Network Magazine Summer 2017 | Page 17

As your company grows , you need to focus on being a really good cheerleader … acknowledge your team and publicly recognise their hard work

I n his book Cash Flow Quadrant , Robert Kiyosaki talks about four quadrants . He says that in order for someone to move from an ‘ E ’ ( employee ) quadrant to an ‘ S ’ ( selfemployed ) quadrant , a different set of skills is required . In fact , Kiyosaki makes the point that in order to move up from any of the quadrants to the next , you need to upgrade your skills . It typically requires some form of stretching yourself and growing , reading and learning to gain new skills and hone others that are of greater importance in the new quadrant .

If you currently own and run one fitness facility and are contemplating whether or not to take the next step and expand the scale of your operations , this quadrant provides some food for thought . When scaling your fitness operation , your ‘ Club Flow Quadrant ’ would look very similar , and require different key areas of growth for each quadrant . Let ’ s take a look .
1 – 3 clubs
EMPLOYEE

E

SELF EMPLOYED

S

1 – 3 8 – 12

BUSINESS OWNER

B

INVESTOR

I

4 – 7 13 – 20

This is essentially a one-person show . You open up your first facility and hire two or three people , depending on your business structure . In this quadrant , the key area of skills growth will be in sales and marketing , of both memberships and personal training . At this scale , you will be responsible for conducting most of the sales and marketing yourself . You will also be responsible for organising all community and promotional events , as well as for training , hiring , and firing . You are the CECM – the chief executive culture maker . The

As your company grows , you need to focus on being a really good cheerleader … acknowledge your team and publicly recognise their hard work

entire operation operates based on you and your abilities . You have a few people you can count on , but for the most part it ’ s all on you as the club owner . You are the district manager .
4 – 7 clubs
As a club owner , expanding to this number of venues puts you in the position of manager and developer for your organisation . This is the phase in which all your systems and processes must be written down and , importantly , inspected on a weekly basis to ensure they are actually getting done . In this phase you will most likely have at least one DM ( District Manager ) that helps you oversee two or three clubs . Your time is spent on managing and developing your current DM while overseeing the other clubs and the rest of the company . The biggest areas for skills growth in this quadrant will be time management , delegation and people management ( with a focus on practicing patience with staff ).
8 – 12 clubs
This is the most critical phase for your organisation . Again , all systems and processes must be outlined , detailed , and tested repeatedly to ensure they are still effective and the most efficient way of doing things now that you are operating on a larger scale . Depending on the type of business structure you have , you will probably have between 34 and 50 people working for your business , the logistics of which may make you feel less like a health club operator and more like a recruitment agency . You should be employing between three and five DMs who report directly to you . You are the regional manager for your organisation , and as such will be spending more time working on the business than in it .
In order to assume this role , you will need to learn to let go of the hands-on aspects of much of the work you previously did , by delegating to your team and accepting that as long as they do 80 % of how you would like for things to get done , that ’ s pretty good going . By the time you are running an operation of this size , you simply can ’ t do everything you once did , so you must entrust your team with the day-to-day .
In this phase the area of growth you need to focus on is that of culture , much like the one you had when you had only 1 to 3 clubs . This means leading your organisation , training your staff , providing vision for future growth , and creating opportunities for your team to get together outside of work .
People want to work for an organisation in which they feel like they have a best friend at work and that what they do matters . You want your best people to stay with your business , firstly because they grow your success , and secondly because replacing them due to attrition
NETWORK SUMMER 2017 | 17