Hey y’all. I wanted to share a brief outline of the next BBS and mention an important feature that will be offered at this gig. Here is a brief outline for the event:
Robb Wolf:
Nutrition tweaks for:
1-Performance (Crossfit, power athletics and beyond)
2-Body composition shifts: Fat loss, muscle gain.
3-Matching nutrition to changes in training.
Also offering free personal nutrition consult with one lucky attendee!
Michael Rutherford:
History and Elements of MEBB (Max Effort Black Box)
Prevention of ACL injuries in Female Athletes and Anterior Core Progression Plan.
James Fitzgerald:
Pain, intensity, and higher levels of thinking. Personal experience in training, business systems, and facility operations and how these key factors contribute to forward progress.
Also, One free online consult for one lucky attendee
Nicki Violetti:
On ramp programs and introducing the new client to your box.
Aimee Anaya & Greg Everett:
Hands on Coaching clinic of the Olympic Lifts. Also offering book and DVD give aways, as well as Personal video analysis for one lucky participant.
Dutch Lowy:
Identifying and addressing weaknesses in an Athlete. Also, giving one free programming consult to one lucky attendee.
So, a pretty action packed weekend all and all but I wanted to highlight one offering that I think is particularly valuable: Forecasting. Not the weather (just poke your head out your window for that) and not markets (Buy low! Sell high!) but your ability to forecast how a change in your business will affect your bottom line. A significant part of forecasting or modeling your business is having a very tight understanding OF your business. What are your operating expenses? How are you paying your employees? Do you still think those people coahing classes for you are “independent contractors”…wink, wink, nod, nod? What if you want to change your pricing structure because it seems “cool”? Well, you can do it the hard way: Enact the change, see what happens. Or you can use a model of your business to game play something which initially might seem snazzy, but would actually BANKRUPT you. Check out this post from Nicki’s Blog. I’m going to pull out one section of that post:
I recently had a CrossFit affiliate contact me for feedback on a new pricing structure for their box. It sounded like a pretty good concept and the reasoning behind it (some pricing incentives based on how long a client was a member) seemed logical. The word doc I received to review the new model showed the yearly revenue per client to be the same as this affiliate’s current pricing structure. At first blush it seemed like a totally reasonable model. Alas the shortcomings of the simple word doc!
Truth is in the numbers, and a word doc doesn’t show everything we need to see when evaluating a significant change to one’s business model. Yearly revenue was the same for the first year only! When I projected the model out 3 years I found that the box would be profitable only during months 5-10 and would never be profitable again….in fact the model clearly showed the affiliate would be bleeding an increasing amount of money each month of operation!
We did stuff like this all the time in our gym. We learned the hard way…but many people are not learning these lessons fast enough to keep their doors open. Nicki has received about 30 emails from CrossFit Affiliate alone who would have closed their doors had they not enacted the OnRamp Program and some stratified skill levels to their classes. These are simple concepts you see in most successful service oriented businesses. Similarly, successful businesses are able to forecast potential changes to get at least an idea if it’s a smart or a dumb idea.
If you run a fitness related business you might find my wife’s presentation on how to use XL in your forecasting useful. Or you can just sit back and enjoy the pseudo-science!
