CONSULTANCY
The half that decides what should change.
Read the business as it actually runs, not as the org chart says it does, and work out which move is worth making first.
WHAT IT COVERS
01 · GROWTH STRATEGY
Growth strategy — aligning the business for how it runs today while preparing for what it becomes next. The two are rarely the same plan.
In practice that means separating the decisions that only work at your current size from the ones you would have to undo later. Most fitness businesses are running at least one of each, and can’t tell you which is which.
02 · THE CLIENT JOURNEY
The client journey — how people actually move through your business, and where they stall. Goals, pricing and the transitions between them, written down rather than assumed.
In practice that means following real people through rather than a persona — where they came in, what they bought next, and the month they went quiet. The stalls tend to sit in the same three places, and none of them is the front door.
03 · YOUR PEOPLE
Your people — roles and responsibilities, recruitment, and compensation that competes. Growth is mostly a staffing problem wearing other clothes.
In practice that means writing down who owns what, and what a coach earns here against what they can earn a mile away. Both of those are usually known by somebody and neither is usually written down.
Sometimes the answer is no
I don’t look for a way to make it work. I look for all of them, from every angle, until the odds are stacked hard in our favor. I’ve said “no” to a client once. Every other time, it’s been “let’s see how we make this work,” or “what would it have to be to succeed?”
When the answer is no, there’s a very specific reason, and I’ll show you exactly what it is, numbers and all.
I go after the root, not the problem in front of you. Sometimes that means laying out every real option, including the ones nobody wants to say out loud. Closing is one of them.
I’m not here to fix who you are. When stress is making the decisions, telling you to “own it” doesn’t help. What helps is a place to say all of it to someone who takes it in, stays level, and keeps working the problem.
I only work with people I can love. Your success gets personal for me.
What does your business do when nobody’s watching?
Values are claims. Actions are evidence.
I don’t spend much time on your declared values. Integrity, community, excellence: fitness has worn those words thin. They’re easy to say, and easy to stretch over whatever you were going to do anyway. Say a word enough and it stops meaning anything, the way “literally” came to mean “figuratively.”
What you do is what I pay attention to. I help you find the words for what you already do.
The Newsroom (HBO), on what happened to the word "literally."
CHANGE MANAGEMENT, NOT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Project management hands people a list of tasks and demands a result. It misses the people who have to live with the new system once the project is over.
Change shouldn’t come from boredom, and it shouldn’t come from fear. Every decision gets measured carefully and put in on purpose. There’s no one go-to move, and no secret you don’t already know.
Change with purpose, and build it to last.
ADVICE YOU CAN ACT ON IS ADVICE SOMEBODY WROTE DOWN.
Deciding what should change is half of it. The other half is making it hold. → Infrastructure
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