Do you ever wonder how other gym owners pay their trainers? Are you ever curious about how other gyms are generating leads? Would you like to know how other gym owners are paying themselves? If so, you’re invited to participate in our first EVER Business for Unicorns...
Management & Leadership
MF on Leadership
First off, if you haven’t signed up to join us in Vegas on March 24th-25th, WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING WITH YOUR LIFE. Ok, ok. I understand you may need to ask your spouse first. But we only have a handful of spots for non-Unicorn Society members. And it’s going to be an...
Physiological Leadership
First off, a quick note to say that I’m SO excited to return to my old stomping grounds and speak at the Perform Better Summit in Orlando, FL on June 3rd-5th. Even before I was a speaker on the tour, this was always one of my can’t-miss educational events every single...
Does Your Facility Look Like sh*t?
Maybe that’s the issue Now I don’t actually know, of course. I’ve not been to most of your facilities. But some fitness facilities do look like doodoo. As the oft-quoted, possibly made-up, but still reasonable-to- believe stat goes, the number one reason people leave...
Does Offering Discounts (or free trials) Devalue Your Services?
No, offering discounts or free trials does NOT devalue your services. In fact, they can be a powerful tool to grow your business. But it’s not always wise to hurt your revenues by reducing prices. And if you’re looking to create an incentive to inspire action by a...
5 Key Traits of Modern Leaders (with links to TED Talks)
I’ve been thinking and reading about leadership a ton over the last few months while creating the Leadership Society. To be fair, leadership is a topic I’ve been fascinated by for most of my life. It’s become clear to me that the recipe for great leadership...
240 Words on Building a Business
Building a business is not for everyone. It takes guts, vision, and persistence. If you want to build a business... You’ve got to have a vision for the value you can bring to the world and be willing to fight like hell to make it happen. You...
What Can You Learn From 2019?
We’d all like to believe that we’re the kind of person who learns from our past to improve our future. That is exactly what my article will help you do today. As 2019 comes to a close, give yourself the gift of self-reflection to consider all the highs and lows of the...
Avoid Burnout: How to Take Care of Others While Caring for Yourself
The fastest way to burnout as a helping professional is to take on the thoughts and feelings of your clients as your own. It doesn’t have to be that way. It is truly possible to be available to help others while still leaving some gas in the tank for ourselves at the end of each day.
The New Must-Have Skillset for Business Leaders
(Disclaimer: Hey Fitness People! To avoid any confusion, when I use the word coach in this context I’m talking about the umbrella term for any professional who guides and instructs and not specifically a personal trainer or fitness coach. Cool? Disclaimer over.)...
5 Random Musings On Self-Discipline, Leadership, Burning Man, and More
Behold! In today's post I bring some quick thoughts on topics ranging from self-discipline to leadership to Burning Man and more. Pour yourself a cup of coffee and enjoy...Self-Discipline: Use A Habit-Tracking System To Help You Adopt Good Habits The past few years,...
3 Tips for Taking Feedback Like a Pro
We often focus on improving our ability as managers and leaders to give feedback, but we should also spend time becoming better at receiving feedback. Receiving feedback can be difficult for two main reasons: it is unexpected or it is emotionally triggering. In this...
5 Quick(ish) Thoughts On Luck, Survival, and Success
Behold! Some useful and provocative business musings to make your life and business better. ************************ Beware Of Advice From Successful, Lucky Idiots A strong operator can handle a crappy market. An amazing market can prop up a sloppy operator. The right...
That Moment When You Question Everything: Is This My Midlife Crisis?
[Disclaimer: This is not a typical post for a business blog (maybe it should be?). So if you’re not ready for some raw, unfiltered emotion, this may not be the post for you.] Right now, as I’m typing this, I am having a moment when I am questioning everything....
Consistently Excellent: 5 Keys to Train Your Team on Systems Mastery
Any leader knows the only way to succeed in business is through creating systems. Good systems provide clearly documented procedures for how business is conducted. This leads to consistency for the experience of clients and customers, and a team of people who have a...
What’s Cash Flow And Why Should You Give A Sh*t?
You have heard the expression cash is king, right? Well, in business that couldn't be more true. Let's start with the basics. What is cash flow? Cash flow is the total amount of money being transferred into and out of your business on a regular basis....
The Ultimate Booklist for Entrepreneurs: 48 Books to Supercharge Your Business
For anyone who knows me in real life or follows me on the interwebz, it’s no secret I have a problem. You see… I’m a junkie. Every day I wake up and live a life of servitude to my addiction. It’s all consuming. It’s obsessive. And at times, it’s truly a burden for...
A Brief (Motivating?) Rant About Why You Should Do Less, But Better
Allow me a brief moment to rant. I’m not promising that it will be productive, but it will be passionate. There is a subset of business coaches and thought leaders peddling dangerous ideas like you can have it all if you’re willing to hustle, and if you’re not...
How To Use Public Speaking to Establish Authority and Grow Your Business (Even If You Hate Speaking In Public): Part 2
In the first part of our deep dive into public speaking, we covered how to create a structure that sets you up for success. By crafting a strong opening and ending, logically ordering your content, and designing a strong slide deck, you’re off to a great start. (Did...
How To Use Public Speaking to Establish Authority and Grow Your Business (Even If You Hate Speaking In Public): Part 1
According to conventional wisdom, most people fear public speaking more than death. While this sounds extreme at first, upon reflection, it does follow a certain logic. After all, we’ve been designed by natural selection to feel a healthy dose of nerves anytime we’re...
Know Your Numbers: A Non-Intimidating Overview of Key Performance Indicators
There comes a point in every business’s life where it’s time to grow up. In the beginning, many businesses are run with a heavy focus on getting leads and customers. The bank account is closely watched, but only so we can be certain to not run out of cash. Over time,...
10 Quick Tips for Building Community
In the past year, I’ve worked with over one hundred business leaders. And in all of those interactions, there was one topic that arose the most frequently. Every business owner wants to know how to build community. It’s not enough these days to just have a solid...
How to Create a Daily Gratitude Practice and 5 Reasons You Should Have One as a Leader
First things, first. What the heck is a daily gratitude practice? There are many definitions of gratitude depending on the research you look at, but I like to think of gratitude as the acknowledgment of positive outcomes in your life and the reasons for those positive...
The Missing Link for Leaders: 3 Ways to Improve Your Business by Improving Yourself
Most leaders think of their work in two categories, working in your business and working on your business. When you are working in your business you are engrossed in the day-to-day operations and are often focused on being a manager. Managers create structure and...
Want to Manage Your Time Better? Start Here.
You know what’s crazy? Time. It’s your only completely non-renewable resource. You can get more energy by resting. And you can always earn more money. But once time is gone… that’s it. If you’re serious about using your time well, it’s important to start by analyzing...
Become a Learning Machine: How to Leverage Books to Supercharge Personal and Professional Development
Estimated Reading Time: 10 Minutes I’ve been reading (or listening to) an average of two to three books a week since August of 2010. At the time of this writing, I can safely estimate I’ve read more than a thousand books over the last eight years. I don’t say...
5 Phrases That Will Make You A Better Leader
As a leader, you have an outsized impact on those around you. That impact can be a positive one in which you help others be more productive, empowered and inspired. Or your impact can be a negative one leaving those you lead feeling confused, frustrated or worse of...
From New Hire To Superstar: The Principles of Effective Onboarding
Teamwork! Makes the dream work! Unless you screw up onboarding. In which case… Teamwork! Makes your business unravel, enrages your clients, and sends you to bankruptcy court! Ok, that may be a bit extreme. But it’s fair to say that if you don’t have a system to...
All Models Are Wrong, Some Are Useful
All models are wrong but some are useful. I’ve used this phrase a million times when talking about business models because it sounds super smart. But I wasn’t sure where it came from. So so I did a little digging. Turns out, this axiom was made popular by British...
51/49 or 49/51?: A Provocative Question Regarding Business Growth, Self-Knowledge, and Making Good Art
Dearest reader, today I take a brief pause from tactical musings to offer you a thought experiment that may make you uncomfortable. If there’s one thing that consistently destroys beautiful businesses, it’s looking to scale at all costs. Growing a business can be a...
How to Completely Change Your Relationship to Feedback
I am an education junkie. Show me a workshop, book or conference that could help me expand my thinking or help me make a better impact on the world and I am all in. Recently I went to the best conference I’ve attended to date -- the 2018 WorkHuman Conference, created...
Creating Effective In-Services: A Done-For-You System To Train Your Team
As covered previously on this blog, meetings are often a boring waste of time that take us away from our actual job.But it doesn’t have to be that way. Meetings can be a place for brainstorming to find solutions. They can be a place for vigorous debate to address a...
Stop Doubting Yourself: 10 Ways to Overcome Analysis Paralysis
We all do it. Faced with a tough decision, we pause to think about it. Then we keep thinking about it, and thinking about it, and thinking about it. We analyze to the point where we’re incapable of making a decision and taking action. Some of us rarely find ourselves...
How to Build Instant Rapport and Trust by Being a Better Listener
Most of us are crappy listeners. We think we’re paying attention, but we’re not. All too often we’re just waiting for our chance to talk. Or we’re judging what the other person is saying so that we can quickly agree or disagree. Or we are lost in our own mental...
Why Motivating Your Team Isn’t Working: 3 Ways to Use Incentives and Accountability without Crushing Souls
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery Incentives are a tricky thing. To some extent, all...
3 Questions to Ask When Hiring Your First Team Member
One of the most important decisions you will make when you are starting or growing your business is who to hire as your first team member. While hiring the right people for your team is always important, making your first hire as a new business is uniquely critical....
A Quick and Dirty System for Goal Setting: A Done-For-You 60 Minute Workshop To Live An Intentional Life
Periodic goal-setting is one of the most important things you can do if you want to be sure you’re on the right path with your professional (and personal!) goals. A good goal-setting process provides clarity on: Where you're at now Where you want to go What needs to...
How to Define Your Company’s Values and Make Them Stick
Let’s start at the very beginning. (I hear it’s a very good place to start. #musicaljokes) What the heck are values? Values are our standards of behavior, our judgment of what is important in life. If I were to ask you about the things you value most in your personal...
How to Set Boundaries with Clients
Video Cliffs Notes The Core IssueIn a high-touch, customer-centric business it is essential to cultivate intimate relationships with your customers.When you have a strong personal connection with your clients you:Have a deeper understanding of their needs and...
The Salt Shaker Theory: 3 Principles of Effective Management
If you’re looking for insight into successfully managing a team, you’re not going to do much better than famed NYC restaurateur Danny Meyer of Union Square Hospitality Group. His book Setting the Table is a must read for anyone interested in learning more about what...
The 5 Minute Mission Statement
Your company’s mission statement answers the simple question, why do you exist? Having a good answer to that question isn’t trivial. Having a good answer to that question will influence every decision you make about your business. It defines your purpose. Without a...
Four Apps That Improve My Business and Lower My Stress
The promise of technology is that it helps to improve the quality of our lives, making us more organized, connected, and efficient. But most days I feel like technology makes me less productive. From the daily avalanche of emails to our growing addiction to social...
HOW TO CREATE POWERFUL SYSTEMS THAT GROW YOUR BUSINESS
We recently surveyed all of you — our list of Business for Unicorns subscribers — and nearly 100 of you replied. Thank you so much! Y’all are the friggin’ best! Overwhelmingly this was the #1 questioned asked: How do I create systems to help my business grow and run...
HOW TO HANDLE NEGATIVE FEEDBACK TO IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS AND STRENGTHEN YOUR CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS
“I just feel like the magic is gone.” Since MFF’s birth in 2011, this has been an on-going piece of feedback I hear at least once every couple of months. And admittedly, for someone who is as personally invested in their business as I am, it really used to bum me out....
DEAR FITNESS INDUSTRY
[Originally Posted October 2016, Updated June 2018] Dear Fitness Industry, Am I invisible? Every day I see your ads online, on TV, and in the street, but none of them seem to be for me. I can see you, can you see me? I know you are a big industry with lots of...
5 SURPRISING KEYS TO “NEXT LEVEL” GROWTH IN YOUR FITNESS BUSINESS
When we first opened MFF, I assumed that our path to success was going to be a simple equation. Lots of Clients (High Revenue) + Lean Team & Low Overhead (Low Expenses) = Retiring Early to a Tropical Location (Getting Rich as F*ck!) And yes, I wasn’t wrong. You...
3 SIGNS YOU’RE A CRAPPY LEADER
The first significant opportunity I ever had to flex my leadership muscles was when I was hired to run the concierge team for a luxury hospitality brand in Hawaii. I know, relocated to Hawaii, sucks to be me, right? I managed a team of about fifteen people spread over...
4 WAYS GREAT LEADERS COMMUNICATE
The takeaways in this post will allow you to go on vacation and actually take time away from your business, physically and emotionally. Doesn’t that sound nice? If you really want freedom and a business that doesn’t rely on you personally, you need to build a culture...
SERVANTS AND LEADERS
Viktor Frankl is a smart motherfucker. If you’ve never read Man’s Search for Meaning, that would be worthwhile. Frankl’s book is a classic with brilliant insights into the human experience. One of the premises Frankl karate chops in the throat is that happiness can...