How successful is your fitness business, really? Are you:

• Thriving;
• Coasting along; or
• Is there room for improvement?

In this three-part series (parts 2 and 3 on Tuesday and Wednesday this week), I will briefly outline several aspects of a fitness business that you should ‘audit’ from time to time, to gauge how well your business is performing.

Aspects you should consider auditing include (but not limited to):

• Sales and finances;
• Social media and marketing; and
• Client results.

First up, we look at client results:

• Success Check 1:
  • Are your clients hitting their goals?
  • Helping your clients achieve their goals is one of the key performance indicators of a successful business.
  • But, how progress is measured can vary, depending both on a trainer’s approach and a client’s unique goals. For example:
    • Improvements in a client’s movement quality (you put clients through a movement screen that is repeated after several months);
    • How much weight the client has lost; or
    • What weight the client is lifting.
• Success Check 2:
  • What client feedback are you getting?
  • Ideally, you want to have a running conversation with clients about how satisfied they are with their training programme and the service your business is providing.
  • It should be an ongoing conversation, but you would want to check in on them at least every three to six months.
  • Google reviews and customer surveys can also give you an insight into how satisfied your clients are, or whether you need to tweak anything.
• Success Check 3:
  • What are your retention rates?
  • Your retention rates paint a clear picture of just how successful your business is, when it comes to keeping clients happy.
  • Even if you do shed clients, you can turn it into a positive experience by asking them for constructive feedback.
  • If practicable, for every person that leaves email or call them to make sure they are okay, and to find out where they have gone and what is going on (although Success Check 2 may have already provided some insight).
  • Keep a note of why people leave so you can discern any trends.
• Success Check 4:
  • Are you getting many ‘word of mouth’ leads?
  • If you are doing a great job empowering your clients to achieve their desired results, you will find that they will automatically become your recruiters, recommending you to their social network.
  • Word of mouth referrals can be due, in part, to hiring the right trainers.
  • Recruiting trainers based on them being real, authentic and good with people, will come across to your clients.
  • This is about being connected to the client and sympathetic to their needs, then delivering on those needs.