeling down. Blaming everyone and not taking responsibility.

I got eaten up with the poison toxin of negativity to the point of having a sleepless night!  I started the week with a cold, that went nowhere. I ate crap. I didn’t feel like exercising at all.

In my role as a business coach, I tell you guys to run your own race.  I tell you to focus on your strengths. I tell you get great at what you do.  I tell you to differentiate.

And you know what, I did none of that this week.

On Thursday morning I drew a line in the sand and said “Stop this crap!  It’s not healthy!” I said no more being Negative Nigel.

I analysed our competitor and in an honest appraisal I felt our product is still superior – at the moment.

I reframed my thinking.  I now took it as a compliment that if someone wants to almost duplicate what we do, then we should feel super proud. And I am proud.

I framed my thinking to see competition as a fantastic tool in order to sharpen our sword to make sure our product is even better.

Some people criticise me as a consultant or business coach who has lost touch with the industry.  I mean I haven’t owned a gym since 2008, after 15 years of gym ownership.

Well from my confession I hope you see my products have competitors just like you.  My business is about selling memberships, just like you.  If my members don’t engage on our member hub, they cancel, just like yours.  So while I may not own a bricks and mortar gym my business model is very similar to yours.

Every day I face very similar challenges as you.  It is how you handle the challenges which make you a better person.  I confess I was a shit person at the beginning of the week but I feel I have learnt my lesson and come out the other side a better person.

Thanks for listening.  I felt it was important for you to see that it’s not always rosy at Active Management and that I am personally no different to you nor different in business.  I walk in shoes very similar to you every day.

So let’s move on . . .

And don’t forget at the end of the show I have a MASSIVE announcement!  But first . . .

This book was recommended by a member of the Industry Leaders Roundtable and I grabbed it because in my business I was juggling so many ideas and I felt I wasn’t executing.  I needed a kick in the arse and hoped this book would help.

Now I started on Tuesday night and have loved it!  It’s easy to read with simple tools.

Last week I said you needed to get out of the 4 walls of your business regularly to work on your business. I explained how and why you would do that.  I shared what break throughs are possible when you work on the business not in the business. If you missed show 49, then pop 49 in the comments and I’ll share the link to the show.

Today, I want to share with you what causes breakdown in execution of those strategies you come up with . . .

• People simply don’t understand the goal.  In a survey conducted for the book, 85% of employees could name what they thought was the business goal.  The further the staff were from the top of the organisation the lower the clarity of the goal
• Lack of commitment.  In the same survey, only 51% of the staff said they were passionate about the Team’s goal.
• Accountability. A staggering 81% said they were not held accountable for regular progress on the organisation’s goals.

In short people didn’t know what the goal was, weren’t committed to it, didn’t know how they influenced the result and weren’t held accountable.

So there was no execution of the strategy!

This book explains 4 disciplines to achieve more:

1. Focus on the wildly important. This discipline goes against your basic wiring as a leader and focus on less so that your Team can achieve more.  If you try to execute 10+ goals, your team cannot focus.  The lack of focus magnifies the whirlwind of day to day business, dilutes your efforts and makes your success almost impossible.  Set no more than 3 goals!

1. Act on Lead Measures. Some actions have more impact on your goals than others.  The key is to identify those actions and stop the other actions.

1. Keep a compelling scoreboard.  Your team will play differently when they’re keeping score.  If you want the highest engagement from your Team, then have them design the scoreboard.  I guarantee it will be a simple scoreboard where they can determine instantly if they are winning or losing.
2. Create a Cadence of Accountability.  This is the rhythm of regular and frequent meetings of the Team that owns the wildly important goal.  It is at these meetings that your Team create their own commitments.  This commitment goes beyond job performance as it a promise to their Team.  The key question for each Team member to answer every week: “What are the one or two most important things I can do in the next week that will have the biggest impact on the scoreboard?”

I hope these disciplines resonate for you in your business.  As a solopreneur or small business man that popped off the page of the book at me!

If you think this info could help anyone you know, please tag them in the comments below by popping their name in the comments.

If you would a like to grab the book, click here for a link.

I’m going to keep powering through the book, so in future shows I may just drop a few knowledge bombs for you!

As watchers of #JTInTheRaw I like to give the scoop on announcements, so I have a double barrel shout out this week!  Chantal from the Fitness Business Podcast has been working closely with Trina Gray from Team Rockstar Fit and yesterday Trina confirmed a 3 year sponsorship of our podcast.

Congrats to Chantal for bringing Trina in the #FBPFamily and welcome Trina to the family.  We are super excited to have you and can’t wait to learn more about Rockstar Fit in August.

With this partnership, this means that The Fitness Business Podcast which is celebrating it’s second birthday this month now has the ‘full house’ sign up for Premier Partners.  This has taken 2 years but is super exciting for us.

And now it’s time for a MASSIVE announcement.

Yesterday, after an indescribable amount of effort from Alicia at Active Management, we released Active Membership 3.0.  Alicia has done an amazing job building our new Member Hub at www.ActivemgmtMembers.com.  On the Member Hub you will find:

• The recording of the monthly Q & A that I do, answering your questions.
• Social media memes ready for you to use.
• Professional development videos – including the latest called: On-Boarding Members For Long Term Loyalty.
• Marketing templates waiting for your logo and business details.
• Ebooks with templates for you to use refine and enhance your employment process.
• Gym photos from fitness studios from around the planet that I have visited.

We are pumped! Silver Membership for personal trainers, managers, franchise business owners and independent business owners is now open!  My advice, is that this will be the best 249 bucks (even less in USD) you spend in the next 12 months to help you lead, manage and run your business.  The resources have NEVER been more accessible. You’ll join for the content and then stay for the community.

To become an Active Management Member go to www.Activemgmt.com.au/joinnow.

And so that ends today’s show. A mixed bag for show 50 . . .

• A confession that I am not perfect as a business coach, I face the same challenges you.
• Some tips on executing your strategy
• A great book to read
• A special announcement for the Fitness Business Podcast
• And a the massive announcement that Membership 3.0 is live and ready you to join!

So let me finish the today with quote of the week.  And after 50 shows this is still me fav part . . . I love it

“If you want high focus, high-performance team members, they must have something wildly important to focus on.”

Do you want to work one on one with JT?

Check out all previous shows here: http://www.activemgmt.com.au/category/jt-in-the-raw/