She's On Her Toes: Getting Ahead in the Business of Fitness

I’m really struggling. My life is pretty much weathering one crisis into the next. There is always a problem in my business. Always something that needs to be fixed. Sometimes I let dishes pile up in my sink. Sometimes I vacuum up enough hair in my house to make another dog. I wish I could eat salad for lunch, but I just can’t. I like sandwiches. With bread. I will never live up to my inner critic about teaching Pure Barre classes. And I’m ok with that.

Why? Because I’d rather be brave than perfect. I’d rather be doing something rather than nothing because I’m paralyzed with fear. Moving forward is better than standing still—in business and in life. Women today seem to value the appearance of perfection above being real. Making mistakes is taboo. Admitting that you make mistakes and don’t have all the answers is self-destruction in many social circles. Other women will look down on you. You’ll be judged. Well, f*ck that! Here’s a newsflash … nobody’s perfect.

Millennials, or the generation born between 1981 and 1996, will make up about 75% of the workforce in 2025. That’s just 7 years away. And we’ve all heard some pretty negative criticism about this group—they’re unfocused; entitled; demanding; and addicted to technology.

Are these stereotypes? Maybe. Maybe not. It doesn’t really matter because these are the people who will be moving businesses forward.

The single thing that separates Millennials from previous generations is technology. So, while my generation was outside playing with sticks, millennials had these crazy things called smart phones that gave them unfettered access to the Internet.

When you’re old AF, how are you supposed to lead this group of so-called Millennial workplace misfits? How can you manage Millennials to successfully run your business and ultimately find their own success?

What if there was a way to actually spend your advertising budget to bring guaranteed new leads into your business each and every day? Sound too good to be true. It’s not.

Paid social advertising is the most effective way that I’ve found to advertise my studios and bring in new clients. But, we aren’t just placing ads. We’re generating leads. There’s a difference.

And that’s what we’ll be talking about today. How to use ads to generate new leads for your fitness studios every month. And once you have the contact information of these people, you can keep reaching out to them—until they tell you not to. When you think about paid social ads for your studio, think bigger—you want to generate leads and build your contact list.

David Philips, CEO of One Marketing joins us to talk about how to turn your advertising into a lead generation machine. David is the brains behind all of my studio’s Facebook and Instagram ads. And he'll share how we consistently get leads.

We talked so long last week, that we split the discussion into two parts ... join us for the second half of our discussion on how to hire the right team ... If you've already read the book, She’s On Her Toes, you'll remember the definition of a fitness business, but let’s just refresh:

"A fitness business is a commercial, profitable enterprise that can be run without you so you can be a role model in the health and fitness community you are creating."

To get your business to run without you, you'll have to be a true leader and create the vision, mission and culture for your employees to follow.

Taking the time to write your business Vision, Mission and Culture statements is the most valuable process you can complete when it comes to building a team because it establishes clear parameters for who you want to hire. If a candidate you interview doesn’t agree with any part of your Vision, Mission and Culture statements, then they aren’t a good fit for your business.

I take full responsibility for my business successes and failures. I made all the decisions to shape my business. But it wasn’t until I looked at running my business differently that great things really started to happen for me.

See, the definition of a business is: A commercial, PROFITABLE, enterprise that works…WITHOUT YOU. This means that you are free to work ON your business not IN it. The business is fully functioning without you.

Does that describe your business? Can you stay home or go on vacation and everything will happen without you? Will the doors be unlocked and clients served? Will you see money deposited into your bank account? If the answer is no, then you own a job, not a business.

Once I realized how important it is to hire the right team and give them the responsibility of running my business, then things started falling into place. Hiring the right team is the difference between owning a job and owning a business.

When are you done in business? There seems to be an unsubstantiated rumor that there is some finish point when you’re building and working on your business. In a lot of things, there is a beginning and an obvious finish. But, business is a little different.

When you’re building your business, you’re always tweaking things, making adjustments. You don’t just start, open the instruction manual, follow the directions, and get to the finish line. There’s always something new to be done. There’s always a change to be made.

Today, we’re going to be talking about when you’re done in business ... when you need to pivot or adapt. How do you know when something isn’t working and move onto something that does work? How do we accept change in business? Join the conversation, join the community!

The concept of one’s own success resulting due to the failure of others is very real. In a time when there have never been more opportunities for women, and small business owners, people in general, why do we continue to have a scarcity mindset? Why is living with abundance so hard?

In Episode 5, we talk about living with abundance and why that can be challenging in our ultra-competitive world.

Living with abundance means that opportunities are unlimited. If someone gets more, that doesn’t necessarily mean someone else gets less. When you live with an abundance mentality, you have a strong personal worth. You feel secure. You are open to all possibilities. You’re creative and fulfilled. Sounds awesome, right?

So, why is it easier for us to root for others to fail, rather than champion their success? Have we really reached a point where our world is so cut-throat that we only recognize our own success when others fail?

Is traditional client service or customer service dead?

I’m talking about—a client walks into your business, you sell them something, they pay, and then you keep in touch to earn the next sale. In today’s Social world, things are different. Clients have access to all kinds of information about your business including how you communicate through your Facebook and Instagram accounts. In fact, they probably already have formed expectations about how they’ll be treated before they even step foot into your business. Or don’t even give you a second look after they do their research!

But while technology has changed the way we approach client service, there are some things that apps and the Internet can’t replace—things like greeting clients by name, smiling, and writing thank you notes. Join the conversation about how to excel at client service in our fast-paced inter-connected business world.

We put a lot of time and effort towards our careers and advancement in our jobs. But what if you put the same amount of effort into your health and personal time with friends and family?! One of the unique things about working in boutique fitness is that you really have to prioritize health and wellness. We’re literally working ourselves to exhaustion, so eating healthy and getting rest and recovery is essential. We'll talk about how to achieve work/health balance including our favorite ways to eat healthy and save time preparing food. We'll also discuss some more controversial time-savers including not getting coffee from Starbucks and not watching TV. The horror! But the overall message of this podcast is ... spend your time away from work with intent.

Do We Take Enough Risks? Are We Turning Our Backs on Bravery?

Risk … it’s kind of a dirty word. Risk is bad. When we look up the definition of risk, we find “a situation involving exposure to danger.” But is taking a risk really that dangerous? As business owners, we take risks every day. It was a risk to dream of working for ourselves. It was a risk to quit our corporate jobs. It was a risk to open our businesses. Expanding is risky. Hiring employees is risky. Offering a new promotion is risky. In business, life, fitness, just about everything is a risk!

In our inaugural episode of She’s On Her Toes podcast, we’re going to talk about risk, whether women actively seek to avoid taking risks, and how that might have a negative impact on reaching our goals in business and in fitness.