“If my gym was making money, I wouldn’t be calling you!”
I hear this message every single week. We do dozens of free calls with gym owners, and many of them are in trouble. They wait until they NEED help before they look for it. And I can’t blame them.
I did the same thing.
I thought, “I’ll figure this out myself! I’m smart!” What I should have thought was, “Let me burn my cognitive candles on new problems, and find the people who have already figured this stuff out.”
When I finally DID get it mostly figured out, I didn’t stop receiving mentorship. No way: I doubled down. And you know what I found? There’s no ceiling to it.
Now I travel and learn with millionaires. They ALL have mentors. Every single one. Most of them aren’t in the fitness industry, but the millionaires WILL appear in our industry soon.
As soon as gym owners stop confusing “profitable” with “successful”, as soon as we stop accepting the minimum viability of our gym and start thinking, “How can I actually get wealthy?” you’ll meet them. Their gyms might be different, but they’ll all have mentors.
I guarantee it.
This weekend, I’m meeting with two groups: first, with a dozen entrepreneurs who are working through the “valley of death” between $2M and $5M in earnings. I’m a student in that group. Second, with 30 gym owners who have entered the “Tinker Phase” of entrepreneurship and want to talk about what real success in our industry can mean. I’m lucky enough to lead that group with Jay Williams and Jeff Smith, two other TwoBrain mentors.
Success in our industry doesn’t mean a high gross revenue projection, or a pocketful of buzzwords like “run rate”. It doesn’t mean simply “being excellent” at coaching–though that is a prerequisite. Success means being excellent at business. And no one achieves excellence without a coach. I hope you teach that lesson to your clients, and live that example yourself.
You can use a mentor for triage. You can wait until you’re in trouble, like I did. Or you can be smart, and follow in the footsteps of the most successful. Success leaves clues. Follow them.
