Fitness Business University Podcast

SPEAKER_00: All right.

Welcome to another episode.

Excited about this one, and also
really excited about what's

coming up around the corner if
you're listening to this in the

middle of February.

Gimpranos is around the corner.

And Gimpranos is our three-day
marketing super conference where

once a year we do a big event
down in Orlando, Florida.

And we theme it out.

The last year's theme was the
World Wrestling Federation.

This year's theme, Go in Jersey.

Sopranos, one of my favorite
shows, but it's going to be the

Gym Pranos.

So there'll be some shenanigans.

There'll be some fun stuff that
will be happening.

But really at the end of the
day, we're going to be learning

a ton about growing a great gym
and got some great speakers

coming.

G.R.

Hoff from Jim Ember Machine,
Thomas Plummer, the legend, Mike

Waldron, the guru of finance and
numbers.

So it's going to be a sick
event.

The link is in the show notes if
you need more info and you want

to attend.

It's getting late, so you better
get a better get a move on it.

You can also attend virtually as
well.

So if you want to attend in
person, you better move.

If you want to attend virtually,
you just reach out, go just go

through that link and let us
know.

Today I want to talk about
capacity.

Okay.

And I think it's a really,
really important concept that a

lot of people miss.

Here's a couple examples, right?

So I went, took my family to
this restaurant called Medieval

Times.

And Medieval Times is it's been
around for a really long time,

but it's a very interesting
business, and you should look

into it.

It's like it's a dinner and it's
an event.

It's like in this big theater,
and then there's a dinner and

it's a show.

Basically, you're watching a
show while you're eating dinner.

And it's like people on horses
and guys fighting and stuff like

that.

And it's like medieval times,
right?

It's like if you ever saw the
movie The Cable Guy, they talk

about it in there.

But I'm looking around, and my
and poor Vanessa, right?

Like when I go to these things
with the kids, my mind is, yeah,

I'm trying to watch and be
engaged, but my mind is on

business.

I'm just like thinking about, oh
my God, like, look at all these

people and look at all these
upsells and look at all these

opportunities.

And the one thing I noticed, not
one empty seat.

Not one.

Now, this is like a$60 to$70
ticket.

This is not like a dinner that's
like, this is maybe even more

than that, I think.

So I'm doing the math, and
there's like a thousand seats in

the arena, sixty to seventy
dollars a ticket, upsells out

the wazoo, upgrade
opportunities, like Disney-esque

type style stuff, right?

But I couldn't get over not one
empty seat.

It's like thousands of seats.

It was, I believe it was a
Friday night.

So yeah, so usually things.

But one of the things that they
do at Medieval Times is they

pretty much sell out every show,
their thing.

They want to know it costs them
a shit ton of money to put on

one of these shows.

And so it costs them the same
amount of money to have to put

on a show, whether there's 500
seats or whether there's a

thousand seats.

The only difference is how much
actually they make.

They still got to pay the guy
that's riding the white horse

the same amount, whether there's
500 people in the audience or a

thousand people in the audience.

And so we as a business really
need to pay attention to this,

right?

And we don't, and not enough.

Another example is the hotel
industry.

The hotel industry actually has
a metric not necessarily on

occupancy, but on vacancy.

So they will take, and it's a
very morbid way of looking at

business, but but they look at
not 300 rooms filled.

Let's say a hotel is 400 rooms.

They don't look at 300 rooms
filled, they look at 100 rooms

not rented or not sold.

And they basically, that is a
metric of how much loss.

Meaning the capacity and
potential for that business was

400, and they only did 300, and
they lost 100 times whatever the

room rate was.

And I don't think gyms really do
this.

Well, my gyms in SBF do.

I mean, because this is one of
we have five numbers that we

track on a regular basis weekly,
right?

We track leads, we track trials
or consultations, we track new

members, we track lost members,
and then we track capacity.

We look at capacity, we want to
look at that number because we

want to know one, are the people
that are paying showing up,

right?

Two, we want to look at where
are we losing money?

Where do we have a session that
has six people, that has two

people, that has one person,
that has no people.

And what do we need to do to
change that?

Because that's honestly like if
if all of a sudden you have a

capacity of six people per
session and every session is

filled, you're gonna be making a
lot of money.

Barring you're not doing
something stupid with payroll or

something like that, you're
gonna be making a lot of money.

And if you have two people in a
session, you're not gonna be

making a lot of money.

It's real simple.

And so this is like the first
thing you need to do is you need

to look at it.

You need to track it.

And ideally, you have you track
it against the goal.

We can't just like track it, we
have to track it against what

success looks like.

This is a big mistake in
scoreboard in general.

A big mistake is like you track
numbers, but there's no

comparison.

So you all right, we got 10
leads.

All right, fine.

Is that good or bad?

I don't know.

And what you need is you need a
weekly goal.

And a good weekly goal for a
small group gym is 83%.

Right?

That's kind of what I like to
see.

Okay, 83 is a weird number, but
essentially what 83% means is

five out of six.

And what that means is on
average, if I take all my

sessions, if we're averaging
five out of six, we are winning

big.

unknown: Right?

SPEAKER_00: We're probably not
going to be medieval times and

fill every seat, right?

And understand that more than
83%, while good for your wallet,

will start to show up in
challenges and problems.

And so while I think you can go
over it, I think you just have

to be aware of the risks of
that, right?

The risks of clients complaining
so much that they're not able to

get into a session and then end
up canceling, or possibly your

trainers just getting overloaded
and and maybe you know there

just being operational issues
from that, right?

So while it's good for your
wallet, it also can pose

problems.

So that's why I think there's a
sweet spot of this five out of

six.

And again, if it's I think 80%
is like just a good nutmetric,

right?

If you do four people on
average, there's three out of

four.

If you do eight people, which I
don't suggest, seven out of

eight, right?

So almost like you know, think
of one empty spot as the ability

to grow, right?

And the ability for people to
move around a little bit.

I think that's a really good,
healthy way to look at it.

So the first thing you need to
do is you need to track it.

You need to set a track, you
need to set a goal.

What is your goal?

And maybe it's around 80%.

That's kind of what it probably
should be.

Maybe a little higher, maybe a
little lower, but around there.

And then the second thing you
need to do is you need to track

it weekly.

Like, what are you tracking this
number?

Do you even know?

And I've got to tell you what,
if you have issues and you can't

find this number, then you have
a software problem.

But you have a you have a you
have an operational issue, which

it needs to be fixed
immediately.

I mean, we we had this issue
with Mind Body, and we had Mind

Body for many years, and we had
no idea if any of this hell was

going on.

We didn't even know how many
clients we had, we didn't know

like what our capacity was, we
didn't know anything because our

our software was such a mess
from all the years of buildup

that we we tried to fix it many
times, and it just we couldn't

fix it.

And so we just got a new
software.

And so it's possible what you
need to do.

Now that's a big ask for you.

The ideal goal is that you know
you know this number, you know

what this is.

And then so you have your goal
for what it is, you have a

weekly tracker of it, meaning
whether you're it's a you know,

weekly meeting or if you're on
your own, you just gotta look at

it, you gotta have the
discipline to look at it.

And you know, then what do you
need to do if it's off, right?

If it's you know on point, you
great, keep riding the wave,

keep going, keep growing.

And maybe if it gets crazy over,
you add a couple sessions.

Okay?

But if it's under, you have to
look at it and see what do we

need to do.

And I will say this it's the
this is an important

distinction.

It is on average.

So I wouldn't freak out if you
have one session that has three

out of six.

Okay, because if on average
you're a five out of six, that

means that that session maybe
just never filled.

I know that R6 a.m.

is always gonna have more people
than R11 a.m.

It's just it's probably never
going to catch up because just

more people want to train at
that time.

It's just like a popular time.

Peak times are a real thing,
right?

That doesn't mean I can't add
more to the 11, but it just

means that I'm not gonna go
crazy if it's not, if the

average is good.

Now, if the average is two to
three, now I'm like, okay, what

do we need to do?

Now, the first thing you can do,
which is not my first priority,

but some people just have too
many sessions.

Some people just, you know, they
got you know 30 clients and they

got 50 sessions a week in
training.

It's like it's too many.

What you're doing is you're
setting up a situation for bad

energy.

I really do think that's like
you're, you know, yeah, you

think that, oh, if there's only
two people in a session, they're

gonna get a good experience.

And I I have found the opposite.

I have found that when the
sessions are busy and bustling,

and we have five out of six and
six out of six, and the energy

is humping, it's good.

That's better for your business.

It's better for you, and it's
better for the clients.

But when you walk in and it's
just like, we have two people,

and then this is kind of us
sometimes at our night sessions.

Like, we are not busy in the
evening at my gym.

We're crushing it in the
morning.

And the evening is I walk in
sometimes at like our 7:30

session, and there's like two
people, and it's like, this kind

of sucks.

The energy kind of sucks.

Now, my business is because
we're so heavy in the morning,

we are at the average we want to
be, so I'm I'm not upset about

it.

But understand that two out of
three or two out of six is not a

great thing, it's not good for
energy, and you want to change

that.

So sometimes it is possible that
you have too many sessions on

the calendar and you may need to
make an adjustment.

Ideally, what I want you to do
is get more people.

Right?

That that's really what you want
to do.

I had a guy come in for a
consulting day the other day.

He was training athletes.

He had the capacity to train 80
kids with how many sessions he

had.

He was getting 30.

And so I said, all right, we
could have shrunk it down, okay,

but instead what we did was we
put a plan together.

We put a plan together to get to
80 because he was not doing a

great job of specific time-based
marketing to fill the block,

right?

He did it in blocks of sessions.

It was like a winter block, a
spring block, right?

And he didn't have a really good
systematized marketing plan to

get there.

And so I say, all right, the
first thing we're gonna do is

we're gonna have a plan that as
soon as we're eight weeks out,

meaning eight weeks ahead of the
start of the block, we're

starting to market it.

We're not gonna wait till two
weeks before.

At eight weeks, we're starting.

And the first thing that's gonna
go out is a special offer to the

people in the current program to
renew, to keep going.

And it's only to them, and it
only goes to them as direct

language, and there's a link
that they can pay for it.

They don't have to have a come
in for a console.

They just do it.

Here's the link.

You get priority, and then a
week later we put it out to all

the past customers, and then a
week later we open it up to the

full list, and it's like this
thing, it's a it's a it's a

boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,
boom.

You know, this is this is how
we're promoting this thing, and

then we get our joint ventures
involved, and then we have our

Facebook ads running and our
newspaper ads, but there is a

plan to get X number of athletes
if we have a capacity for 100.

We are putting a plan together
to get 100.

Now, does it always happen every
time?

No.

But a lot of times it does.

Most of the time it does.

And so that's what we did with
him on his consulting day.

We put together this plan of
like, how do we get to 80?

Because, hey, the difference
between it's costing us the same

amount of money to train 30 kids
versus 80 kids.

The difference is only 50 times
800, which is$40,000 a quarter.

We can increase his
profitability by$40,000 simply

by paying attention to capacity
and then having a plan to be

able to fill that capacity.

Okay, I've gone over of what I
want to talk about.

I'm going to be talking about
more of this.

This is a really important
topic.

It's important that you know
your numbers, it's important

that you are tracking the right
things, but it's important that

you know what to do to raise
your capacity to train more

people without increasing the
costs that it takes to do that.

It's one of my sections on, I
think it's my third talk at

Gimpranos, where I will be
talking about how to maximize

the capacity at your gym and
going much deeper into what I'm

talking about here.

So hopefully this gave you a
little bit of insight, a little

bit of help.

And hey, why don't you come to
Gimpranos?

You should come.

It's going to be amazing.

Three days hanging around with
gym owners, hanging around some

big thinkers and people that are
doing great work.

Like what else, like, where else
would you should you rather be?

Like spending three days with
inspiring, motivating people

that all want to grow their
business, that will share the

things that they're doing with
you.

You'll get ideas to market your
gym, you'll get ideas to drive

retention, you'll get ideas to
track your numbers better,

you'll find out what's working
now, right?

Because that's what we always
do.

We find the guys that are
kicking ass and we put them on

stage and we're like, this is
what's working right now.

These are the referral
strategies that are working

right now.

This is the event stuff that's
working right now.

And it's good, it'll be good for
you to be there.

You can either join us virtually
or you can join us in person.

I hope it's in person.

But it's important to get
outside the four walls of your

business.

Flights to Orlando are not
expensive.

And you know, we don't the hotel
we're staying in is not crazy,

right?

So it's well, it's not a huge
cost to get down there.

But man, what it possibly could
do for your business is big.

The links in the show notes has
all the details on the event.

We're gonna be talking a lot
more about stuff like this

before.

I'm super excited about it.

It's gonna be so much fun too.

Have a little fun too in your
life.

Come on.

Get out of your gym.

Leave your gym for a weekend.

Come on, you can do it.

All right, tell the part time
trainer to take on the sessions

and get your butt down to Jim
Pranos.

It's gonna be awesome.

It's gonna be amazing.

So hopefully this was helpful.

I'll see you in the next one.

Click the link in the show notes
for all the info on Jim Pranos

and talk to you soon.

Peace.