Should you replace yourself in your gym business by using software, virtual assistants, AI and other people?
You can—but not yet.
You must first perfect performance of each task yourself, teach someone else to do each task at the exact same level, and improve the process so it’s optimal. Only then should you automate tasks.
I love putting the right people in the right seats. In the previous post in this series, I told you about the first step to getting work off your plate: systemization. Write down exactly how you want things done, teach your staff how to do it that way, and hold them to the standard.
Here, I’ll tell you how to make your staff better than you.
Optimization: Making It Better
I’ll stick with the salesperson example from the previous post:
After you do 20 sales meetings yourself, write the exact process down with detailed steps and teach it to your staff members. Drill them and fully pass off intro duties when their close rates are equal to yours—not before.
Then make them better than you are in the sales office—perhaps by doing role playing, recording and analyzing their sales meetings, or getting them a sales coach.
Whatever you do, carefully change only one thing at a time so you can see the true effects of the adjustment.
For example, try handing a client a cold bottle of water at the No Sweat Intro (NSI). Don’t change anything else. After 10 NSIs with the cold bottle of water, you measure: Did your close rate improve? If so, the water becomes part of your system. If there was no effect, you drop the “water welcome” and try something else.
This is how you optimize your system.
It’s true that any system is better than no system. But before you hand over a system to a staff member, take the time to optimize it. Make it a good system.
And don’t hand the care of your clients over to robots and strangers without clear parameters. It’s now common to “outsource” lead nurture, emails, direct messaging, media creation and other services to bots or software or virtual assistants or AI. Those things can work—but only if you have a system in place for them to follow.
If you want to build a self-driving car, you have to write the algorithm and then test the algorithm before you put it out on the street.
