If the last five years have taught us anything, it’s that businesses always have challenges.
Pandemics, protests, wars, elections, tariffs, supply-chain issues, inflation, labor shortages—businesses have dealt with all of that and more since 2020.
It doesn’t matter where you sit on the political spectrum: The world is not becoming more friendly to entrepreneurship. It’s tough out there.
Here are grim U.S stats from a Lendingtree.com report published in April 2024:
- 23.2 percent of businesses fail in the first year.
- 48.0 precent are gone after five years.
- 65.3 percent are gone after a decade.
From madeincanada.ca, this is the Canadian number:
- Only 50 percent of small businesses last for five years.
Igostartup.com offered this stat from Europe:
- 50 percent of small businesses fail in the first five years.
Let me counter that with a stat from Two-Brain’s database:
- Regardless of starting point, the average gym owner can reach $100,000 annual earnings in two years, one month and nine days with the help of a mentor.
What’s going on here?
Gym owners in our mentorship program find success fast for two reasons:
- They have expert help from a mentor with hard data and battle-tested tactics.
- They do the work.
It doesn’t come down to unbelievable luck, secret marketing hacks or wild quirks in the local market. It’s simply numbers and action.
Without guidance, it’s all too easy to screw up a business. Here are just three mistakes that can be fatal to a gym:
- Offering discounts. (Free advice, backed by data.)
- Setting rates too low. (Free advice, backed by data.)
- Selling with free trials. (Free advice, backed by data.)
I made all three of these errors and was losing $5,000 a month at my lowest point. My gym was about to join the failed-business stats before I got help from a mentor.
But what if you didn’t make those mistakes at all? What if you didn’t bleed out your capital?
What if an expert helped you spot errors like this in your business early on and correct them fast?
What if—instead of guessing on a fix and playing the trial-and-error game—you were told exactly what to do to get the best possible result?
Instead of losing money, wasting time, and fumbling around and making more costly, frustrating errors, you’d get the right solution quickly and implement it. Then you’d address the next most important problem the same way. In short order, you’d have a well-oiled machine that’s gaining speed.
The effects of quickly implemented, optimal fixes can’t be overstated. Doing the exact right thing at the exact right time will shock a business back to life and put it on a path to success.
Here’s a simple example:
- Your rates are $175 a month, but the math says they should be $200.
- A mentor can give you an exact plan to fix the problem in 30 days or less.
- Without help, you might not spot the problem, and you could waste months trying to figure out why you’re losing money. (You’ll probably try to add more clients, which is not the solution.)
- If you do spot the issue, you might not know how to fix it, or you might be too scared to take action—so you don’t do anything.
- If you have 150 members and don’t fix your rate problem, you are missing out on $3,750 of revenue every month—or $45,000 a year. That’s almost $100,000 in two years.
- Conversely, if you take action this month, you can add $3,750 of revenue to your monthly total—that will be $45,000 in a year. If you have a 30 percent profit margin, you can take home $13,500 more over the course of the year.
Get the Optimal Fix
Errors that are obvious to an expert can gut a business.
For example, lots of gyms have set their rates badly, suffered for years and then collapsed. They’re part of the failed-business stats I quoted above.
On the other hand, gym owners who get help and take action fix huge problems fast and stabilize their businesses. Then they use more tactics to reach profitability quickly.
For example, Two-Brain mentors have helped hundreds of gym owners use rate increases to pull businesses out of the fire. When these hard-working owners aren’t stressed out of their minds about making rent, they can take action to improve other parts of their businesses.
Instead of always teetering on the brink of failure, they build buffers that allow them to weather the inevitable storms.
If your eyes are constantly on the news right now and you’re worried about your business, the best thing you can do is get help.
If you fix your business and then make it strong, you’ll be more than prepared for any challenges that arise.
