This is not a story to impress you on how early I get up, as the biggest heroes on time I know are NHS workers who work around the clock, on Christmas Day etc without a word of complaint even after a 12 hour shift, and often come training straight after.
This clock pictured is running 50 minutes after I get up. I know by getting up so early, I have a big advantage on everyone else. I know that if we set high standards on what we need to deliver as a gym, those early hours are critical to us winning that day.
I know that we can only get better as a gym if we out-care, out-deliver and out-serve everyone else.
I couldn’t think of anything worse than going to a “business breakfast” patting each other on the back, when I could have made a huge impact on my business and members in the 3-4 hours before, that actually does something that’s going to benefit everyone immensely by showing our members how much we care, and are ready to serve them.
Getting up early isn’t a hardship, as a gym we are in a position of privilege as we get the opportunity each and every day to change people’s lives, to make everyone’s day a little better, happier and create a stronger, happier and healthier future for them.
Every time a member walks through the door, it is a gift to us in social terms. We love to see people, in these days of communities not knowing each other so much or mostly at all, we see ourselves as a vital service getting people connected not only in a physical way, but emotionally too.
Loneliness and mental health are silent killers, people need to feel wanted and desperately need a sense of purpose in life.
We know as a gym and a business we can do it better than a corporate or chain that often only cares about how many direct debit contracts they can set up, or look after you first session then not give a damn.
Contracts make me puke, and is a sign that the gym concerned isn’t confident of keeping you by their results you get from them, so they need to trap you. DEMAND coaching from the every session and I urge you NEVER to sign contracts full stop.
In these times when it’s harder to run a business than ever, we know if you are small and nimble enough, if you are willing to out-care, out-serve and love what you do, keep learning, embrace technology fully you can indeed be the ICEBERG, the game-changer, and the corporate or chain will be the Titanic blissfully unaware of their lack of customer care or treating their de-motivated staff like garbage.
We have more opportunities than ever, use time to your advantage and make those early uninterrupted hours count heavily in yours and your customers favour.
Make it happen.
