Early on in my fitness career I was yearning to
own my own business, but I didn't have any idea
where to start. I was browsing around the local
bookstore looking for something that might
provide me a little direction when the by-line of
a book caught my eye: Why Most Small Businesses
Don't Work And What To Do About It. Little did I
know that I had stumbled across what would become
the most influential business book I had ever
read, The E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber.
If you've not had the good fortune to read this
book, I urge you to go pick it up immediately,
but in the mean time let me share with you
excerpts from that very important book, and I
quote:
"The technical work of a business and the
business that does the technical work are two
totally different things. But the Technician who
starts a business fails to see this and that is
the root cause of most business failures.
The carpenter becomes a contractor. The barber
opens a barbershop. The technical writer opens a
technical writing business. The hairdresser
starts a beauty salon. The engineer goes into the
semiconductor business. The musician opens a
music store. All of them believing that because
they understand the technical side of the
business they are qualified to run a business
that does that kind of work.
Not true!
Forty percent of start-up businesses fail within
the first year. Within five years 80 percent will
have failed and of those that survive those first
five years 80 percent will fail within ten
years.
Most businesses are operated according to what
the owner wants rather what the business needs.
And so you work. Ten, twelve, fourteen hours day.
Seven days a week. You're consumed by it; totally
invested in doing whatever is needed to keep it
alive. But you're not only doing the work you
know how to do but also the work you don't know
how to do. You are not only making it; you're
also buying, selling, shipping it. You are a
master juggler keeping all the balls in the air.
It's easy to spot the Technician's business. If
you removed the owner from the business there
would be no business left. The owner and the
business are one and the same thing
You don't own a business. You own a job.
IBM, McDonalds and Procter & Gamble did not end
up as mature businesses. They started out that
way. Tom Watson, the founder of IBM said, "I had
a very clear picture in mind of what the business
would look like when it was finally done. You
might say I had a model in my mind of what it
would look like when the dream - my vision - was
in place."
Wow, did this hit me right between the eyes. I
thought about every trainer that I knew that
"owned their own business." They all worked from
five in the morning 'till eight in the evening.
No sick days. No paid vacations. They simply
traded their time for their clients' money. They
had simple bought themselves jobs.
I thought back to my father. He owns a very
profitable automotive repair business. Same
story. Sure, he has employees, but the business
completely revolves around him. If he's sick...the
business is sick. If he's on vacation, so is the
business. He bought himself a job.
The trainers, my father, they were technicians
that owned businesses. I wanted to be a Fitness
Entrepreneur. I wanted to own a business, not be
owned by one. So I had to begin by starting from
a different perspective. The mindset of a
technician and an entrepreneur are almost polar
opposites of one another.
The Entrepreneurial perspective asks the
question. How must the business work? The
Technicians perspective asks, What work has to be
done? The Technicians perspective starts with the
present and looks forward to an uncertain future.
The Entrepreneur envisions the future and builds
the present to achieve that vision.
The Technician sees no connection between where
his business is now and where it is going.
Lacking the grander scale and visionary guidance
manifest in the Entrepreneurial model the
Technician constructs a model each step of the
way based on past experience - the model of work
- exactly the opposite of what is needed if the
business is to free him from work.
The Entrepreneurial model has less to do with
what's done in the business and more to do with
how it's done. It looks at a business as if it
were a product sitting on a shelf competing for
the consumer's attention against a whole shelf of
competing businesses.
The Entrepreneurial model does not start with a
picture of a business to be created but of the
customer for who the business is to be created.
Without a clear picture of the customer no
business can succeed.
The Technical business however, is designed to
satisfy the Technician not the customer. To the
Entrepreneur the business is the product.
Think of your business as anything but a job! Go
to work on your business rather than in it and
ask yourself the following questions:
· How can I get my business to work without me?
· How can I get my people to work without my
constant interference?
· How can I systemize my business in such a way
that it could be replicated 500 times so that
500th runs as smoothly as the first?
· How can I own the business but still be free of
it?
· How can I spend my time doing the work I love
to do rather than the work I have to do?
The problem isn't your business. The problem is
you and will always be until you change your
perspective about a business and how it works.
In order to have a business that works without
you, a business that can be duplicated, pretend
there are standards you have to abide by. There
are rules of the game. The rules are:
1. The model will be operated by people with the
lowest possible level of skill.
2. The model will stand out as a place of
impeccable order.
3. All work on the model will be documented in
operations manuals.
4. The model will provide a uniformly predictable
service to the client.
It is not the product that requires innovation
but the process. Where the business is the
product, how the business interacts with the
consumer is more important than what it sells or
provides.
Innovation is the heart of every successful
business. It asks the question. "What is standing
in the way of my clients getting what they want
from my business?" It always takes the clients'
point of view.
Your business is not your life. Your business is
something apart from you, with its own needs, its
own rules and its own purpose. An organism you
might say that will live or die according to how
well it performs its sole function - to find and
keep clients. "
I know...I've thrown a lot at you in just a few
paragraphs. For many fitness professionals this
is a complete shift in mindset. Most fitness
professionals can't imagine even delegating
clients to other trainers assuming that "no one
can do the job as well as I can." So what I'm
asking you to do is really consider the long
range goals you have for your business. Start
with the following questions:
If you're 30 years old now, do you plan on
training clients at age 60?
If not, what is your exit strategy? Do you have
one?
What is your business worth without you?
Could you sell it if you wanted to?
Take some time and come up with your honest
answers. Then, if you're not satisfied with what
you discovered, utilize some of the concepts and
principles I've provided and look for ways to
engineer your business around them. You'll soon
find yourself in a situation where your schedule
is more flexible, you don't feel guilty for
catching the flu or going on vacation and you
have peace of mind that your employees are
providing consistent, quality service.
If you don't have any employees, approach it in
the same exact fashion so that when the day comes
that you want to add one (or more), the
transition is seamless. Document and organize
your systems and your methods and before you know
it you'll have a business that you own instead of
one that owns you.
Dedicated to Growing Your Business,
Pat Rigsby
P.S. - If you'd like to discover the most closely
guarded business success and profit producing
secrets of 17 of the fitness industry's top pros,
go to: http://www.fitness-riches-book.com/
Fitness Consulting Group
PO Box 1539
Elizabethtown, KY
42702-1539
US
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