3 Steps to Fail-Proof Your Gym

Just over a year ago Tony Gentilcore made the difficult decision to walk away from CSP. After 8 years of coaching, learning, and business development, it was time to step out from behind the CSP curtain and let the Gentilcore brand loose on the fitness community.

Tony made the right move; I’m proud of him.

Here we are just one year later, and he’s flipped his world upside down…in a good way. In the past twelve months, he’s presented on multiple continents, recorded a fitness product alongside Dean Somerset, conceived his first child1, and gone from independent contractor to full-blown fitness facility owner.

I want to show you why Tony’s decision to open his own gym (one that thousands of people fail at each year) is very likely to succeed. Here are three important things he did in advance of pulling the trigger on this venture to ensure that he see a return on his investment:

This post was originally published on Tony Gentilcore's site - Read the entire piece here.

Gym Owner Musings - Installment #2

I’ve accumulated a boatload of random lessons learned in (nearly) a decade of operating a fitness facility. Some warrant entire presentations, podcasts, and blog posts; others carry plenty of value but can fit within the confines of a 140-character Tweet. 

Here are three quick insights that fall somewhere in between Twitter-friendly and ”blog-worthy”:

1. Everything works, but not everything works for you

If you’re one of the thousands of fitness enthusiasts currently in the business plan design phase of opening your own gym, this is a very important message. There are dozens of different training philosophies and coaching models at your fingertips, but that doesn’t mean that you should arbitrarily select from the buffet of options and expect everything to work out.

I recently published a post discussing tips for transitioning a personal training model into a semi-private service offering, given my area of expertise in operating the latter. My buddy, Chad Landers, a gym owner in California, was quick to point out that not only is the group training format not a fit for every gym owner, but also not always a fit for the people you intend to serve. He made a great point when he said: “I think a big mistake is for a trainer to adopt a model they aren't passionate about because it might make them more money. It's really about finding the right fit for you and then kicking ass at it regardless of how you deliver the goods.”

The takeaway? Many models may work, but not all models will work for you.

2. Marketing your gym is more about documentation than creation

I often hear other gym owners speak of intentions to kick up original content creation efforts in an attempt to drive business. While I believe in this strategy, and encourage my staff to publish content regularly, it isn’t the end-all-be-all in drawing attention to your gym. Preparing a blog post outlining a revolutionary approach to mobilizing your hips may garner social media shares and impress your industry peers, but it is unlikely to serve as a call-to-action for the housewife with a few pounds to lose living just around the corner.

We’re in an age of free and easy content publication thanks to the accessibility and creativity of various social networking platforms. Assuming you are currently delivering a service and training environment that you’re proud of, your marketing can be as simple as publishing a video of the gym during your busiest time of the day. The insightful blog posts coming out of CSP about arm care might catch the eye of heavily-involved and well-read baseball dads, but the kids who are actually in our gym on a daily basis are considerably more likely to engage with a video of their buddy doing heavy lunges with loud music playing in the background.

While documentation of your gym in action might not be the most intellectually stimulating tool in your marketing toolkit, it just may be the most cost-effective and direct path to attracting the attention of your ideal client.

3. There is no replacement for learning by doing

One of the best moves Eric Cressey made when CSP was getting off the ground was letting me awkwardly battle my way through our business pitch both in person and by telephone. Our first facility actually featured (roughly) 100 square-feet of “staff offices” where we each had a desk. Eric and Tony used their workspaces to process assessment notes and prepare programs, while I used mine to manage all things administrative pertaining to running our business. Having to work in such tight quarters meant that I had no choice but to give the sales pitch while sitting roughly three feet away from two guys with thousands more hours logged in the fitness industry than me.

Instead of compromising my credibility by micro-managing my delivery of this information in the moment, the guys let me make the occasional mistake with exercise terminology or articulation of our training philosophies. They were kind enough to wait until the conclusion of a call or face-to-face conversation to step in with a teaching moment. In doing so, I was able to craft my own selling approach while implementing their insights incrementally.

As it turns out, you can be especially effective at selling fitness instruction without ever having instructed fitness, but you won’t get there without executing a couple hundred less-than-impressive sales pitches.

In hindsight, Eric’s approach to teaching me to speak the language of fitness was no different than that which he applies to supervising a new intern on the training floor. The anxiety I felt delivering the sales pitch on the phone while my business partners listened to every awkward word was extremely similar to the level of discomfort a new intern feels when instructing a deadlift with Eric standing just feet away.

If I put all of my energy in to explaining our services exactly the way I imagined Eric would, the effectiveness and authenticity of my approach would be compromised. Similarly, our interns aren’t best served to mirror 100% of Eric’s mannerisms and coaching attributes on the training floor. We all need to be our own person as we inform and coach clients, and Eric has a profound appreciation for that. As I said above, everything may work on its own, but not everything works for you.

Do you enjoy my fitness spin on business concepts?

I publish my “Friday Four” newsletter at the end of each week featuring links to useful articles and insights on applying concepts from each to your own fitness business endeavors. Check it out here!

Having an Approach to Having an Approach

Roughly 97% of my readers appear to have stumbled upon my material thanks to a recommendation from Eric Cressey. With this in mind, I'm certain you will all appreciate the guest post he put together for me today. Enjoy!

When our twin daughters were born, I realized that – above all else – parents of newborns really need four things: diapers, wipes, prepared meals, and guest posts. Our girls were born on November 28, 2014, and I only published three pieces of original content that December – and this is coming from a guy who posted at least 2-3 times per week in the 12 years prior to that life-changing event. Fortunately, though, I got some help from a few guest authors to keep the content rolling.

Given that Pete’s blog last updated a shade over three weeks ago, I thought it was time to pay it forward – and below, you’ll find my contribution. Get some sleep, Pete.

Back in the summer of 2012, I presented at the Perform Better Summit in Chicago. After finishing up my second presentation of the day right before lunch, I stuck around to answer questions and take pictures with attendees. Truth be told, my wife and I were actually headed to Wrigley Field for the first time that afternoon, as CSP athlete Bryan LaHair was having an All-Star year and he’d left us some batting practice passes to have the “true” Wrigley experience.  As I recall, it was a 3PM game, meaning BP was going to take place around 1PM – and that was a 20-minute cab ride from the hotel after changing. So, to some degree, we were in a bit of a hurry.

Still, as I always do, I stuck around and answered every question. The last one in line was a super energetic attendee with a big baseball background, both as a player and coach. His name was Joe Yager, and his company is Perform Every Day in Illinois. We chatted about his career, the players with whom he worked, and some questions he had on arm care and weighted baseballs. It was a conversation that lasted 20 minutes or so, and actually spanned the walk all the way back to the hotel from the convention center. As the time came to say goodbye, Joe commented, “You know, I’m surprised. I thought you were going to be a jerk.”

Surprised, I asked why that was the case. Had I come across that way in my writing or presenting? Joe answered that I hadn’t, but he just assumed that it was the case because it had been his experience with a lot of fitness industry presenters over the years. Joe specifically mentioned Todd Durkin as one of the few really approachable guys he’d encountered – and commented on how Todd had become a great mentor to him in large part due to that friendly demeanor.

Since that day, Joe has become a loyal customer. He’s attended our Elite Baseball Mentorship (our highest priced offering, at $899-$999), and attended my shoulder seminar in Chicago this past July. He’s purchased The High Performance Handbook, Show and Go, Everything Elbow, Art of the Deload, Optimal Shoulder Performance, and multiple Cressey Sports Performance t-shirts. In short, he’s spent over $2,500 with me – and that doesn’t even include what he’s devoted to flights and hotels for these events. It doesn’t speak to the time he’s spent away from family to attend those seminars, or to watch our DVDs and read my articles. And, it can’t even possibly begin to quantify how many people he’s “turned on” to my work. 

Joe’s also become a good friend. In fact, he texted me earlier this week to get the inside scoop on a college baseball program that just offered one of his players a scholarship. We busted one another’s chops when Vanderbilt Baseball (lots of CSP guys) faced off against the University of Illinois (lots of Joe’s guys) in the NCAA super regional a few years ago.

Truth be told, though, Joe probably taught me more in that one conversation in Chicago than I could teach him in an entire career full of shoulder and elbow seminars and DVDs.

Think about it: he assumed that I was going to be a jerk. The onus was on me to prove that I was, in fact, a respectable human being. We can learn several invaluable lessons from both sides of this exchange.

1. You always have to put your best foot forward when it comes to first impressions. You have absolutely no excuse to not do so.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a public speaker, a coach, or the office manager of a gym. Your best bet is to assume that everyone begins your relationship with some pre-conceived negative impression of you, and that you have to overdeliver and win them over.

2. Pronounced extroverts probably have a leg up when it comes to most first impressions.

Joe cited the example of Todd Durkin being a mentor. Todd is one of the most outwardly positive and personable people you’ll ever meet. It doesn’t matter whether he’s exhausted and jet lagged, and giving his fourth presentation of the day; he is always upbeat and friendly. Dave Jack and Martin Rooney are other guys with whom I’ve interacted who always bring that positive energy and friendly demeanor on a whole other level.

Before people see any of these guys in seminar, they’ve usually seen them online in videos – so their “rah-rah” reputations precede them. And, before seminar attendees have a chance to interact with them, they’ve usually already watched the presenter deliver an enthusiastic presentation. They’ve been warmed up before the first impression.

You likely don’t have that luxury in the majority of your first impressions, and you may not be the kind of person who can put on the unconditional energy hat like these guys can, anyway. So, you’re got to just go out of your way to position yourself as a quality human being.

3. People who play the “contrarian” or “I don’t give a crap” card online are often behind the 8-ball when it comes to first impressions.

Here’s something you might not know about me: I refuse to swear in my writing. And, I won’t link to articles where authors curse. Why?

My daughters might read these articles someday, and I don’t want kids who think it’s okay to swear like a drunken sailor. Major League Baseball general managers or agents might come across them and think I’m not the right guy for their players.  There is absolutely nothing to be gained from dropping a F-bomb.

You might get some short-term notoriety from being a loud, negative contrarian, but you won’t build a lot of lasting long-term relationships. If you need proof, just try to think up how many successful companies you can name that spend a lot of time bashing their competition.

4. The people you think are jerks might just be really busy and not good at managing that stress.

Flipping the switch a bit, if you’re trying to approach someone you perceive to be an jerk – either to build a friendship or ask a favor of them – try to walk a mile in their shoes.

Sure, there is no excuse for them to be rude or unapproachable. However, try to consider why they might be that way. Perhaps they’re insanely busy and just haven’t learned how to manage the chaos yet. Or, maybe your inquiry was long-winded and unclear. Maybe they are like Pete and have a newborn and 2-year-old at home, and just need a good night’s sleep to recharge a bit.

To that end, if you really want to get in touch with someone, you need to have an approach to having an approach!

I received an 859-word random email inquiry this morning. That’s almost as long as this article! Reading and responding to it would likely take 15-20 minutes out of my day when I simply can’t spare it.

I have over 90,000 people on my newsletter list. If every one of them called our office for random advice (and some folks will do this), it would cripple our business.

The point is that you need to be succinct in your inquiries, and direct in your requests. And, be polite. I’m a firm believer in “respect reciprocity;” if you want them to do you a favor, at least say please and thank you.

About the Author

With a 3-0 record, Eric Cressey is currently in first place in the East Division of the Cressey Sports Performance fantasy football league. Apparently, he writes blog posts at www.EricCressey.com, too.

3 Tips for Transitioning Your Training Model to Semi-Private

How can I convince my personal training clients to embrace a semi-private model after years of one-on-one attention? I can’t decide where to start logistically as it relates to schedule modifications, and also as it relates to communicating the benefits of this change to my existing clients.

This inquiry arrived in my inbox earlier this week from a facility owner in England. This is far from the first time I’ve been asked this exact question.

Let me put something on the table right from the start: I’ve never taken a pure personal training facility and transitioned it to a semi-private model.

I am fortunate to have fallen into a business opportunity with Eric Cressey after he’d identified the semi-private group-training model as his training format of choice. Since July 13th of 2007, Cressey Sports Performance has operated almost entirely as a semi-private model. This being said, I have helped to create a training environment that has now seen well over 100,000 semi-private training sessions executed, with nearly 4,000 athletes having made their way through our doors. If there is one thing I am certain of, it is that the group-training format can be more profitable than a personal training model while still delivering an effective and memorable training experience for your clients.

Instead of pretending to have a “how-to” guide for making a wholesale transition to a semi-private model, I’ll tell you the first three things I would do if I were the owner of a personal training business looking to make the change:

1. I wouldn’t try to do it all at once

Want to know a great way to antagonize your existing clients? Tell them that you’ve decided to no longer offer a service that they know and like with little or no notice. This isn’t a facility re-model we’re talking about; you can’t close the doors for a couple of days to give your training model a face-lift and then re-open with an entirely different identity. 

Start by selecting a single slot in your current personal training calendar and designating it as your “semi-private hour” moving forward. I would imagine that there is a specific hour in your day that you know you could fill effortlessly if your current client were to opt out. Instead of plugging in the next personal training client on your waiting list the next time this happens, begin informing existing clients and incoming leads that the slot is now reserved for groups of 3-5 athletes. Emphasize that participants will receive an individualized approach to their program design while also experiencing the camaraderie and enhanced training environment that comes from integrating additional personalities to the training space.

Selecting a high-value hour in your schedule to allot toward this cause may seem reckless at first, but you’ll soon see that what may initially appear as one step backward takes you several steps forward in the very near future. Create a great training environment during this single time-slot and your personal training clients during the hour before and after are eventually going to see it in action and realize that they just may be missing out on a better experience at a lower price point.

2. Focus on delivering value to opinion leaders

Write down the name of a client who will not shut up in between sets. You know the one – it’s the person who might as well be paying you to be their sounding board for gossip distribution instead of fitness instruction. Every gym has one (or ten), and they’re going to be the fuel that drives the news of your new semi-private model into the ears of every single person they come in to contact with upon leaving your facility feeling invigorated from a brand new training environment.

Now that you’ve identified this client, approach him to discuss your great idea to make his training experience more effective. Don’t be afraid to butter him up a little bit.

“I was thinking that you’d really thrive in my semi-private training format. You’re clearly a people person and the higher-energy training environment would both push you to work harder, and allow you to positively influence someone else’s training experience at the same time. ”

You may be thinking that adding a couple more sets of ears to the training floor will make the client that much more tolerable, but all he’ll be hearing is that you think he's a people person who would make great progress in the gym with the right boost of energy to the training environment. Everybody wins.

Your client will soon realize that the exercises executed during a semi-private session are identical to, and every bit as supervised, as they were in a personal training setting. Arguably more importantly, he’ll see that the social component of the experience has multiplied. You’re going to have a walking and talking billboard outside of your gym. A boisterous extrovert might occasionally be a headache on the training floor, but he's also your most efficient form of advertising.

3. Document the process

Don’t just tell your current clients that a semi-private training format is the change they didn’t realize they needed; show them.

Record video of your group training sessions and showcase it on your website and social networking platforms. Document a client hitting a personal record on the deadlift as their training partners cheer them on in the background. Ask a group participant to record a quick testimonial video or write down a few sentences about how impactful it is to train as part of a community of likeminded individuals and share it on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Let the energy of the group setting shine through right in front of your skeptical client’s eyes.

I’m struggling through it with you…

As I was driving to work this morning I found myself thinking about how much my son Collin’s life has changed since his brother Owen was born. In a lot of ways, my wife and I have asked Collin to suddenly transition from his personal training lifestyle into a group-training format. While it is difficult for a two-year-old to emotionally process the reality that he’s now splitting the attention of his parents, I know that he’ll one day come to realize that his brother is the best thing that ever happened to him.

He now has a lifetime playmate, and someone to push him to be a more competitive and productive individual. Unfortunately, he’s years away from appreciating these perks.

Your personal training clients are likely in a similar position to my son, but they don’t have to wait for their potential training partners to learn to walk and talk. Free up that single hour in your training calendar today and you’ll be one big step closer to showing them what they’re missing.

3 Tips to Leverage Your Strengths as a Public Speaker

I’ve got public speaking on the brain.  I say this because today marks the deadline for securing a spot at our 5th Annual CSP Fall Seminar at the early-bird rates.  If you haven’t done so already, I’d encourage you to sign up now to ensure that you secure the most affordable rate for this great event.

With just 30 days sitting between me and a presentation to a room full of fitness professionals, I’ve found myself mentally revisiting some of the most impactful presentations I’ve come across during the past calendar year.  A couple of presenters distinctly stood out above the rest, and today I’d like to discuss the most important lesson I took away from each.

Here are three helpful lessons to apply from three fantastic public speakers the next time you find yourself preparing to deliver a presentation in front of an audience:

Lesson #1: A presentation is about more than information sharing; it’s a performance.

• Presenter                   Mark Fisher
• Presentation Title     Snatched Lessons – Creating a High Integrity Transformation Program
• Event                          Motivate & Move LAB, Hosted by Mark Fisher Fitness – February 2016

“GOOD MORNING,” Mark Fisher shouted at the audience.  “If it feels like I am yelling at you, it’s because I am, and will continue to do so for the remainder of this presentation.”

Mark proceeded to explain that, deep down inside, despite his well-documented successes as an established fitness business owner and fitness coach in general, he is a Broadway performer at heart. 

Throughout his extensive prior training in the performance arts, Mark was programmed to project his message loudly and boldly.

This experience came shining through during his 25-minute presentation discussing the creation and implementation of a high-integrity transformation program.  After roughly 30-seconds, my inner monologue stopped saying “why is he shouting at me,” and started saying “holy shit, this guy is entertaining.”

He shared wisdom, he told emotional stories, and he made the room laugh. Most importantly, however, he performed his presentation more than he delivered it.  There’s nothing wrong with taking a little pride in the theatrical component of addressing a room, even if it is “just talking fitness.”

Lesson #2: There’s no substitute for diligent preparation.

• Presenter                   Tony Bonvechio
• Presentation Title     Creating Context for More Efficient Coaching
• Event                          The 4th Annual CSP Fall Seminar

There were more than 150 people in attendance on this day that “Tony-B” took his first stab at public speaking in the fitness industry.  Instead of being overwhelmed by the occasion, he took home the award for most positively reviewed presentation of the seven that were delivered that day.  He wasn’t up against a collection of amateurs, either; between Eric Cressey and Tony Gentilcore, there were well over 100-hours of public speaking experience on the presenter roster.

Roughly 50% of our seminar attendees chimed in with detailed presentation feedback in our post-event electronic survey, and Tony’s presentation approval rating of 96% left the rest of us a reasonable distance behind. 

As it turns out, he didn’t present any revolutionary or mind-blowing information.  In fact, the subject matter was fairly vanilla.  What set Tony’s presentation apart from the rest was the ease with which he moved through the material.  His transition from slide-to-slide, section-to-section, and lesson-to-lesson was effortless and clearly rehearsed. 

During our staff meeting the following week I asked Tony to discuss his preparation process so that we could all emulate his effort moving forward.  He explained: “I gave that presentation, in its entirety, no less than five times during the past week. I made my wife listen to it twice. I delivered the entire thing during my hour-long commute to and from work on more than one occasion. I even presented this material once to my dog Eddie.”

The takeaway is simple: you likely need to put in tedious hours of rehearsal if you want to shine above the rest.

Lesson #3: By staying in your lane, the message remains authentic and accessible.

• Presenter                  Dean Somerset
• Presentation Title    Can’t remember…(my apologies)
• Event                         The Fitness Summit – Kansas City

If Mark Fisher’s animated and energetic delivery sits at one end of the presenter spectrum, I’d say that Dean Somerset’s low-key, yet authentic style is firmly planted on the other.  I’ve now seen Dean wow the audience on consecutive years at the Fitness Summit by taking complex concepts and translating them in to layman’s terms that even I can understand.

In a blog recapping the event, Dean wrote “I made a bit of an audacious goal known on the third slide of my seminar saying I wanted mine to the single best one of the entire weekend, and proceeded to crack jokes, talk about how neural aspects regulate mobility, had some live volunteers help me explain the stuff I was talking about, and generally hoped to smash brains left and right.”

When he presents, Dean’s command of the subject matter is obvious, allowing a blend of his dry sense of humor and intelligence to capture the attention of all in attendance, as illustrated in the quote above. Instead of tackling concepts that fall on the fringe of his comfort zone, Dean shares information that he knows inside and out, resulting in applicable and memorable points.

The takeaway: If you are anything but an expert in the content being covered, your audience will be allergic to your underlying lack of certainty and resoluteness.

Come watch me attempt to apply these lessons…

At the coming CSP Fall Seminar I’ll be covering a presentation titled Business Before Branding where my priority will be to incorporate some of the lessons driven by my esteemed colleagues above.  I welcome you to be the judge of the outcome!

And, hey, even if I miss the mark, you can be damn sure Tony-B will put on a memorable show.

Register here for our 5th Annual CSP Fall Seminar, scheduled for Sunday, September 25th.

Recommended Business Reading From Outside the World of Fitness

This past Friday my nice little family of three made the jump to FOUR!  We are proud to bring Owen Matthew Dupuis into the world.  Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook will now definitely need to "hide" me from your newsfeeds because I'm about to double up on the cute baby pics (joking...kind of).  Seriously, though, don't block me on there if you enjoy my blog, because that seems to be the primary place where people manage to track down my content!

I've got my hands full with the new addition to my family, and an adorable little tyrant of a 2-year old running our house, so it is hard to say how much blogging I'll be finding time for this week.  One solution for this uncertainty is to share some quick reading recommendations.  Based on the size of my newsletter list, I get the impression that most of you don't realize I share a weekly list of reading materials called "My Friday Four" on, you guessed it, Fridays. 

This information features four pieces of content I've consumed during the previous week that will influence my future blog material and challenge me to think differently about how I manage CSP - as always, I'm looking to bring you some business-specific information from outside of the world of fitness. Here's a look at this past week's shared articles:

1 - Three Lessons Nonprofits Can Teach Businesses About Branding: This was my favorite post of the week because it was an entirely new concept to me.  Why aren’t more of us looking at the way that operations such as the Red Cross create urgency, inspire viewers, and create community around a cause?  Check this one out and start applying concepts quickly so that you can “connect with consumers’ hearts and their wallets.”

2 - How Under Armour is Outsmarting The Olympics' Strict Advertising Rules: There is ALWAYS a trendy discussion taking place on social networking platforms that you can align your business with.  This article points out how effectively Under Armour has leveraged it’s affiliation with athletes instead of the Olympic Games to bypass the big spend that comes with being “an official sponsor.”  You could be doing the same thing (on a smaller level) with your own brand right this moment with a little bit of creativity.

3 - SoulCycle Wants You to Join Its Tribe: SoulCycle is a business that is projected to collect $175M in 2016 in just 62 studios.  That, my friends, is a business worthy of a spot on your “Fitness Tourism” itinerary.  This piece takes you deep into the SoulCycle experience.  You may not love this form of exercise, but you’ve got to be impressed by this fast growing operation.

4 - Why Everyone Should Get Fired at Least Once: I once worked a job where I feared my boss; it was awful.  Had I come across this article way back then, I wouldn’t have wasted any time moving on to the next step in my professional development process.  While the title of this piece is certainly meant to draw significant clicks, the overarching message is that staying in a toxic employment environment is your choice.  If your gut is telling you to move on, do so.

I'd love to see you sign up for my newsletter if you enjoyed these pieces and would be interested in receiving a similar "Friday Four" each week.  You can do so by clicking here and sharing your information in the left-hand column.  You can also see archived copies of all 16 newsletters I've published to date. 

Have a great Monday!

- Pete

Fitness Tourism - An Opportunity to Stand on the Shoulders of Giants

If you intend to open a gym some day, you should start your planning by visiting a series of established gyms to see how they operate in-person. If you do it right, you’ll walk away with a new appreciation for what works, what doesn’t, and how you can blend ideas to create the perfect business model for you.

Intelligent people learn from their own mistakes, but geniuses learn from the mistakes of others.

We have an open-door policy which allows for fitness professionals to visit either of our two facilities for the purpose of observing our business model, training environment, and unique gym culture.  We don’t offer this “service” because it makes our lives easier or our business more profitable.  We do it because there were a number of other fitness professionals who were kind enough to share their own insights free-of-charge both before and during the early stages of our business. 

In short, we feel an obligation to “pay it forward.” 

After years of hosting these types of guests, I’ve come to learn that there is definitely a right and a wrong way to take advantage of opportunities such as these. The worst thing you can do as an observational guest is to make yourself a part of the client training experience; instead, focus on being a fly on the wall.  On the flipside, there are plenty of ways to take away a boatload of valuable insights from this experience without overstepping.

Before I dig in to the best approach, let me save you from quickly wearing out your welcome with a few quick and easy things to avoid:

• Requesting the opportunity to sit in on an assessment
• Giving coaching cues to the athletes that aren’t paying for your instruction
• Monopolizing the time of the coaches whose primary responsibility is to care for clients
• Taking pictures and/or video without permission

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about three very important things to take away from an observational visit to an established fitness facility.

1. Observe the progression of the customer experience.

Any fitness facility that has managed to keep the doors open beyond the term of an initial lease (let’s say 3+ years) has to be doing something right, so pay close attention from the moment you walk through the door. There’s more to a successful fitness business than a good training environment; take note of how clients are greeted and how services are articulated at the “front end” of the business.

A truly efficient and profitable business will flow smoothly thanks to systems, standardized selling language, and a passion for customer service. Notice the pattern in the way they answer the phone, the way they close their initial assessments, and the way they upsell with integrity because they know that more supervised fitness instruction is in the best interest of their clients; not because they simply want to collect more dollars.

2. Take note of the training model.

Are you observing a successful personal training business? Maybe a gym packed with group training clients enjoying bootcamp-style classes? Or, maybe you’re here at Cressey Sports Performance trying to figure out how this semi-private training format that we’ve described as a “controlled chaos” works?

Wherever you are, there are lessons to be learned. There is no right or wrong training format or business model. Before you open your own gym you should attempt to see each of these types of training models first-hand and ask yourself which style is most complimentary to your skill set. 

Fascinated by the science of the assessment, program-design, and the integration of complex PRI concepts into training? Go spend a day with Mike Robertson and Bill Hartman at IFAST in Indianapolis.

Considering a model that allows for large group training for athletes with a performance enhancement focus? The guys at MBSC basically wrote the book on this one, and they’re just as willing to open their doors to fitness professionals as we are at CSP.

Maybe you’re planning on leveraging your big personality and a unique training environment to differentiate from local competition? You’d be doing yourself a disservice to not experience a class or two at Mark Fisher Fitness.

Unless you’ve conceptualized some sort of revolutionary training model that the world does not yet realize they need, there is definitely a business out there already thriving in a model similar to the one you have in mind. Identify the best and set aside the resources necessary to experience their magic in-person.

3. Pay close attention to the variety of on-the-floor coaching styles

The most innovative and cutting-edge fitness businesses employ teams featuring a broad spectrum of personalities and instruction styles. If you want to increase the profitability of your model, you need to be in a position to accommodate a wide range of people. In order to do this, you can’t employee an army of clone coaches; you probably need an “energy guy,” an authoritarian, a coach with good bedside manner, and more than one gender featured on your staff.

The closer you look, the more you’ll realize that different coaching styles tend to organically find their way to the athlete on the training floor who learns most effectively from that approach. Our team at CSP may seem surprisingly diverse as it relates to personality types and senses of humor, but it has been assembled this way by design.

Learn from our mistakes, and emulate our strengths…

Two of the fastest rising fitness facilities in the Boston area (AMP Fitness & Achieve Fitness) are owned by couples who spent multiple months training with us at CSP during the time leading up to launching their business. They were forthcoming with their intentions, and eager to experience our model in even more depth than you can as an observational guest.

Today, they operate hugely successful models that feature some components that they likely pulled from their time with us, and other entirely unique facets that I should be attempting to recreate myself. Most importantly, they took advantage of the opportunity to observe several successful facilities in action before making the biggest investment of their lives, and today they’re better because of it.

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” - Isaac Newton

I Hired an Intern With an English Literature Degree and Zero Coaching Experience - It Was a Good Move

This past weekend I asked the Twittersphere for blog ideas and my buddy Sean came through with a question that sparked a great CSP memory. Let me tell you how Roger Lawson got his foot in the door of the fitness industry…

February 14, 2009

I’m sitting in the back of the room at the MBSC Winter Seminar minding my own business, waiting for Eric Cressey’s presentation to begin, when a smiling young man in his early 20’s approaches me holding a manila folder and a wrapped present.

Hey! I’m Roger Lawson. I’d like to submit an application for your summer internship program.

I’d been exchanging emails with Roger during the weeks leading up to this event answering questions about our application process and submission deadlines. As far as I knew, he was a college student from Michigan considering applying for our internship.

So I accepted the folder containing his pristinely formatted and printed application and asked the first two questions that came to mind. “Aren’t you from Michigan? That’s a long way to go for a one-day seminar. Secondly, what’s the deal with the gift?”

Roger’s answers to these two questions set the wheels in motion toward me selecting a candidate who, on paper, had no business even being offered an interview for a spot in our program.

1.    “I’m here today more because I wanted to hand-deliver my application than I am for the learning opportunity. When you read my resume you will see that I am entirely unqualified for this position as it relates to professional and academic experience. That’s a big hurdle for me to get over, so I’m starting by looking you in the eye and telling you how serious I am about pursuing a spot in your program.”

2.    “As far as the gift goes, I am here to fix something that is clearly broken in your life. I recently read in Tony Gentilcore’s blog that you have never seen the movie Friday. This is completely unacceptable. I just drove 700 miles in part because I needed to give you this DVD.”

I’d imagine that a few of my readers already know and love Roger Lawson. Those people are probably unsurprised by this story. The rest of you may be asking yourselves why I was willing to compromise on our “ideal” intern candidate and accept him in to our program. 

Here are two great reasons why you should occasionally step outside of your hiring comfort zone as we did with Mr. Lawson.

1. Quirky personalities make every aspect of a training session entertaining:

Our industry is full of robotic coaching styles and vanilla personalities.  There are a thousand fitness professionals who say “hips through” while coaching a deadlift, but only one who can effortlessly slip a Cinnabon reference in to the series of cues he uses to help an athlete conceptualize proper execution of the lift.

We tend to forget that the bulk of our clients’ time in the gym is spent recovering from brief bursts of training.  Filling downtime with positive experiences is far easier when you can tell people about that time you placed in the Top-10 at the 2008 World Rock-Paper-Scissors Championship (actual Roger Lawson fun-fact).

It is every bit as important that we provide quality fitness instruction as it is that we deliver a memorable training experience.  It is hard to find an intern that clients continue to ask about nearly seven years after the conclusion of their time with us; Roger is one of those rare coaches.

2. Under-qualified coaches know they have to work harder to achieve success:

In her TED Talk entitled Why the best hire might not have the perfect resume, Regina Hartley explained that in her role as a human resources professional, she often finds herself deciding between two very different types of job candidates: on one side of the candidate pool you have what she calls the “Silver Spoons,” e.g. the Ivy League graduates with the impeccable resumes; on the other side you’ll find a group she’s labeled “The Scrappers.”  Scrappers are candidates who’ve battled considerably different and difficult odds to get to the same point.  According to Hartley, the latter group deserves strong consideration because they are underestimated contenders “whose secret weapons are passion and purpose.” 

During the internship interview process I asked Roger why he deserved one of three spots in a program for which 20+ considerably more qualified individuals had applied. He told me that his comparative lack of experience meant that he would enter the program dying to learn and without any existing bad coaching habits.  He was a clean slate upon which we could create a coach that would thrive in our model. 

Charisma cannot be overvalued  

Roger also possessed the rare and valuable skill of charismatic optimism, which is arguably more distinguished than passion and purpose combined.

You can have too many shoulder specialists on one team, an excess of nutrition gurus, or more PRI enthusiasts than any single staff could possibly need.  What never becomes redundant, however, is the introduction of another charismatic extrovert to the training floor of your gym.  Most gyms could use less “Silver Spoons” and more Rogers.

A Grocery Store Won My Business by Empowering an Entry Level Employee - Here's How

My wife and I moved our family out of the city and into the suburbs in late 2014. We gave up an abundance of nearby restaurants, bars, and grocery stores in exchange for roughly three times the home and a nice big yard for our kids to run around in. As a result of the move, our weekly trip to the grocery store that was once a 2-minute ride from home suddenly became 10-20. While ~15 minutes in the car isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things, it felt like an inconvenience after a decade of having amenities sitting within a mile of our home.

Once we got over the “burden” of 15-minute rides, we began to appreciate the new convenience of options…so many options.  By my count, there are no less than 6 full-service grocery stores sitting within a 15-minute radius of our home.  That’s a half-dozen locations with similar pricing, ample parking, and nearly identical accessibility. 

Until this past weekend, when it came time to shop for food for the week, we employed a completely arbitrary location selection process. We didn’t feel an allegiance to any single business.

So what changed?

“How about we try that Price-Chopper over in Hopkinton this time around?”

I was being selfish. I’d heard that there was a Starbucks located inside of that specific store and I was craving a cup of iced coffee. (Side note: incorporating complimentary services can be the differentiator that brings you new business, but that’s another blog for another day.)

My wife didn’t put up a fight, so we were off to a new store to buy the exact same stuff we’d found for the exact same price elsewhere just a week ago.

I got my cup of coffee, and we started in the produce section. As we perused our options, we noticed that the zucchini was entirely sold out. This was frustrating because “zooks” happen to be our son Collin’s favorite food.

“Collin is going to have to make do without his zucchini for the week because I’m not paying double for the plastic-wrapped organic option,” said my wife. (Please put your organic food lectures on hold, people – we’re at peace with our food selections.)

The attentive employee restocking carrots close by overheard our conversation and quickly approached the two of us…

“Sorry about that, guys. We are entirely out of the zucchini today. The good news is that there are plenty of them left over there in the organic section. Let’s remove the packaging, toss ‘em in a produce bag, and make sure that you pay the non-organic price. I want to make sure that you leave with what you came for.”

Let’s do what? Can you do that? We’re breaking a major rule here, right?

Turns out we weren’t. This employee had been empowered to make impactful, yet simple decisions in moments like this without the approval of a manager. We spent the next five minutes wandering the isles while discussing how surprised we were by the gesture.

By foregoing roughly $2 in revenue on that particular day, this employee all but guaranteed that we’d return the following week to spend another $100+ on our weekly grocery trip. At a store like this, the lifetime value of a customer can be immense (especially if that customer happens to be a growing family).

How can you apply this at your gym?

To be honest, there are a thousand ways. Maybe it is as simple as nodding your head in approval when your employee pulls a bottle of water out of the fridge and says “its on the house” to a new client. Maybe you take a break from the predictable Metallica during the busiest part of the day and allow a field hockey player to blast her favorite Katy Perry song while she tries to hit a deadlift PR because for that singular moment, she needs to feel like she owns the training floor.

The point here isn’t specifically to minimize your micromanagement of incidental costs incurred around the gym; it’s to ensure that your employees are empowered to make meaningful gestures and judgment calls in the moment without fear of second-guessing or repercussions. They know in their gut what will make for a memorable client experience.

In his book Leaders Eat Last, author Simon Sinek quotes USS Santa Fe submarine captain David Marquet as having said: “Not until those without information relinquish their control can an organization run better, smoother and faster and reach its maximum potential.”  If you find yourself buried in the details of running your business, managing the schedule, and generating leads while your employees are the ones establishing relationships with your current clients, you are the one without the information. Maybe it is time for you to relinquish a little bit of control.

Take the reigns off of your team and let them make the decisions that will allow you to enjoy the lifetime value of a satisfied client. You wont regret it.

Building Bridges: Leveraging Your Employer to Enhance Your Personal Brand

I've spent the last 6-months attempting to outline a blog discussing how a strength coach can effectively attack the discussion of personal brand development with his or her employer in a fitness business similar to Cressey Sports Performance. I sat in front of the computer screen for extended periods of time second-guessing every angle I could come up with, and then it suddenly dawned on me...

I have about a half dozen employees who've effectively created their own brands while functioning as coaches here at CSP Massachusetts. Why not approach the one who already writes far more eloquently than I ever will and ask him to take on the task?

Today's guest post comes to you courtesy of CSP strength coach, Tony Bonvechio. He's taken his own personal brand from "0 to 1" in the past two years, so he's got some invaluable insights to share. Enjoy!

“I've been battling internally with leaving full time work in a field I don't love to pursue coaching, which is what keeps me awake at night as you can tell by the time stamp on this email. I admire everything that the staff at CSP does so I know the temporary discomfort of no job will be worth what I'd learn from the internship.”

That’s a direct quote from a cringe-worthy email I sent to Pete Dupuis at 12:11 AM on April 14, 2014, inquiring about the Cressey Sports Performance internship program. Luckily, Pete overlooked my email awkwardness and the rest is history.

If there’s anything I’ve learned in two years at CSP, it’s that a surefire way to find success is to create value for others.

It can be tough to ask your employer to help build your brand and not theirs. But if you shift your thinking and focus on what you can do for them, you gain leverage. Do a bang-up job to enhance your employer’s business and they’ll have no choice but to promote your personal brand.

Eric Cressey and Pete Dupuis have gone above and beyond to help me build my personal brand, Bonvec Strength, into something I’m extremely proud of and something profitable. My brand has benefited from a two-way-street mentality: nearly everything I do to build Bonvec Strength directly or indirectly helps the CSP brand and vice versa. That goes for my co-workers too, and I’d challenge anyone to find a fitness facility that has so many viable personal brands under one roof.

Just a few of the brands that have taken shape here at CSP

What can you do to build a bridge between yourself and your employer to enhance your personal brand? It all starts with a desire to make everyone around you successful. Here are four things you can start doing right now to make yourself and your employer better:

1.    Be a Role Model

Being a part of the CSP team means being a role model. It means setting an example for the athletes we train. It means being a leader for coaches who learn from us. It means helping the fitness industry get better as a whole.

Fortunately, I had perfect examples to follow. From work ethic to training philosophy to social media etiquette, I was surrounded by people who embodied the term “role model.”

If I expected Pete and Eric to help me leverage my strengths, I knew I needed to be a reflection of all the things the CSP brand represents. I had to coach hard, train hard and learn hard. I had to learn to talk to parents and show them that their kids are in good hands. I had to have the appropriate online presence, from giving quality information to not dropping f-bombs even when the trolls deserved it.

Once the leaders of the CSP brand could trust me to represent them well, they were extremely open to helping me develop my own brand.

2.    Develop Rare and/or Valuable Skills

During my internship, I read Cal Newport’s book, So Good They Can’t Ignore You, and it changed my life. It helped me realize that skill, not passion, is what separates the great from the good.

A light bulb turned on in my head. I’d been passionate about fitness for years, so why wasn’t I gainfully employed yet? Simple: I hadn’t developed any rare or valuable skills.

The CSP internship took care of the valuable skills: coaching, programming, assessments. These skills weren’t rare, however. All my colleagues had these skills too. Pete said to me in one of our first meetings, “You’ve got a short window to make a mark in this industry. How are you going to differentiate yourself?” That question burned deep in my brain for months.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had some rare skills in the tank too. They just needed to be leveraged.

My background in journalism gave me a leg up in producing content, from articles to videos to webinars. Eric and Pete could trust me to put out quality stuff without too many typos and “um’s.” And my baseball playing experience gave me plenty of context to draw upon when coaching athletes and talking to parents about why training at CSP would help their son or daughter. By developing my ability to communicate “baseball-specific” concepts, I could enhance the client’s training experience and help close more sales.

Pete has often said they hire coaches not to bring on Eric Cressey clones, but to fill a personality or skill gap. I like to think I do a bit of both.

How are you different from your peers, not just in a way that makes you stand out, but also compliments your employer to make the team better? The answer to that question is the key to building your personal brand too.

3.    Do Stuff for Free

After finishing grad school, I thought a hefty paycheck was right around the corner. An unpaid internship seemed out of the question given my advanced degree. I throw up in my mouth a little when I think of how delusional I was.

Turns out, doing stuff for free led to some of the biggest payoffs.

Four months of unpaid interning led to a full-time coaching job.

Writing guest blogs for Eric Cressey and Tony Gentilcore led to a paid gig at MyFitnessPal, one of the most-viewed fitness websites in the world.

Volunteering with Greg Robins at an Optimizing the Big 3 seminar led to a partnership with the Strength House that jumpstarted my online training business and has taken me to cities and countries I never thought I’d see.

You’ve gotta crawl before you walk, and you gotta do stuff for free before you get paid. No one’s going to pay someone who doesn’t possess rare and valuable skills – not the big bucks, anyway. Delayed gratification sucks, but it’s necessary to build a skillset and reputation that people will pay for.

4.    Make the Most of Every Opportunity

There are no shortages of opportunities to leverage the CSP brand to build a personal brand. But as the saying goes, if you don’t ask, the answer is always no.

In my first meeting with Eric, I told him I would love to start a powerlifting team. Within a month, we had an all-women’s group training three days a week in preparation for their first competition. Within a year, we have nine paying members.

When Pete approached me about bolstering CSP’s social media efforts, the idea for Technique Tuesday was born. What started as a simple 2-minute video has grown into a weekly series that’s amassed over 100,000 views and dramatically expanded my online audience. All it took was asking Pete’s permission, about five minutes of filming per week, and a year’s worth of consistency.

Had I never sought out these opportunities, knowing full well it would require some long nights and early mornings, it’s likely my personal brand would still be minimal. I also aimed to make these endeavors as hands-off for Eric and Pete as possible, knowing full well that their lives revolve around the business and their families, not me. If I could bear as much responsibility as possible, I’d have a better chance for their approval of my projects.

It’s easy to shirk extra tasks that may not have immediate payouts, but if you embrace every opportunity with the mindset that you can grow it into something valuable, the dollars will follow.

Are You Building Bridges… or Burning Them?

 Before your employer can boost your personal brand, they must see the value you bring to the team as a whole. Focus on helping the team that surrounds you, and your bridge will build itself. Then, once your value is undeniable, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Even though it’s a “personal” brand, you can’t build it alone.

What Does the Term "Retention Strategy" Mean to You?

I’ve had three different people ask me to write about retention strategies in recent weeks. I’m not exactly swimming in specific reader inquiries, so three identical requests qualifies as a critical mass in my little blogging world.

I’ve started thinking about what, if any, retention strategies we have in place here at Cressey Sports Performance…and I’ve come to a conclusion:

I hate the term ”retention strategies.”

The problem isn’t that I’m opposed to implementing processes that promote the retention of paying customers; the problem is that I don’t differentiate between “running my business” and “retention strategies.” 

The way I see it, there are strategies geared toward client acquisition, and then every moment of delivering our training services should align strategically with our efforts to retain clients. We don’t need a creative new approach sitting in our back pocket waiting to be used when things begin going downhill and clients stop spending money with us…if that happens, we need a new approach to delivering our training services entirely.

If I find a strategy that helps me reduce the number of athletes that leave our business I don’t call it a retention strategy – I implement it in a full-time format as a business process and start referring to it as “how we run CSP.”

If you look at it that way, what my staff would refer to as “quality fitness instruction” is actually just our retention strategy in action.

The Call You Didn't Make That Could Have Saved Your Business Thousands

I have a number of pet peeves relating to the fitness industry. These rants include things such as:

• An insanely low barrier to entry that ultimately hurts the credibility of even the best coaches
• The incessant need to bash competing training methodologies
• The unexplained vitriol that recently populated my Facebook newsfeed discussing Pokémon-Go and its efficacy as a form of exercise (who cares?)

Today I want to add a newer, slightly more rational bullet point to my ever-growing list:

•  The consistent failure of other gym owners to call references during their hiring processes

In 9 years of business (did you know CSP turned 9 yesterday?), I’ve come to learn that “because he interned under the supervision of Eric Cressey” isn’t enough of a reason to justify bypassing a reference check. 

Here’s why…

We haven’t earned your unconditional trust

You might be surprised to learn that close to two thirds of the 130+ former CSP interns who moved on to collect a paycheck in a fitness setting were (and in most cases are) employed by people who never bothered to call us at CSP to inquire about their employability.

While it is a compliment that an applicant’s affiliation with our business could serve as some sort of no-questions-asked stamp of approval during the job-hunting process, it is a dangerous game to play for gym owners.  Making the assumption that we are 100% thrilled with every single coach to make it through our program is careless, and ultimately detrimental to the reputation of both my business and yours. 

The occasional bad apple can and will make it in to the mix, and we do our best to make these coaches passable by the time that they move on to the next step in their professional development process. I am fully aware of the commitment of time, energy and funds that go in to working with us in an unpaid format, so the cut-your-losses and fire quickly approach does not apply to interns here at CSP.  It takes three or more big strikes before Eric or I will ever ask an underperforming intern to leave. 

However, that doesn’t mean that we can get past concerns about character, integrity or work ethic when it comes time to vouch for a coach who will move on to become an extension of our brand. Our reputation of being an excellent developer of talent will take a big hit if a mediocre intern alum moves on to be a mediocre coach, and their new employer decides that this individual is representative of the norm coming out of our system.

Additionally, some gym owners seem to forget that unique training models require unique personalities to function properly.  While we believe in the coaching abilities of every intern who completes our program, we do not believe that every one of these coaches would thrive in any training environment you choose to plug them in to.  Some of these individuals excel in fast-paced athlete supervision scenarios, while others are particularly effective moving methodically through a complex program in a one-on-one setting.

If you hire a pensive, slightly introverted former CSP intern to begin instructing in your fast, loud, and aggressive bootcamp setting, you’re going to find yourself burning through resources and payroll dollars onboarding a coach that was destined to fail from the start.  The good news is that we’ve had our eyes on each of these applicants for 300+ hours of interaction with our staff, our clients, and even parents of clients.  We’ve got a pretty good feel for their strengths and weaknesses.  You just need to ask us about them.

This would make me happy…

I would be thrilled to see two things happen:

1. Have all former CSP interns find an employment scenario that allows them to make a good living, feel challenged professionally, and make a positive impact on this industry as a whole.
2. Know that I helped in even the smallest way possible to insure that your next hire is a perfect fit for your operation.

Achieving both starts with just a 5-minute phone call.

Tap in to the Power of Word of Mouth Advertising with These 3 Tips

Less than $500.

That’s the amount of money we’ve spent at Cressey Sports Performance (CSP) on traditional advertising since opening our doors nine years ago this month.  I’m guessing you wouldn’t believe me if I told you that our average annual advertising spend of roughly $55 was the key to taking a roster of 40 clients on day-one to just a shade under 4,000 through our doors as of today.  If that were accurate, we’d be talking about roughly a $0.12 per client acquisition fee…I’d have to write a “how-to” book on lead-generation and conversion that would change the business world.

Sure, we’ve made the occasional donation to a charity golf tournament, or even thrown some cash toward worthy fundraising efforts organized by loyal clients.  However, other than a few hundred dollars spent on Facebook ads in advance of our attempt at a transformation challenge, we rely almost entirely on word-of-mouth advertising.

The key to word-of-mouth advertising is understanding that it is anything but free or effortless.  You’re going to need to spend significant funds on brand, business, and personal development long before the floodgates open and new client inquiries begin filling your inbox and voicemail accounts.

There are three specific actions that we’ve taken to amplify and accelerate the positive impact that word of mouth advertising has had on our business.

1. We focus on being unique and memorable.

It takes more than gym chalk, loud music, and a competitive training environment for your facility to thrive in the long-term.  If this describes your plan of attack, your best bet is to invest in the $3,000 annual Crossfit licensing fee and dive in to the process of attempting to differentiate yourself from the other five “boxes” that sit within a 20-minute drive of your facility (there are now 10,000+ similar locations worldwide).

The problem with owning a gym like this is rarely in creating discussion surrounding the training experience; it is, instead, the abundance of similarly priced alternatives sitting just minutes away that will cut in to your profits.  Cultivating serious brand loyalty within this environment is difficult.  While you are working hard to create loyal Crossfitters, you may not necessarily be creating Crossfitters who are loyal to your specific box.

Instead of leveraging the delivery of an environment that can easily be replicated (for short money), we lean on a rare understanding of the unique training needs of the baseball community to generate discussion outside of our facility.  Nothing would make me happier than to hear a client tell a friend on his team: “I’m pissed because my favorite coach at CSP wont be in the gym tomorrow because she’s going to observe a Tommy-John Procedure at Mass-General Hospital.”

People will travel significant distances if it means that they can gain access to unique training material. I’ve found word-of-mouth advertising to be effective at bringing the right clients in the door, while paid advertising doesn’t allow me to segment my Facebook advertising efforts to target “13 to 22 year old baseball players with a history of elbow and shoulder-related injury issues.”

 2. We worked hard to make ourselves visible.

Ever heard of “The Rule of Seven” in marketing?  This is an old adage that assumes it takes seven different exposures to your brand or message in order for a consumer to take action and begin spending money with you.  Thankfully, we knew that we could chip away at that magic number of seven simply by showing our faces in the right settings.

Back in 2007 we didn’t want to sit around waiting for baseball parents to hear about our brand more than a half-dozen times before coming in to see who we were and how unique our business was.  Instead of being patient, we put on CSP tee shirts and attended as many baseball games as we could fit in to our schedule.  If Eric and I showed up to six games in the spring, and then the catcher’s dad mentioned to one or two other parents that we’d helped his injury-prone son stay healthy for the entire season, then we’d be at our magic number of exposures in quick fashion.

The point here is both simple and cost-effective: If you rely on word-of-mouth advertising to prompt consumers to spend with you, you need to take action both inside and outside of your facility.  You can’t just hope for brand exposure, you have to actually expose it in order for word-of-mouth to take effect.

Today CSP clients get more excited to see our employees on the sidelines than me or Eric

3. We prepare our clients for the discussion we hope that they’ll have.

If you truly want your customers to be effective brand ambassadors while outside of the gym, you need to equip them with more than just an understanding of how to execute your training material.  Clients who understand “the why” behind their individualized programming are much better positioned to illustrate just how unique and valuable your service offering is during discussions with friends.

CSP coaches don’t just robotically deliver assistance with the arm-care protocols for baseball players; they articulate the reasoning for their inclusion in the programming and explain how they can be introduced to a pre-practice or game day warm-up ritual.  “Because my strength coach said so” is a much less memorable justification for doing a specific warm-up than “because it addresses the shoulder instability that was identified during my initial assessment at CSP.”

Detailed explanation of material in the weight room eventually leads to memorable word-of-mouth interactions in baseball dugouts and clubhouses.

In summary…

1. People are vocal about differentiated services.
2. Making your brand visible is critical. It doesn’t need to be difficult, but it needs to happen.
3. Don't assume that your clients are equipped to convey what makes your business unique; empower them.

Having a "Preemie" Reminded Me of 3 Important Business Lessons

My wife is 225 days pregnant with our second child.

Why so specific?

The number 225 is important to me because our (my wife’s) first pregnancy lasted 223 days.  For those of you who don’t care to pull out a calculator right now, when your due date is determined it is assumed that you’ll make it roughly 280 days.  We’re in unchartered territory. 

Our son Collin was born at a gestational age of 31 weeks and 6 days.  He spent his first 6 weeks of life in a newborn intensive care unit (NICU) before being deemed ready to go home with his parents.  During this time, we made twice-daily trips across the city just so that we could change the occasional diaper and check our little guy’s temperature in advance of his 7:00am and 7:00pm feedings.  While our presence was expected, it was anything but necessary as far as his ongoing care went.

Just 30-minutes "old"

Don’t feel bad for us.  I’m not sure we would change a thing about this experience if given the opportunity to do so.  We saw first-hand what world-class newborn care looks like every time a new NICU nurse popped her head in the room to check on our son.  We became better prepared parents because of this experience. 

There is no way of knowing if we’ll deliver earlier than expected this time around, so we’re understandably a little on edge.  With this hovering in the back of my mind as I sat down to brainstorm blog topics for the week, I realized that the way I run my business and manage my own work/life balance has changed dramatically since Collin came in to the world.

Here are three basic yet important business lessons I’ve been continuously reminded of since experiencing a premature delivery and becoming a dad in general:

1. Things don’t always go according to plan

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” – Mike Tyson

My first hold...

We got punched square in the mouth.  Plans had already been made.  We’d picked out the book that would serve as our manual for sleep-training our child.  We had not one, but two baby showers on the calendar during the two months leading up to our expected due date.  We even had flights booked to visit Florida for a “babymoon” in mid-March.

Instead, my wife had the rare opportunity to enjoy her first baby shower after our child was born.  We scrapped our sleep-training plans when we realized that the whole “start from day-one” concept doesn’t apply to parents who bring their child home on day-forty-two.  We even learned that JetBlue will call the labor & delivery department at your hospital to confirm the authenticity of your story before issuing a full flight reimbursement in a circumstance such as ours.

From the moment we arrived at the hospital to deliver our first child, until the day we left, every nurse or doctor we encountered reiterated the same message: “This is just going to be a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of your life as parents.” 

What felt like the end of the world at that moment ended up being just that – a blip on the radar. 

As an entrepreneur, you can expect to be metaphorically punched in the mouth.  I have written at length about the variety of problems you might encounter during the lifespan of your business, and each scenario covered can and should be temporary.  The sooner you come to terms with the notion that the past is the past, the closer you’ll be to creating a profitable future.

2. People will never forget how you made them feel

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

NICU Nurses are among the best people on earth.

When you look at all of the fitness facilities currently in operation, all of the training models currently being implemented, and the variety of training philosophies in place, we all have one thing in common: we are in the business of customer service.  I can’t think of a better customer service experience in my lifetime than the one that the NICU nurses delivered on a day-by-day, hour-by-hour, and minute-by-minute basis back in the spring of 2014.

I can’t for the life of me remember the Otolaryngologist (ear, nose and throat doctor) who checked Collin’s hearing when he was born.  I also don’t distinctly remember the face of the doctor who delivered my son.  What I can remember with absolutely clarity, however, are the faces of the nurses who put me at ease each time his heart rate dropped during a feeding.  I am forever grateful to the thoughtful ones who prepared creative images of Collin during the overnight shift so we could arrive each morning knowing that he’d been in good hands while we were gone.

The skilled doctors and technicians used their expensive equipment to perform similarly expensive procedures that I vaguely remember, but the nurses pulled together $0.50 worth of glitter and construction paper to create memories that continue to hang on the walls of my office to this day. 

Here’s the takeaway: It doesn’t take much effort or investment to make a lasting impact on your clients.  When all is said and done, they’re going to be more likely to remember the hand-written congratulatory note you gave them after accomplishing a fitness goal than the piece of fancy Keiser equipment they used to get them there.

3. Most of us have no idea how inefficient we are with our time

“Most of us become parents long before we have stopped being children.” – Mignon McLaughlin

"Uncle Eric" could teach us all a thing or two about efficiency now that he's got two rugrats of his own at home...

For the first seven years that CSP was in business I showed up to train around 10:00am, took my sweet time over the next two hours completing a training session designed to take 75-90-minutes, and then started my work day as clients arrived at noon.  If I had to stay past “closing time” at 7:00pm to get my work done, so be it.  My wife worked a demanding job, so it wasn’t rare for one or both of us to get home an hour or two late a couple of times each week and not think anything of it.

When my son arrived, coming home an hour or two late meant not seeing him before bedtime.  It turns out Collin didn’t seem to care about the length of my professional to-do list…I quickly realized that time spent socializing with clients, watching viral YouTube videos, and messing around in general was keeping me from quality time with my family. 

Last summer I wrote about my decision to begin training exclusively during our busiest hours of the day.  One of my reasons for doing so was to make better use of the hours leading up to clients arriving at CSP:

“Have you ever heard the saying that every hour of sleep you can get before midnight is the equivalent to two after?  Well I am of the belief that every hour of work that I complete prior to noon is as productive as two completed after.”

After changing my training time and focusing on task completion every moment that I was on the clock, the list that used to take me seven hours to complete was suddenly executable in four or five.  Instead of scaling back on my output with the addition of new family responsibilities, I was able to keep up with my CSP tasks and launch my website, publish a weekly blog, and take on the occasional speaking engagement.

I owe my son a thank-you for forcing me to realize that I had a lot more productivity in the tank.  

Many lessons to come

We are two weeks away from our 9-year anniversary of opening CSP and I still occasionally feel like I have no idea what I am doing.  Parenting is very similar to running a business in the sense that as soon as you think you know what you’re doing, the rules and patterns unexpectedly change.  I’m looking forward to the next 9 years of twists and turns.

This family is about to get bigger.

Keep Chasing Elite Athletes - I'll be Over Here Collecting General-Pop Dollars

This past December was the second busiest month in the history of CSP Massachusetts. During that 31-day window, we had 39 different MLB affiliated players come through our doors, representing 21 organizations. This number pales in comparison to the volume of affiliated players training at our Florida location, though still qualifies us as one of the more heavily-trafficked training facilities for professional baseball players in this country.

Sounds pretty cool, don’t you think?

What if I were to tell you that these guys accounted for roughly 8% of the dollars we collected during that month?

My point here isn’t to devalue the importance of having a professional athlete presence in our gym; I realize that they make a huge difference in my ability to attract the baseball-playing amateur crowd. Instead, I want illustrate the fact that there isn’t a wildly successful gym that I’m aware of that trains exclusively high-end athletes from the college or professional setting.

Youth athletes and general fitness population pay my bills, and there’s nothing wrong with that. If Cressey Sports Performance can get fired up to cater to the “normal” folks that attend our strength camps several mornings a week, I don’t see why your gym can’t do the same.

Gym Owner Musings - 5 Random Lessons Learned

I’ve accumulated a boatload of random lessons learned in (nearly) a decade of operating a fitness facility. Some warrant entire presentations, podcasts, and blog posts. Others carry plenty of value but can fit within the confines of a 140-character Tweet. 

Here are five quick insights that fall somewhere in between Twitter-friendly and ”blog-worthy”.

1. The “start small” mentality works

There is only one scenario I can see where “start small” is a bad idea, and that is when signing a long-term lease with zero wiggle-room for expansion or lease term modification. In 2008 we moved in to a 6,600 sq-ft space with the intention of growing out of it long before the conclusion of our 5-year term. As far as I’m concerned, the goal upon signing any lease should be to find your business busting at the seams and in need of additional space before your agreement concludes.

Assuming you’re renting space, consider communicating your vision clearly to a potential landlord like we did:

“6,600 sq-ft should do the trick for now, but if we build our business the way we aspire to, we want to know that you’re open to finding us some additional space here in the building and tearing up our current agreement so that we can negotiate a new term.”

Not many landlords will say no to you asking them to consider renting you MORE space before your current lease expires.

2. Everything is negotiable at a fitness equipment retailer

In July of 2007 we walked in to a Gym Source (franchised fitness equipment seller) looking for a functional trainer with two cable columns and a whole bunch of weight plates. We learned two important lessons that afternoon:

The first was that you could save a ton of money (30-40% in our experience) by purchasing a floor model piece of equipment at a store like this as opposed to demanding something brand new. I’m fairly certain the people aren’t banging out max-effort reps of exercises on a cable column in a retail store, so wear and tear is at a minimum when you buy “slightly used.”

The second lesson we learned was that margins on weight plates aren’t too bad for chains like Gym Source because of volume discounts they get when buying on a huge scale. This particular location only had a couple hundred pounds of plates on hand when we arrived, and we were told that we could buy them at a rate of $1/pound. “So what would our per-pound rate be if we told you that our gym needed 2,000 pounds of plates and we’re also on the market for the next seated-row/lat-pulldown floor model you come across?”

All of the sudden we found ourselves paying $0.65/pound.

3. Business insurance for a gym is expensive for 25 year olds…

I vaguely remember it going a little like this:

Coverage Provider: “So you need insurance for your fitness facility…I’ll just need to know how long you’ve been in business, what experience you guys have running a gym, and what your annual revenues look like.”

Me: “About three days…zero experience…and absolutely no idea what we’ll collect in year one.”

Coverage Provider: “You may not love the quote I come back at you with.”

The cost of insuring our business in year-one ended up being comparable to what I will spend this coming August when our policy renews for the 8th time. That may not seem that surprising, until you realize that we now collect roughly four times the revenue, with four times as many employees, and more than four times as much gym space as what we were working with in ‘07.

4. Take good care of youth athletes and your business will be recession-proof

We decided it would be a good idea to start at business at the start of “The Great Recession.” In hindsight, we’ve come to realize that our model was safer from an economic downturn than a gym that is exclusively geared toward servicing the general fitness population.

More specifically, we’ve learned that when it comes time to tighten up the family budget, parents are more likely to cut out their own discretionary spending than they will be to take away the premium supervised strength and conditioning services that their kids currently enjoy. As a new parent myself, I’m beginning to understand the inclination to go above and beyond for your kid.

5. Surviving the first 12-18 months of business is not easy…

I received my annual social security update in the mail today and decided to have a close look at my taxed social security earnings dating back to 1998.  One particular year jumped out at me – 2007. 

My taxable earnings for this first year that we were in business totaled $2,846.  As a frame of reference, I took home roughly double that amount in 2000 at a time when my only income came from serving beverages at a Seattle’s Best Coffee for 10-12 hours each week while maintaining a full college course load. 

Think about this for a second…in 2007 I worked roughly 12 hours per day, 6-7 days per week so that I could ultimately bring home enough money to pay for the gas used getting me to and from the gym every day.

I’m not in search of any type of sympathy.  Instead, I’m trying to reinforce the fact that EVERY successful gym I know of had to bootstrap it a little bit (or a lot) during the early stages of operations.  We were all first-time business owners once.

No One Signed up for Our Transformation Program, and It Was a Financial Success

Two is one and one is none. 

If you have a military background, you’ve likely heard this phrase before.  The gist of this message is simple: whatever can go wrong, probably will, and you’d better have a backup plan prepared for all circumstances.  In essence, “two is one and one is none” is the solution you put in place to deal with Murphy’s Law.

So how does this apply to the business of fitness? 

Let me start with a story…

A couple of months’ back we decided to launch a 6-week transformation challenge at Cressey Sports Performance (CSP).  With roughly 80% of our clients being baseball players, the month of April is extremely quiet around the gym.  Why not try something new and see if we can help out those in the community who are interested in fat-loss and lifestyle change?

We designed the training curriculum for 18 (3x-weekly) bodyweight / kettlebell training sessions.  We prepared a comprehensive nutrition guidance component for daily distribution throughout the program.  We titled the program Fit-In-6 and had a nice little logo designed.  We even had a 90-minute Skype conversation with Brian Patrick Murphy, one of the co-founders of Mark Fisher Fitness, and also a primary influencer of their massively successful Snatched in 6-Weeks transformation program.

We’d figuratively crossed our t’s and dotted our i’s. 

Next, we spread the word.  We distributed flyers.  We sent emails.  Went live on Facebook.  Created the leads. Delivered the pitch.

I converted just 4 of those 30-ish leads into our FI6 program.  So much for considering myself an effective salesman…

“Sounds great…I just can’t afford it”

I’ve become pretty comfortable selling a premium-priced performance enhancement service out of our destination training facility over the past decade.  The problem in this case was my failure to realize that outside of the baseball community, the CSP brand doesn’t carry equal weight.

It’s a whole lot easier to say: “the price is the price” when your leads have already come to the conclusion that you’re among the best in the world at what you do.  Selling to the perpetual program-hoppers and tire-kickers of the fat-loss community is a whole different story.  If I thought diligently about my audience, I probably should have anticipated some serious push back on a high price-point .

Thankfully, I didn’t NEED this program to thrive to keep our doors open.  I simply wanted to experiment with an alternative service offering in advance of the spring sports season wrapping up and the gym suddenly getting flooded with high school and college baseball players.  When you don’t absolutely have to collect those dollars, you can make the decision not to compromise on a pricing structure that you feel is fair for the services you’re providing. 

So, we worked 4 individuals through a 6-week transformation program, and they had fantastic results.  Awesome…but how can I call this a financial success?

Two service options became one, instead of one becoming none

The FI6 program generated leads, and that’s what matters.  While most of those leads didn’t love the cost associated with the program, I still had them on the phone, and I had another tool in my kit waiting to be implemented.

“I completely understand your hesitance with the cost. Did you know that we offer Strength Camps in the mornings here at CSP that start with a $99 trial month?  The metabolic conditioning component to these classes is pretty similar to that which you’d experience in our transformation program and if you don’t love it after a month, you just walk away!”

Well, would you look at that…dead leads are suddenly converting in to business.  Add 6 new strength campers in to the mix and I’ve suddenly filled my strength camp pipeline.  When all is said and done, all I want is the opportunity for my staff to win over new clients by delivering an exceptional training experience. 

My point is this: we earned trust with a new audience and found a fit for them, even if it wasn’t what we (and they) initially thought they wanted. Ultimately, they achieved a price point they were comfortable with for a service they find valuable. May not be the end goal we initially sought with this particular audience, but certainly ended up a win-win.

Make sure to have a low barrier to entry option

Premium-priced services are typically profitable, and immensely valuable to the right kind of client.  Unfortunately, they aren’t for everyone.  If you’d like to make efficient use of the leads you’ve worked so hard to generate (and possibly invested in), it is a great idea to have a lower-priced service offering to fall back on. 

Does your premium service selling strategy have a contingency plan?  Remember, two is one and one is none.

5 Reasons We Don't Ask Employees to Sign a Non-Compete Clause

I’ve never asked a single employee to sign a non-compete clause (NCC) here at Cressey Sports Performance.

There was a time when NCC’s were typically reserved for company executives.  It looks as if this time has passed, as NCC’s appear to be the norm in the current world of fitness.  My attitude as it relates to NCC’s would qualify as “employee-friendly,” as I echo the thoughts shared by attorney Michele Grant in a recent Fast Company article:

"What started out as a scalpel for companies to protect their very valuable trade secrets and customer lists...has turned into a bludgeon that exploits all types of workers."

While I see value in NCC agreements in a number of business scenarios, employing fitness professionals here at CSP is not one of them.  Here are five reasons why we choose not to go this route:

1. Enforceability presents a problem

Can we specifically articulate exactly what is important about the trade secrets we are looking to protect here at CSP?  Nope.

We don’t have a leg to stand on if we’re going to make the argument that the lessons we teach our employees need to be fiercely protected one day, and then publish video tutorials featuring proper execution of those lessons the next. 

We’ve made a decision to help push the industry forward by frequently publishing material showcasing our knowledge and training philosophy.  Who are we kidding when trying to convince our employees that what they learn here qualifies as a trade secret after emailing these tips to the 90,000+ people on Eric’s newsletter? 

I routinely preach application of common sense to other fitness business owners, and common sense tells me that a judge would find our “valuable trade secrets” to be anything but secret.

2. There are challenges in staying up to date

Policies are constantly evolving.  At this very moment there is potential serious change on the horizon in Massachusetts.  If the suggested reform in our state happens to make it through, I would need to determine what constitutes a “low-wage worker,” slow down my current hiring protocols to allow for candidates to seek legal council in advance of signing a NCC, and ask myself if I’d really like to be on the hook for 50% of a former employee’s pay if they declared that they weren’t working because of the document we’ve made them sign.

At this moment, I can’t say that headaches such as these are worth my time.

3. Language must be rewritten as positions evolve

The roles and responsibilities of our employees are frequently shifting and evolving.  We may have initially hired Chris Howard to be a strength & conditioning coach at CSP, but he eventually became our company’s manual therapist, and also inherited the role of providing nutrition consultation services upon Brian St. Pierre’s departure to pursue a different career path (now the Director of Performance Nutrition at PN).  Had we asked Chris to sign a NCC back when he joined us in 2009, we would have had to revise and restructure the language each and every time we made a significant adjustment to his job description. 

In 2004, the trial court judge overseeing the case of Lycos, Inc. v. Jackson summarized the Material Change Doctrine Policy as such: “Each time an employee’s employment relationship with the employer changes materially such that they have entered into a new employment relationship, a new restrictive covenant must be signed.”

Again, I have to ask myself, are headaches such as these worth my time?

4. Sets the wrong tone for the initial hiring

I am of the opinion that the aggressive nature with which an employer negotiates and enforces NCC policies is typically a fairly accurate reflection of how they treat their employees throughout the term of employment.  At CSP we’re more concerned with creating a professional relationship built on trust than we are in battling through negotiations on the front end of the employer-employee agreement.

5. Semi-Private model makes bouncing undesirable

In the world of fitness, NCC’s are part of the competitive landscape in part to protect trade secrets, but also to protect client rosters.  Facility owners are often threatened by the thought of seeing an employee walk out the door and taking a considerable chunk of their clients with them.  This is an understandable concern.

The unique training and coaching model in place at CSP effectively downplays this risk.  Since clients are never positioned as “the property” of any individual coach, they’d be unlikely to feel inclined to follow a departing staff member.  As much as I believe in the individual skills of each of my coaches, the magic of the CSP experience is rooted in a training environment that emphasizes group supervision in a semi-private model.  Simply put, no single coach makes our gym special.  We are the sum of our collective parts. 

In Conclusion

I can absolutely support the use of NCC’s when the language is thoughtfully drawn up, the duration of the agreement is reasonable (a year or less), and the need to protect proprietary information and/or client rosters exists…I just don’t feel the need to integrate them in my own business model.

To each his own, right?

The Last Week of Your Internship Is the Time to Shine

I have two permanent messages pinned to the top of daily my to-do list at Cressey Sports Performance (CSP). These insights spend the entirety of every workday within my line of sight. They impact the way I go about my life both personally and professionally. They are as follows:

1. There is no luck.
2. True character is revealed when no one is looking.

The second point on this brief list applies to each and every intern we guide through our program here at CSP. Most interns fail to realize that their true employability is revealed during the last week of a several month long internship. The last week is a time when interns tend to be lulled in to a false sense of security in thinking that they’ve somehow finished their task of making a positive lasting impression.

This home stretch is like the last week of high school for the senior who’s been accepted to the college of his choice and feels entirely unburdened by the stress of exams. When intern focus is left unaddressed, attention to detail tends to slip, proactive work ethics mysteriously disappear, and one foot is figuratively “out the door.”   

Here’s what I’m looking for as you wrap things up with us…

I’m looking to see if you’re as engaged on day 150 as you were on day number 1. Do you have the same bounce in your step as you move from the foam rollers to the med ball area that we observed during your first week with us?

Are you still asking quality questions and demonstrating a desire to learn? Or, are you going through the motions and day dreaming about the next internship on your agenda or the series of college courses you’ve enrolled in for the coming semester?

Do your fellow interns like and respect you? Do our clients speak highly of you?

Have you established yourself as the “go-to” guy (or girl) the full-time staff members gravitate toward when they need a capable coach to walk a new client through our warm-up protocols? Or, are you the one they bypass on their way to that person?

The last intern who dominated her final week with us now collects a paycheck from CSP.

True coaching character is revealed during the last handful of coaching shifts…

Your actual work ethic…your ability to lead…your potential value to our business…

It’s all clearly presented to me during your last few days with us at a time when you already know what your next professional stop along the way is. Interviews have already been completed. Applications have already been approved. Schedules have already been finalized. All you need to do is run out the clock on this internship and move on. 

Can my clients tell you’ve checked out mentally? They most certainly can, and I can assure you that they let us know.

Just remember this…

When you list my name as a reference during a future job hunt, and that potential employer gets in touch, I’m a whole lot more likely to remember your mediocrity during the final week of your internship than I am to remember how impressive you were at the halfway point. 

Make sure to finish what you started with the same momentum you carried on day one and I won’t only be saying nice things about you during a reference check; I may try to add you to my payroll.

10 Lessons Learned During a Year of Blogging

Today marks a full year of existence for PeteDupuis.com and the blog I’ve somehow managed to maintain.  In 52 weeks I’ve published 48 blog posts and learned valuable lessons along the way.

Before I get in to it, let me begin with a disclaimer: I am NOT pretending to be some sort of authority on writing.  In fact, I second-guess 100% of the material I’ve prepared each and every time my mouse hovers above the “save and publish” button.  I’m simply sharing some insights I’ve accumulated since getting started on May 18th of 2015.

For those of you who have been kicking around the idea of starting your own blog, I hope this list allows you to accelerate creation of content you’re proud of.  For those of you who have a blog but temporarily abandon your mission of writing regularly, I hope this list lights the fire you need to get back in the game.  Lastly, for those of you who are already crushing it on a daily or weekly basis on your own site, thank you for inspiring me to stay consistent.

Here, in no particular order, are my ten favorite blogging lessons learned in year number one:

1. If you don’t look back on your original material and cringe just a little bit, you’re not evolving as a writer

This is a message I’ve heard Eric Cressey share with other fitness professionals when discussing the evolution of his programming strategy, and it also holds true in relation to writing.  I took an inventory of my year-one blogging output during the past couple of days and began to see the same handful of mistakes and tendencies my editor (wife) has been kind enough to point out just about every week as she reviews my material. 

There’s nothing wrong with making mistakes along the way, but failing to address them is not acceptable if you’d like people to take your material seriously.

2. Abandoning ideas entirely is wasteful

CSP Strength Coach Tony Bonvechio once told me that he knows within the first 200 words whether or not he’s got something of value to share.  As it turns out, I have about a dozen 200-word “under construction” posts sitting in my Google Drive as I write this.  While I routinely walk away from a concept, I never abandon it entirely. 

On countless occasions I have been prompted to revisit an old idea and build upon the concept after encountering a new book, presentation, or discussion that forced me to think a little bit differently about my approach on a given topic.  Some of my most popular material was conceived and temporarily abandoned several months before publishing.

Speaking of 200-word posts…

3. If your content is sound, post length doesn’t matter

When I stumble upon a period of writer’s block, my best course of action is to revisit my “Abandoned Posts” folder for ideas.  One such idea sat buried at the bottom of that folder for months until I finally decided to stop waiting for two or three more complimentary bullet points to magically appear.

Instead, I posted a 249-word blog titled Are You Sabotaging Your Ability to Convert Leads?  It was the 5th most popular blog I’ve posted to date.  I’ve yet to come across a reader who said: “The concept presented in that blog post was fantastic but damn you for not giving me more.”

4. Don’t ever stop practicing the execution of the content you’re discussing

Cressey Sports Performance is the foundation of my credibility.  In nearly nine years of running my business, I have accumulated enough memories and experiences to continue writing about my craft for weeks, months, and (hopefully) years to come.  Walking away from the fundamentals of running our business would eventually make my content stale and redundant.

I count on the evolution of our business and brand to stimulate new and unique thoughts on a daily basis.  Fresh experiences make for unique content.

5. Read. Read. Read. Then read more.

You know that nine years’ worth of ideas and experiences I mentioned in tip #4?  Accumulating this material may have been part of the job, but extracting it from memory in preparation for writing is not.  Reading business-specific books like Zero-To-One help me to connect concepts with experiences and create content gold.

The more I read, the more I write.  My cure for writer’s block is immersing myself in other writers’ material.

6. If you think you’ve got your audience figured out…prepare to be disappointed

I recently emailed my wife a first-draft of a blog post with the subject “this is garbage but I’m struggling for content this week.”  She suggested a couple of minor grammatical adjustments and said it looked good to go.  That post went on to be the most shared, liked, and trafficked post in the history of my blog.

Similarly, I’ve seen more than a few of my posts go essentially unnoticed despite my thinking that I’d finally prepared something “really good.”  I’ve come to terms with the fact that sometimes my audience consumes my content differently than I perceive it, and that’s ok.

7. Provocative gets hits

I probably shouldn’t have referred to the post “Because My Boss Sucks” is a Shitty Reason to Open a Gym as garbage.  However, I wasn’t all that enthusiastic about it because the points made were not particularly new to my readers.  I guess that when it comes to gym ownership, most things worth saying once should probably be repeated!

This being said, I am almost positive that this post got attention because I used the word “Shitty” in the title.  My initial instinct was to tone it down, but thankfully my wife pointed out that it brought an edginess that complimented the message and I ultimately decided to roll with it.  Provocative blog titles (within reason) can occasionally draw just enough attention to entice new people to check out your material.  Lesson learned.   

8. Authenticity is key

I’m fortunate to be surrounded by a number of talented writers.  My business partner Eric has managed to attract more than 100,000 followers spanning multiple platforms thanks to a style that features a unique (and often scientific) take on strength training for the overhead athlete population.  On the other end of the spectrum, Tony Gentilcore successfully blends strength-training concepts with a combination of current events and stories about his cat in a style that is best described as “weight lifting infotainment.”

Both approaches have been immensely successful, but that doesn’t mean they’d work for me.  Much like I preach that gym owners should stay in their own lane when it comes to building gym culture (i.e. don’t try to appear eccentric like Mark Fisher Fitness if you’re not Mark or a part of his team), I’d also strongly encourage aspiring writers to let their true personality and strengths shine through their material. 

I will never be comfortable taking a mathematic approach to describing the nuts and bolts of operating a fitness business in the way that Eric delves into anatomy in his writing about training baseball players.  I will also never effectively tie pop culture references into my content the way Tony seamlessly does.  I will tell stories that convey messages…stories that I’ve experienced…stories that I’ve lived.  Assuming I stay the course, no one will ever be able to say my material lacks authenticity.

9. Consistency matters

48 blogs in 52 weeks…I don’t blame you if you’re you asking yourself “why not 52 in 52?”

The first week that I failed to publish was that of the 4th Annual CSP Fall Seminar.  When it comes to the logistics of putting on a 150+ attendee event, everything else gets pushed aside to make sure things get done. I get a pass on that week.

The other 3 missed weeks took place in succession during the holidays.  “Taking a week off” suddenly became two, and then three.  If I was lucky enough to have readers who looked forward to my weekly post at that point in time, I probably lost a few of them due to my unpredictable publishing schedule. 

Once I finally got back on track I decided to standardize the time of the week that I write (usually Tuesday mornings), and the time of the week that I publish (Wednesday or Thursday).  By locking in a routine, I’ve managed to lock in some consistency that has led to a bigger audience.

10. Speak to one distinct population at a time

I mentioned earlier that these lessons were in no particular order, but I think I may have saved the most important for last…

I have three types of readers: gym owners, personal trainers, and personal trainers who dream of one day being gym owners.  In hindsight, the most mediocre blogs I’ve written were attempts at speaking to all three populations simultaneously.  I got so caught up in trying to be everything to everyone, that I lost track of the importance on speaking clearly to one specific audience.

The numbers don’t lie…my three most popular posts of year-one were as follows:

1. “Because My Boss Sucks” is a Shitty Reason To Open a Gym – directed toward personal trainers who dream of opening their own gym some day

2. Three Reasons We Don’t Offer Free Consultations – directed toward gym owners

3. How To Stand Out in a Crowded Fitness Industry – directed toward personal trainers

Thank You

I want to thank everyone who has set aside time to read even just a single one of my blog posts during the past 365 days.  I’ve immensely enjoyed creating this material and look forward to another productive year of writing.  Make sure to join my newsletter and stay tuned for more!