If you want to back a winner - then why not back yourself?

Here’s an idea - Turn back the clock

As the Spring racing carnival is now upon us and Spring is often the season of renewal and making a fresh start it got me thinking about the state of the fitness industry and the doom and gloom that we hear about all the time -- “there are too many gyms opening up”, or “ too much competition, not enough profit”, or “ wage costs too high”, or “ R.O.I. just not like it was back in the “hey day” of the late 80s early 90s”.

Then I thought about the Blue Ocean Strategy.

Blue Ocean Strategy is often defined as:

- the simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and low cost.

- not to out-perform the competition in the existing industry, but to create new market space or a blue ocean, thereby making the competition irrelevant.

* Companies have long engaged in head-to-head competition in search of sustained, profitable growth. They have fought for competitive advantage, battled over market share, and struggled for differentiation.

* Yet in today’s overcrowded industries, competing head-on results in nothing but a bloody “red ocean” of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool. In a book that challenges everything you thought you knew about the requirements for strategic success, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne contend that while most companies compete within such red oceans, this strategy is increasingly unlikely to create profitable growth in the future.

  

                                                                   © Kim & Mauborgne, 2012

So, how does this management concept relate to the individual Group Fitness instructor or have any real impact on their lives?

Isn't this strategy stuff just corporate jargon for big companies looking to position themselves in an ever changing business landscape, where nothing stays the same from day to day let alone from year to year?

Well, here’s a discussion topic that may incite or inspire.

Group Fitness instructors, I mean great Group Fitness instructors, have a tough job. They have to simultaneously coach and cajole upwards of 20-30 people in a class whilst being brand champions for their health clubs, the programs they teach and their own “love mark”.

Many instructors have reported over the years that they think and feel that they are worth more money per hour and feel that they are not appreciated by the health clubs they work for.

Here is a very simply solution. Back yourself -- put your money where your mouth is and turn back the clock. Back the days of the “aerobic pioneers”. Back to a time where classes were held in school halls, squash courts, or any space that could be rented for minimal cost.

Not exactly a Blue Ocean, more like a Blue Lake or even Blue Puddle.

Imagine a small group of passionate, inspiring group exercise teachers getting together as a coaching collective and opening a “turn key” group fitness studio.

Imagine positioning that studio in the hearts and minds of potential clients as the ultimate place to come together for that tribal experience called a Group Fitness class? No expensive gym equipment to lease, no wages just a share of the profits after minimal costs.

Imagine “backing yourself” so much that you are willing to put your skills, your personality, and your “client pull factor” on the line to be able to not only pay the rent but also pocket some decent pocket jingle?

Two things are likely to occur:

1. You and your group ex. Buddies will make enough money to keep your “Blue Lake” venture alive and kicking on for as long you continue to attract clients. Independence and autonomy and no one telling you what to do and how to do it.

2. You and your buddies will realise what risk your Health Club owners take to put on classes that attract classes in the single digit category. You and your buddies will discover that every class has to be world class a show stopper to make sure that you are only as great as “your last gig”.

So, I hope you back a winner and the winner is YOU.

Author: Garry Hart