Last week marked JCV’s final Leadership Group Meetup – it was a great couple of days of fun and focus. Here are some of the key takeaways from the day’s content.
Industry innovations
The industry has been (and still is) evolving fast. We’re seeing a new consumer profile: people who haven’t been to the gym, don’t like the gym, or who’ve failed in the gym. To service this new population, we need to innovate – not just the coaching product, which can remain relatively stable – but across the wider offering for wellness, longevity, community, inclusion and the overall customer experience.
As small operators, we have the advantage when it comes to making change. Without bulky corporate structures slowing us down, we can evolve more rapidly than the big high street names. This agility should put us ahead of the curve, allowing us to innovate and cater to the changing market. But these changes need to happen soon: SGPT has entered the mainstream and isn’t the viable USP it used to be. If we don’t find a way to differentiate ourselves before the wider industry catches up to the small group, personalised coaching model, we’ll find ourselves phased out.
Levelling up the business in 2023
In response to the changing market, we can split the business into five key functions – and focus on driving maximum ROI in specific development areas:
To maximise our opportunities to stand above the competition, ask:
- What’s working?
- What can we be doing better?
- Where are the opportunities?
To take these ideas and make them a reality, consider:
- What does success look like?
- What are the next steps?
- What, who, how, and when can we make these a reality?
Making a plan that works
Entrepreneurial gym owners tend to be very good at thinking of ideas – but struggle when it comes to bringing the team together to execute them. At the meetup, we shared a template for a Phased Implementation Plan, which took the innovations and improvements we generated in the morning session – and put them into a tangible timeline of actions, people, and deadlines.
The Phased Implementation Plan outlines:
- What: The nature of the task, innovation or initiative
- Who: Which team member(s) are responsible for getting it done? If it’s more than one person, what’s the plan for collaboration?
- By when: Final deadlines and intermediate milestones help track progress most effectively.
- Any notes, considerations, instructions, or information needed to execute the task
It needs to be:
- Easy to understand at a glance
- Accessible by everyone involved (using Google Drive to ‘tag’ team members included in a project is a simple way of bringing them in)
- Referred back to regularly in team meetings and individual staff check-ins. This drives accountability and cohesion across the team – and makes sure that everyone (including the director/owner) is clear on what they need to do, what good looks like, and whether it’s been achieved.
We’ll be sharing this implementation template in the next week, so keep an eye on your inbox if you’re interested.
Innovation in marketing and messaging
Hand in hand with innovations in our core ‘product’ – the training, wraparound service, and customer experience – comes a shift in our marketing and sales approach.
Churning out Facebook ads can be an effective lead generation tactic, but it’s not a long-term strategy for building brand and carving out a stable niche in the market landscape.
And it’s not enough just to make changes to the way we run the gym and serve our clients – our messaging needs to communicate those changes, too. We should focus on regularly reviewing our business ‘tone of voice’ to create a brand presence that speaks to our target market.
And marketing doesn’t stop at point of sale: bringing our internal marketing in line with any innovations we make is just as (if not more) important. Internal email, push notifications, in-person interactions, in-site screens and more are all powerful channels for uniting your member community, aligning your team, and ultimately driving retention for both staff and clients.
We’ll be sharing our own Marketing Schedule Template in the coming days to give you a framework for implementing these ideas – in the meantime, this recent blog post and our Marketing Ebook both have impactful guidance.
A final announcement
After a great few years, we’ve made the decision to close down the Leadership Group – effective at the end of April.
No reflection on the group, rather the next stage for JC personally and professionally. JCV will continue to work with individuals and businesses providing coaching and consultancy – and we’ll be upping our content game to provide a host of free and low-cost resources to gym owners and fitness professionals.
If you’re interested in coaching or consultancy, you can find a full breakdown of the JCV services here.
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