You know what you need to do.
Every day, all year, I send you one thing you can do to improve your business. And no one does all of them; no one can.
On top of my daily love letters, you see stuff on social media. Then there’s the homework assigned by your mentor and the great ideas you’ve read in books and the action items from Summit speakers and … you’re overwhelmed.
Where do you start?
In this series, I’m going to tell you how to set your priorities, what to do first and how to actually do it all.
Know Your Priorities
First, let’s start with the hierarchy of your business priorities.
The largest misconception we see among gym owners is that advertising is the biggest puzzle to solve. But it’s actually the last problem they need to solve. Many gyms don’t even need advertising.
I made the same mistake when my gym was in trouble. I thought ads would solve my problem. (Old folks: Please explain to the under-30s what the “Yellow Pages” were.)
When I learned the truth, I started writing a blog with my mistake in its title because it was such a huge error. I called the blog “DontBuyAds.com” because I wanted to remind myself every day that ads weren’t my problem.
Referrals, Affinity Marketing used to connect with the people closest to you—these aren’t options to advertising on Facebook. They’re prerequisites.
Solid systems, playbooks—these aren’t things you build after you make money. They’re the things that allow you to make money.
Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t start marketing until you’ve completed a vision quest in the desert for two weeks. It just means that if your vision is a C+, your marketing will never be worth a B-.
Your competence in each level of the graphic above produces or limits success in the next level up.
If you want your ads to work to an A+ level, you must earn an A+ in sales first and always.
Last note: Nothing in the pyramid is “one-and-done.” You can’t check “affinity marketing” off the list once and move on. If some part of the pyramid erodes or becomes outdated, the levels above will become unstable.
These levels make up your business. Coaching is just your service. You’re replaceable in the delivery of that service, but nothing—not even Facebook ads—can replace you when it come to growing of your business.
In the next post in this series, I’ll tell you how to break these priorities down, focus on one at a time and grow your business far faster than you would if you tried to do everything at once.
Other Media in This Series
“Eating the Elephant: One Bite at a Time”
“Eating the Elephant: Your Unique Genius”
