Start Small, But Think Big
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What is up Fit Pros? Andy here from fitprobusiness.com checking in with you for another Fit Pro Business podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you’re new to this show, I’m your in the trenches fitness business coach and mentor bringing you all the latest in regards to lead generation, marketing, sales, and business systems that are working for me and other industry leaders that are helping us grow our business and have a greater impact on our community.
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Today’s episode is going to be all about starting small but thinking big. I’m going to give you guys the breakdown of how I started my business and how I got it to where it is today. So, let me start the show off with a couple of quotes:
“To build a successful business, you must start small and dream big” by Aliko Dangote
“It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop” by Confucius.
This is everything that I’m talking about in today’s podcast. Starting small and thinking big and keep moving forward and keep growing your business and keep adjusting but do not stop moving forward. So, when I first started my business, my big vision was to have this huge facility filled with state of the art equipment. I wanted to hit the ground running. I’ve told the story before.
I want to hit the ground running with that business plan. But my wife is like, “Wait, wait, hold on a minute, we need this business to be profitable right off the bat because I was the sole income winner for our family. I need to pay for my mortgage and I had two children that I had to support. She’s like, let’s start small. Let’s get just the basic equipment, let’s start booking, getting you booked up.
And then if once we have more cash flow, then we can grow into a larger facility. So, we actually started our business in a little four hundred square foot office for the cheapest rent that I could absolutely find. And we bought just a bare basics in regards to equipment and my training models where I trained semi privately so I trained multiple clients at a time. Normally, I train like three to four clients at a time but in this small facility I can only trade one or two at a time.
And so that’s what I did. I got myself completely booked up. Once I outgrew that studio with that small four hundred square foot office, we branched into what we are now the two thousand square foot facility and started getting more equipment, started adding more pieces, piece by piece as we started generating more cash flow. So we built our business by using the profits from bringing in clientele opposed to getting ourselves overly extended in debt. And that’s what has allowed us to grow over these past fifteen years.
But the whole premise was that I started small and I thought big in regards to what I wanted my business to look like. This is my recommendation for you in phase one as far as growing your business. Start small, but think big, don’t get yourself overextended. That’s tip number two, be wise and don’t get yourself overextended because this is going to put a lot of pressure on you right off the bat within your business, especially when you’re trying to figure things out, trying to learn how to market and bring business into your studio.
This is one of the worst things that you can do, is have all this overwhelm of this huge equipment that this huge list that you have to pay and then worrying about trying to bring traffic into your studio and meet all of these expenses. Start small, think big, be wise and don’t get overextended. Use the cash flow that you start generating by bringing in more clients to start building your business. And ultimately, that’s going to help you from getting overextended and going to be able to cash flow these expenses.
You have to develop systems within your business. Once you start growing, start getting more clients in your business. You start developing that sell system, you start developing that point of sale system, start developing your marketing systems, all these things, write them down so that you can start plugging more people into your studio to help you ultimately grow, because there’s only so much you can do as the business owner and also training when you’re first getting started.
It’s completely understandable. I did everything in my business -bookkeeping, training, cleaning, you name it. I did it a lot of times. Sometimes, I still pick up the slack when I when I have to within the studio. But I’ve developed systems where I can play other people into those systems and I focus on the things that are going to move the needle within my business. And this is what you guys should be doing as well. A couple of the books that I read right off the bat that really helped me within my business by Michael Port is Booked yourself solid. This is all about how are you going to get yourself booked up as a sole provider, service provider, how to get yourself booked up in your system with developing systems and get your calendar completely filled with clients. This is going to help you start getting more cash flow, start helping you be able to bring in more to expand your studio, bring in more clients, bring in more equipment.
But this is a whole system that’s going to help you start getting yourself booked up. The second book to his series was Beyond Book Sale. And this is all about what I talk about, developing systems. And he talks about how you can develop systems to bring in other people into what it is that you have developed so that you can continue to expand and use other people as leverage. So, those are the two books that I highly recommend on developing systems.
Book Yourself Solid and Book Beyond Sale, both by by Michael Port and then the last piece of the equation as far as growing your business is adding staff. Keep growing and keep adapting your business. Keep developing systems and keep plugging people into the system so that you again can focus on the things that are going to move the needle within your business and continue to grow and adapt. So, start small, think big, just like I did out of a 400 square foot office for we were there for about eight months before we branched into where we’re at now, the two thousand square foot facility that we’ve cash flowed and built up over time and didn’t get ourselves overextended.
This is what has allowed us to stay in business for the past 15 years, allowed me to be profitable with my business right out of the gate because I was not overextended. So, be wise, don’t get overextended and start developing systems for your business. Start adding an additional staff members and keep growing and keep adapting your business. This is how you guys are going to get your businesses off the ground and have them be successful right out of the gate.
I know that you guys can do this, start small, think big, be wise, don’t get yourself overextended, start developing systems for your business and getting them dialed in and plug people into those systems. Start adding additional staff members keep growing and keep adapting.
I know that you guys can do this. Reach out to me if you need any help with this. I’m here for you. Get on my calendar fitprobusiness.com/audit.
We’ll dive in to you and your business, this is a thirty minute coaching call, completely free. Just want to help you guys get your businesses from where you are now to where you want it to be and create a clear roadmap for you to follow.
That’s going to help you start generating leads, start setting more appointments and ultimately start closing more sales that you can improve your income and start developing all of the things that I talk about within this podcast.
I know that you guys can do this. Reach out to me fitprobusiness.com/audit. I’m here for you. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of the Fit pro business podcast. I really appreciate you. Check in with you guys tomorrow for another episode. Have a good one.
Thank you for listening to the Fit pro business podcast with your host, Andy Salazar. Don’t forget to visit fitprobusiness.com to receive your FREE business breakthrough session.
