At a certain point in your business life, you are going to run into a scenario where you begin to value time much more than you value money.
When you first start out as an entrepreneur in the health and fitness industry, time is the only thing you have so you are willing to give much of it away freely just to build a name for yourself.
But, as you grow, time becomes a very precious commodity in your life because you have very little of it.
Like the old saying goes “more money, more problems”
For us in the health and fitness field trying to build our business, it’s more like “more money, less time”
Success in our industry certainly creates a scenario where you are spending too much time working “in” your business rather than “on” your business.
Improvements in your day-to-day systems aren’t being made, your processes for continued expansion don’t exist, nobody is looking at any of your analytics or data points for conversion/traction, and you aren’t building any important relationships that facilitate future growth.
Typically, these processes continue to get ignored until the reality that your income has plateaued punches you right in the face.
How To Expand Your Online Fitness Business
The above scenario, although extremely common, doesn’t have to happen for you.
The best way to prevent future danger is to take action on the proactive strategies that will enable you to never run into them in the first place.
To keep your coaching business moving forward (and to also keep you from burning out), here are five critical areas to assess to see if you are creating the right environment to maximize the leverage you have towards future growth.
#1: Time
Like I mentioned above, a growing business is going to demand more and more of your time until it’s physically impossible to keep up.
Once this happens, your business growth will suffer.
To avoid the feelings of burnout and get your eye back on the ball, ask yourself:
“What are my five top value-producing activities in my business?”
Put another way, what are the five things you do on a weekly basis that have the largest impact on your income/growth?
Once you answer that question, find a way to focus more on those activities and delegate everything else. Which is a perfect segue to the next section.
#2: Employees
Unless you start your business a multi-millionaire, it’s likely you have very limited resources in the beginning.
Because of this, you learned how to be resourceful and only spent your money on the most important things in your life that drive future growth.
But, as your business grows, you need to drop this scarcity mentality.
It’s hard, but it’s something you truly need to get rid of.
Almost always entrepreneurs think:
“Ok Dan, I agree it would be great to delegate all of the rest. But, I can’t afford to hire anyone right now!”
This is the scarcity mentality, you will never shrink your way to growth.
Saving pennies instead of making dollars is an approach that will only lead you to be average at best and a failure at worst.
Those with the scarcity mentality instead continue to perform the tasks that are outside of their top 5 most value-producing activities because they think they are saving money by doing so.
I’m here to tell you that you’re not.
Your efforts on growth would more than overcompensate for the cost of getting a little help on the mundane tasks that you don’t need to be doing.
Lack of employees is one of the biggest traps that people fall into which handicaps the growth of their business. Don’t let this be you.
#3: Finances
Money is something we all want, but so few people know how to properly manage it.
That’s why I created an entire Financial Freedom Mastery course here at Create Freedom that you can check out either on its own or as part of the How To Be A Successful Online Coach course.
Most people talk to retirement planners who know more about their own company’s investment options than they do about running a real business.
You need specific advice from someone who knows finance and also understands the in’s and out’s of the health and fitness industry.
I guarantee you that you will find cash leaks in your business and plenty of resources that are not being used efficiently.
If you really want to take your business to the next level, keep track of your entire financial portfolio and create a 5-Year revenue growth plan.
How are you allocating profit?
How much is kept in the business?
What’s your cost per customer acquisition?
How much should you pay yourself?
How much should you put aside for security purposes?
Have you built a financial dashboard?
How much can you spend on lifestyle indulgences and have it not tap into your business growth strategy?
These, among many other questions, need to be answered with extreme clarity if you want financial freedom in your life.
#4: Property Analysis
I know a lot of gym owners who buy space and equipment that they hardly ever use. This is a huge waste of money and energy.
If you own a gym, take a look at your space and all of the equipment you have.
Are you wasting space? Could your current location be used more efficiently? Do you have equipment/furniture sitting around that no one uses that is wasting space and/or needs an upgrade?
If you work 100% online, you need to do this too.
Do you have an old inefficient computer?
Do you think your “saving money” by going with a slow internet connection even though it’s reducing your productivity level?
Are you distracted by the noise in your house and yet you still haven’t purchased noise-canceling headphones because of your scarcity mentality?
Take a good look around, everything should be as efficient and supportive for growth as possible.
#5: Ongoing Education
One of my favorite characteristics that entrepreneurs have is their desire to learn and grow as a person.
You recognize that you are your greatest asset, and you invest in that asset in order to see continued personal and professional growth.
Having said that, sometimes spending too much energy on learning can be counter-productive.
There is a tendency in our industry to say “never stop learning”, and because of this, people never have any breaks between the certifications they sign up for or the seminars they attend.
It’s non-stop education.
This sounds like a good thing until you realize that knowledge without application is useless.
In fact, knowledge without application can drive you insane because you know what to do but you don’t have the time to execute it.
My suggestion for you here is to only pursue the education that you have budgeted the time for so you don’t impact your business’s productivity.
Final Thoughts
Business expansion is a major topic that encompasses a lot of different specialties.
Today, I hope I was able to point out to you some of the key areas you need to focus your time on to create the leverage you need in your business to separate yourself from the pack.
Don’t join the never-ending army of coaches who do the same thing every day and then expect their business to grow.
Instead, step out of your comfort zone because it’s necessary to do so for next-level growth.
Look at the five keys above and ask yourself, which area do you need to make some changes in that’s going to have the greatest impact on you and your business?
If you want the exact guidance you need to expand further in every way possible, check out the newly revamped How To Become A Successful Online Coach bundle package here at Create Freedom and start crushing it today.
Dan Garner
