Starting Your Own Business

Creating your business culture
Yup, think about it. A culture you want the public to want to be apart of. A Culture where you gain respect from local professionals in the healthcare industry and a Culture YOU can be proud of.

Your business represents you and what you stand for. So be prepared to represent well!

The future can feel so bright to someone starting out. That is called Excitement! You have big dreams, big aspirations. How do you find clients? Where do you look for work? Should I do private training? Should I open my own facility?

To be honest, you really won’t know what you want to do until you do what you hate to do! This is where you need to ask for help! In order to grow your business you must start with the word HELP.

Ask for Help!
Flood gates open when you ask for Help. Talk to individuals who can give you a clear understanding of the industry and options available for you. For myself, its been close to 20 years in the industry. Almost 3 years ago I came to the decision that it was the right time to open my own training facility. The first 1.5 years were the toughest of all but it gave me the best education I could have asked for in regards to space, programming and member service.

SPACE. This is where you need to understand your business and the culture you look to promote. Space means nothing if it’s not Functional space! How are you going to use it? Can you do multi programming at the same time or will you have members banging in to each other. Will noise be a factor if you want to incorporate educational programming plus high noise programs. If you are privately training alongside group programming will you have space for these private members? Will they be fighting for space and equipment? I opened my space next door to a physiotherapist who shared the same HVAC system. We learned very quickly that we could not use one of our group spaces because the noise travelled through the venting system. That noise carried right into their treatment office! This meant loss of our training space which is now dead space. Who knew?

PROGRAMMING. Are you opening a business to service group training, private training, athletic teams, all of the above? In order to have a successful business it’s crucial to offer revenue streams that breed success. Group training and semi private training is our business model. It allows us to service more members in less time. An online scheduling system allows clients to signup for programs and is a great way for our trainers to know in advance who is attending their classes in order to modify, restructure the flow of the program and also know who cancels out. This keeps our clients accountable and motivated. We have not felt the need to move away from this semi-private/group training model.

MEMBER SERVICE. This was the biggest eye opener. We thrive on member service and with this high standard of service it creates a high retention rate. Clients rarely cancel. We were finding that the service we gave our clients made them so appreciative, so happy to be apart of our culture we were creating! We listened to them and if they weren’t happy we made every effort to make it better! I cannot stress enough how important member service is. This is where your advertising dollars need to be spent. You can spend an exuberate amount of money on paper, radio ads. We have come to the conclusion that in house referrals is the best and only way to market yourself. Create a high level of service with your existing members in any way possible and they will bring you new clients!

I cannot stress enough the importance of this. Every single potential client who has walked through our door has come from an existing member or from word of mouth! Make your current clients your #1 priority and you will succeed.

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