How do you not compare yourself to others when you are running a business? How you do know who the real competition is?
The question has such a simple answer, but doing it is another thing.
As we live our lives in lockdown, l know l am spending more time on the socials than normal. Watching what’s going on with other gyms from around the world, what the latest trends are that are making people move more. Being a small business owner, it is easy to get roped into ‘comparing’ you and your business to others.
What are other people doing? The only real source that you have, is the socials, and we all know that the socials, are just a highlight reel of what is happening in that one moment. It not really how people live their lives daily, what; they're in the correct lighting all the time? Never having a hair out of place or they really hit that PB in training the first time?
Then why do you compare yourself to others? It is simple, human nature. It is the natural human response to go to the negative, to go find something that you know will hurt you or make you feel poorly about something you are doing. The Chimp brain will always want to be dominate, where the logical part of the brain, the professor or computer side knows what’s best (that’s another blog in itself). Whether it be running a business, or training, or trying to lose some KGs. In the land of socials, nearly all things are perfect! But in real life they are not.
I know there are many gym owners out there, that aren’t getting people to log into the wonderful world of ‘zoom’, for their group sessions. But yet, if you jump on the socials, everyone tells you how wonderful and delightful it is. I am going to be honest, we are one of those gyms. Are you failing the business model that you have set up? No l don’t believe so, you are not always going to have everyone turn up – and that’s ok, you are not a failure.
You cannot measure the success of your gym by how many people come to your group sessions. It’s that simple, but it has taken me a long time to learn this. I used to spend so many hours, days, years wondering what l was doing wrong, why l wasn’t as successful with the number of participants coming to our group sessions. Running anything to do with people has its ups and has its downs.
I think the measure of success with any business is:
1, they can pay their bills – pay wages,
2, the business owners are happy – if you can continue to tick these two boxes daily, then l think you are on a winning streak.
Just because you have a low number of people coming to your group sessions, doesn’t mean that there are other areas of your business that aren’t being successful. The outsiders looking in, judging and passing comments, have no idea what is really going on. They have no idea how you pay your bills and to be honest it's none of their business. You could be working on another part of your business that no one knows about.
Being online at the moment, there are so many free online programs, gyms giving discounts etc. I bet Danoz Direct is running hot at the moment to. Yeah, you can get free online training with a celebrity, but should that change the reason as to why you got into the fitness world? Guess what your local trainer can offer that the celebrity can’t; knowing your name, personally caring for you, sending you messages to see if you are ok, and personally helping you to achieve your goals – that’s why it’s called Personal Training!
Riding the roller coaster of running a business is a huge part of running a business. You go up and you go down, people will always have their opinions and it's part of life. There is always going to be a new trend that will come into the industry, something new and shining, promising to have all the answers, and making achieving goals easier – but it won’t. A squat is still a squat, and always will be no matter how you dress it up.
Following the pack is easy, it is easy to follow the trend, but is that who you really are? Is that the business, or the service that you want to truly offer?
Be you, that’s all you can be. And to be honest it is the easy way to go, because you can’t really make mistakes, when you are being truthful and honest. People will do what they want to do, they will go where they want to go, for many number of reasons. As a business owner the best you can do is to stick to your values, know your beliefs inside and out. Know that the only competition that you have is with yourself, showing up better than yesterday.