At the risk of entering the “Get off my lawn, ya noisy kids!” part of my career, allow me a mini-rant…
Most people goof up when they try to unpack MFF’s success.
Yes, the unusual and “remarked upon” Ninja-Unicorn culture and brand was a big factor.
But what’s often missed was my earnest commitment to a best-in-class fitness offering.
I desperately wanted to do a good job at the thing people paid me for.
And when you commit to being the very best possible SERVANT…
The natural next step is a commitment to being a STUDENT.
In my case:
- I went in deep on a steady diet of Mike Boyle, Dan John, Gray Cook, and other industry legends.
- I paired business books with Starting Strength, Advances in Functional Training, Enter the Kettlebell, and every training book I got my hands on
- For years, I bought pretty much every training DVD you could buy and spent my free time reviewing mobility drills, Turkish Get-Up technique, and other nerdy shit
- I never missed a Perform Better 3-Day Summit and routinely went to an in-person cert or conference every few months
- I’d sit at my computer refreshing my browser eagerly awaiting the next T-Nation article
- Hell, I literally binge-read the StrengthCoach.com forums from start to finish.
The “Ridiculous Humans” bit wouldn’t have played the same way without the “Serious Fitness” bit.
The training matters. A lot.
And after too many years of broke gym owners (incorrectly!) thinking one more kettlebell cert will lead to a successful gym…
In some circles, the importance of actually being great at training has been lost.
Let me be blunt:
If the fitness leadership is just kinda-sorta-ok at training, you will not develop a team of strong coaches with a well-thought philosophy of program design.
We’re actually adding some playbooks on this topic in the Unicorn Society. Best of all, they’re being developed by MFF Fitness Director legend and BFU Coach Amanda “Wheels” Wheeler.
Wheels not only covers how to teach coaches to, ya know, coach…
But she’s built a powerful and dead simple system to standardize program design…
AND given you the blueprint to help you develop a fitness director. This means having someone you trust who excels at managing your other trainers.
Because if your gym’s training is lackluster? It’s hard to have staying power.
Even if you fill up your gym with tons of leads…
If your clients get a crappy experience, you will have brutal retention.
This means less income and less impact.
And guess what?
You’re never done with this work.
Even MFF has to renew our vows, so to speak. That’s why we do things like hire industry leaders like Certified Functional Strength Coach to do a private full-day in-service for our team.
Now, please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here. It’s imperative to bone up on your business skills.
And in many situations, another training cert will NOT make any meaningful difference to your gym’s success. You do need to get good at the gym business.
But I’m sticking my flag in the sand here:
Sometimes the key variable in a gym’s thriving –– or floundering –– is the quality of the actual training.
Let’s definitely get you better at lead generation and making more consistent sales…
But let’s also be sure you’re skilled at technical coaching and program design, yeah?
Deadlifts AND Marketing,
Mark
PS: Events like the Perform Better Summits were fundamental to my development as a fitness professional AND a gym owner.
That’s why I’m very proud that BFU and Perform Better are hosting our first-ever joint workshop on April 26th-27th.
Pete Dupuis and I are hosting a Gym Owner Masterclass.
We’ll be covering topics like:
- The top 5 lead generation sources in 2024
- How to leverage a niche
- The best way to grow your gym with partnerships
- And much, much more.
If you’re a gym owner looking to create more income, impact, and freedom, you’ll want to join us at Perform Better HQ for the event.
Just FYI, as of last week, we’d already sold over 30 of 55 spots. So we expect this to sell out pretty soon.
For details and to claim your spot with the very best pricing, go HERE.