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Stop Being the Bottleneck: The Decision Flow Principle for Gym Owners · Gym Business Coach Podcast

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, welcome back to the Jim business coach podcast.
• 0:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, Tim Lyons joined in the studio today by Randy Vaughn Anxden.
• 0:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: What's up, man?
• 0:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Good morning.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Check it out, guys.
• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: The gross summit June at 25th through 27th fit pro gross summit.com.
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Guys, this is our eighth annual event.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: We bring a couple hundred Jim owners, some of the best speakers on the planet.
• 0:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Come in and speak to you.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: uh... there's learning networking happy hours after parties uh... workshops front in back in we take care of all the food for you guys for the lunches and happy hours drinks uh... we got the recordings on there for people in the VIP cannot wait to see guys the tickets are going up uh... they're almost out really i mean by this to by time you're getting this uh... pockets and maybe sold out so uh... this is your last chance probably to to get in on this uh... would love to see you guys there it's in June at the in a June
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's my favorite event.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 0:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, check out the link.
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: FitProGro some.com.
• 1:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: If the kids are still available, lock them in, but lock in.
• 1:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's coming down to the wire.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's, let's talk about frameworks for second.
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: So in our gym business coach coaching programs, springboard, iron circle, we've kind of taken all of our teachings down to what we call frameworks.
• 1:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this is a concept that kind of I learned from Russell Bronson on how to teach
• 1:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: differently.
• 1:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you're looking at his books.com secrets, they have these like little like doodle sketches.
• 1:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And those are essentially his framework.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you think about it, right?
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the epiphany bridge or the hero, you know, the epiphany story and all this stuff.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he talks about everything in frameworks.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: We took a look at what we were teaching.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: We were teaching frameworks.
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Array, we didn't call them that.
• 1:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: So what we did is we distilled down all of our teachings, down into frameworks.
• 1:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: We've put up in a book, super cool, some videos, and stuff.
• 1:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's for another day.
• 1:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: But what I want to do is talk about one of the frameworks that least today.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we call it the decision flow principle.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And really what it is is,
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: uh... when you're running a gym or any business you've got so many that makes decisions uh... typically it's the owner right at it and you know small micro gym aspect to teach him kind of everything's going through the owner yeah and become you know the owner becomes the bottleneck it becomes the thing that slows the business down and you know mike McCall would sit at the best right he goes uh...
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you, you know, basically, if you, if you, you should purposely create the decision flow not to go through, I guess that's the point in the message, right, because if you only, everybody's waiting on you is the owner, nothing gets done.
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's just, the owners, the busiest, there's always something going on.
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: They may be traveling in like the day-to-day operations stop, because
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: the owner needs to make the decision.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, your business is stagnant.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: So staff doesn't have the autonomy to make the decision.
• 2:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: So they're sitting around waiting, which is just again.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: On any team, that is, yeah, in times the enemy, a lot of times, right?
• 3:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I put this in place years ago.
• 3:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just didn't want to make all the decisions because I knew I was the one that's going to slow it down.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I also believe the team can make decisions.
• 3:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can tell you from the first week we started when when profit first started.
• 3:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was like it was a it was a real conversation.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't just something that like happened.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was like no.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: go do that.
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, you have the authority to continue to make those decisions, keep me out of it, and I'm sure that was an aspect of what led to that rapid growth.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: For sure, you know what I mean?
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: It has to, because again, it's just think of a funnel of all of the things that come into the day, and there's this pinch point down to a drop, right?
• 3:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's like the decisions.
• 3:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you're
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: one point, which is the owner, and it just drips out, that's basically the flow of the business.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: But if you had multiple funnels, and they're all dripping, and they're all making decisions, they're all pushing the business forward, that's the goal.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, employees, owners, owners always have this thing, if nobody's going to do this, go this way.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's probably true in a lot of aspects.
• 4:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not always true.
• 4:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's probably true for someone like the business stuff, but like you don't need to make every decision.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things that I did early on when I was giving up the decision on autonomy of 42, at the time it was taught and it was Brent and it was Zach and I was jolly.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like up to a certain financial amount.
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's where you start.
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, up to 500 bucks or less like you just make the decision you purchase the thing you hire the thing you make the thing or you go call the maintenance company get it fixed up to a certain amount and then as they stay in the business longer and then goes to a thousand then there's no limit right they because again, like why bother somebody the owner for a hundred or a fifty dollar, you know, Amazon order.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: that just slows everything down.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so decision flow framework is the purposeful action of allowing your team to make decisions on the best interest of the business.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, the business moves forward faster, the owners
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: free it up to do other things and nobody's waiting on the dang owner to make the name just yeah and the other half of that is right you as the person giving the autonomy but you know you're gonna find situations where the wrong decision was made or something didn't go as planned or as you the owner would make that decision and you know a lot of times gym owners or business owners are resistant than giving that authority because they're afraid of that but that's the whole reason right you're not I don't know if I can entrust them to
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, but that's where we always say that's a coaching opportunity.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's not stop the business.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's not hit, you know, let's not halt all progress because of the decision has to go to the owner.
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: If that employee does make the wrong decision, and I could use myself as a perfect example, right?
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like when you gave us that autonomy, you also said, hey, you go make a decision that's within that scope.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your job's not on the line.
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a coaching opportunity.
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but that empowers the person making the decisions don't feel good about taking action rather than them sitting back and being like hesitant, you know, to mean like blocking it up where they're not making trouble.
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was afraid of like the repercussion.
• 6:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no But if you when you lead with that and you let them know hey in the event that the the wrong decision is made
• 6:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I will have your back as long as you can give me a reason why that decision was made that way and I can understand that cool now we'll have a conversation and I'll show you why it should have been done differently and that that was a big part too because it wasn't just passing along the autonomy it was passing along the autonomy without the
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: the risk in a way, you know, because I can see that too.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you got people in your business that you trust and you feel like they could make, you know, qualified decisions.
• 7:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: But then there has a tent because the right.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 7:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I would, I would love for every Jim owner to adopt this kind of like mentality.
• 7:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: In our mentality was this, you have to make a decision and if you make a decision has to be 100 miles an hour.
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like we do not hesitate on the decisions that we make.
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And yes, if we're wrong, if that was the wrong choice, we're going to auto-correct down the road.
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully it doesn't hurt us that bad.
• 7:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And usually it does it, right?
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, what are the things in the business that a coach or a fitness director is going to make that?
• 7:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: could hinder, like they're not making membership pricing decisions on their own.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's typically going through management or whatever.
• 7:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're not, what are they going to really do?
• 7:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're going to give away a membership for free to some party that they should have charged for and you know, you correct it by, you know, don't do that again.
• 7:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And let's get this person and bring them into the office and say hey, that was a mistake.
• 7:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: What's that going to burn the business down, right?
• 8:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like, what are the things that they get really do?
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, even hiring decisions, that is up to the team.
• 8:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't, I don't make hiring decisions.
• 8:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's a huge one because my god it's huge.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: You like, yeah, the impact that that has on the business.
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's guys in iron circle that absolutely see that's a bad idea.
• 8:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: John Fark is, for example, you know, he makes all the hiring decision.
• 8:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's cool.
• 8:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: For me, I trust the team enough, and I'm always brought in on somebody that's on the fence.
• 8:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm always brought in.
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, Tim, would you talk to the sky?
• 8:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let me see, you know, get your opinions.
• 8:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I've even had it the other way where Zach wasn't going to hire somebody who was on the fence, and I came in and I spoke to him, and I was like, this guy's a perfect fit.
• 8:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he ended up being one of our best coaches at Junior, right?
• 8:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was one of our best, he was, he wasn't going to hire the guy because he just didn't, he couldn't have get,
• 8:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: the answers or it wasn't like flowing very well and I was like let me tell me talk to him and I at the end of that interview with the guy goes my I go my job's act junior to make sure you're a likable guy and you're likable guy you're hired right he's an all right cool because he was you know some people don't interview well and that was really one of the things that was the one of the funniest case in points right like he was afraid to make that decision
• 9:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: But if you would have made, he was actually going to not hire like, yeah.
• 9:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I fixed it before his two late.
• 9:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that was a thing where, yes, Zach could have made the decision either way to hire or not hire.
• 9:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: But he wasn't quite sure.
• 9:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's an absolute time to bring the owner in.
• 9:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, hey, what do you give me a second opinion?
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: It took 30 minutes, 45 minutes, whatever and have it a little chat.
• 9:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that was it, you know, and again, this isn't, I don't think this is the thing holding most Jim owners back.
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't believe that's true, making it all the decision, but I do think when you start allowing your team to make the calls on things, it does two things.
• 9:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: One, freeze up, obviously, the business moves faster, but it empowers the team, they enjoy being there a little bit more, now they get a little authority, they can make decisions, then yeah, let's not.
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's not fire somebody of a bad decision that you gave them the right to make the decision on it.
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: So super simple framework, something that a lot of operations don't follow, everything's gotta go through the headhunter, right?
• 10:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't believe that that's always should be the case.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, maybe take a hard look at your business today.
• 10:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, hey, man, are we, are we stagnant?
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do we lose momentum?
• 10:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because everything's got to go through me.
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if that's the case, let's start delegating some decision, making downhill up to a certain point, teach your team like how to make decisions.
• 10:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, sometimes the decisions are made.
• 10:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: They don't even need to tell you about it.
• 10:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
• 10:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Unless it's important.
• 10:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't need to know that you made the decision.
• 10:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Unless you want me to like pat you at a back cool, then I'll do that too.
• 10:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: But uh, but that's pretty much it, guys.
• 10:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's so simple.
• 10:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it's so powerful.
• 10:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is the thing that could catapult your business into at least for time freedom, but speed momentum carrying the torch.
• 11:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: All those things kind of live in this one framework.
• 11:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah.
• 11:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: go take a look.
• 11:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully that helps you guys.
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's see you at the grow summit.
• 11:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can't wait to share more frameworks with you guys on following episodes, but really we're breaking down and think 15 of the frameworks in our workshop.
• 11:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: A million dollar model workshop on Thursday afternoon at the grow summit.
• 11:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: FitProGrow Summit.com.
• 11:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: We will see you guys there.
• 11:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's it for this episode.
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: See you on the next one.
• 11:22
  [UNKNOWN]: Bye.