I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Below is today's post which is a mind dump on some things I am thinking about. It is one of those posts that I always ask myself after writing, "why am I telling people this?" I think the reason I write posts like this is it helps me lay everything out in front of me, highlights issues, holds me accountable because people know I can be an idiot, and also highlights some issues in owning your own business.
Winter is usually a pretty stressful time of year for me. As a new business owner I have done a piss poor job in managing the business in the best way possible. Basically what has happened in the almost 2 years that I have been in business is as follows:
Summer: absolute gongshow, plenty of athletes, 10-12 hours per week of training with the Mass Satellite Program, lots of general fitness clients, people getting great results, play golf 3 times a week, party two nights a week, do a couple of trips to cape cod and the islands, life is good. Except that the appropriate thing for me to do would be stuff a lot of the cash into the mattress to provide a cushion as business slows down or save for some new equipment, or save money for necessities like rent, food, a new vehicle (mine is just about ready to power down), you know the usual stuff.
Fall: Business slows down but I hang on to a lot of my hockey guys as they get ready for their winter season. I didn't do a good enough job of retaining general fitness clients for fall, but my staff has gone back to school so expenses are less since I am running a one man show. I am paying my bills but can no longer afford to golf or party a couple of nights per week.
Winter: Since I have been running the place by myself, I have been operating as a trainer who happens to own a facility. I need to retool my mindset and try to look at it as a business owner who trains people. For more clarification, when I have staff in the summer, my role is to design all of the workouts, plan the sessions, attract clients, keep clients, answer the phone, and train a couple of groups per day. In the Fall, I do everything including running every session in addition to the other jobs. However, I find that the business development stuff suffers as I focus on developing great training programs and running successful sessions. So now I have spent less time on getting new clients which means all of the hockey guys who have gone back to playing will only be here once per week, which means monthly dues will be a lot less. Now I have to try to scramble for clients, make late payments on bills, let the books go to hell, and have a nervous breakdown. Real chicken with the head cut off type of act.
My saving grace this winter will be some of the teams that have chosen to train with us in season as well as my duties as Assistant Hockey Coach at North Quincy High School.
Spring will pick back up with my hockey players, new fitness clients, and always a couple of other positive surprises.
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