The Inevitability of Change

If what you are doing isn’t working, then what you are doing isn’t working, and in business the opposite of failure is always the necessity to change.

For years I always thought people fought change because of arrogance. Changing course would be admitting that what you are doing isn’t working and this is especially painful if what you are doing was your idea. Admitting the need to change is admitting that you were wrong, and few people who ever get into that position of leadership and power like to admit that maybe the course they have set isn’t going to reach the goal.

The fitness business is now changing faster than almost anyone can keep up. Functional training, the advent of the literate trainer, the failure of the box style business plan, the cannibalism of the low priced players, the increasing sophistication of the clients we serve and the general frustration by the consumer that fitness centers only exist to take money from people who will never use their services have all combined to create an industry that seems lost, dazed and inept.

It is interesting to note that the chain players fight change the hardest. This worldwide group spends all their time, money and assets wishing for the past to return. If only we can find the right special, funding, unique line of equipment or programming the membership sales will return to past glory days. When your wife goes away for a few days to "find her own space” and takes your pool boy with her, and you are too desperate to remember you don’t even have a pool, she isn’t coming back-not now, not ever-and neither are the glory days of fitness.

On the other side are the training club owners who live by change and whose businesses exist solely due to the fact that the chain players failed so miserably in "the getting clients in shape” portion of their business. If the chains understood how to get people in shape, there would be no need for training clubs. These training club owners were born of change and will lead the charge for the next generation.

Change is inevitable in this business during the next five years and here are a few rules that might help you get that shoulder into that ever-growing wall of fear and inertia:

·Realize that your current numbers don’t reflect a downturn, but your new reality. If your sales numbers have been flat, or are declining, for more than three months, this isn’t the sign of a short-term trend, but your new reality. This is where you are, and where you will always be, unless you realize that change is the only tool you own that will help you escape.

·Commit to change fully. Most of the chain players act like an old lady at a public swimming pool who takes an hour to get wet. First one toe, then maybe all the toes and eventually she sits on the wall with her feet in. By the time she gets into the pool the rest of the family is packed and ready to go home. This is like the box club guys who want to put in a functional room with just a few limited pieces of equipment to see if it works first. By the time he messes around with a fake change, the rest of the industry has passed by the window. This strategy guarantees that it will fail because you failed to commit. Get naked, run hard and jump into the damn pool. What you are doing is failing, so where is the risk at committing to a new, broader plan?

·Realize that someone is going to get pissed. Some members, and key staff, refuse to change and they need to go home now. So many owners stall on making change due to fear of making some members mad or through the agony of fighting resistant staff. Members will get mad and there is little you can do about it but replace them. The big picture is that if your business plan generates X now, and it has tapped out as proven by a flat growth line, then losing a few members will open the door and allow you go to get your business to Y, something that can’t be accomplished with your current plan. The old adage is right: the needs of the many are more important than the needs of the few and you might have to take a few casualties to get change done. And if you have a resistant staff then explain fully, take some time but in the end some will not be able to grow and they need to be replaced.

·Get your staff involved early. The larger chains especially suffer from this lack of internal information. The staff needs to be informed early and often as to what is happening, how it affects them and how it affects the members. Your team can’t support change if they don’t understand what is happening

·Inform the members. Members that see stuff happening, but don’t understand it, will make up incredible, negative stories to fill the void. Members hate a vacuum and left without information will make up some incredible bullshit to fill that void. Get them letters, email, Facebook posts and Twitter feeds early and often

·You have to change the culture, not patch the hole. Major change requires a change in the culture of the business. For example, when Howard Schultz returned to save Starbucks, he shut down all the stores in the world for an afternoon of training and corporate re-indoctrination. He realized that change could not happen until the culture that supported the failure also changed. Most box players are only willing to make superficial changes rather than committing to a culture change strategy that defines what the business stands for and what it will be in the future

·Lead: don’t follow. I will never understand why any company good enough to build over a 100 clubs ultimately fails because the owners are waiting to see if someone else is doing it first. The, "I am waiting to see if anyone else does it” excuse is another way of saying that you are incapable of judging the information and making a decision for yourself. If you can’t make a decision yourself then your company needs to fire you and hire the guy that is going first. How many fortunes have been lost because someone has a good idea but is too scared to go first? Every industry has a leader and why aren’t you leading this one? Think Steve Jobs ever waited to see if anyone else would come out with an IPod first? How did that work out for Microsoft?

There has been more change in the fitness industry during the last few years than there has been during the last three decades or longer. Seeking and planning for change is not only good business but also the only way a number of the big boxes will survive. If all else fails, remember one thing: if it isn’t painful, then it isn’t a big enough change to make a difference.