Who Are You? A Foundation of Values

You know in your heart why you founded a gym and what you want to achieve with it. But as a small business owner, your success depends on the support, hard work and cooperation of all the people who are part of your organization. Your employees need to know why they are doing their jobs and be able to see a road map to find their way on the journey.

Once you start to build your business, you may still be the one in control but your entire organization needs to have an understanding of your vision for the future

Lawrence Fagan

Before you implement strategies to get you to where you want to go, you have to know where exactly that is. As an entrepreneur it’s all too easy to think that you have it in your head.. They should know what the mission is that they should be focused on every day that they come to work. They have to buy into the values you are working to express through your enterprise.

You should have a statement of each of these three things so that everyone who’s critical to your success can help your business to integrate as a team. When your team is unified in purpose and everyone knows the core values, vision and mission, they will work together better. They will also work better with less supervision when there is a clear alignment of purpose between staff and owner.

A Solid Foundation Built On Core Values

As a gym owner or fitness trainer you probably hold strong values relating to helping others and leadership in fitness. So what do you value as a gym owner? Obviously, that’s a question that only you can answer. However, as a generalization, we in the fitness industry want to make the world a stronger healthier place.

There is one thing that’s key to all of this: Your members. They’re the lifeblood of your business. So, it’s vitally important that you adopt their values as your own.

In my humble opinion, there are only a few simple things that members most value when it comes to gyms:

• Human contact
• Cleanliness
• Hope

Human Contact

You could work out at home if you didn’t get anything from having people around you. Some folks do just that. Home gym equipment is a hot item after the Coronavirus shutdown. But still people join gyms to get the company, the motivation and feedback of their fellow members. So that connectedness has to be a source of values and part of your business model. You need to make your gym a place for interaction with a friendly atmosphere and approachable staff members.

Cleanliness

I have covered the importance of cleanliness in the gym before. It can never be stated enough that members will notice any failings or oversights in cleaning immediately. If they perceive a pattern of poor cleaning and dirty equipment it could severely undermine your business. Your customers value cleanliness, trust me on that.

Hope

Joining a gym is an act of optimism. That’s a good thing. It says that the new member has made a commitment to health and fitness and improving the quality of their life. We should be grateful when each member chooses our gym as the place they want to be. We get the opportunity to do the most good with motivation, knowledge, inspiration and support. The difference that we provide is that we can nurture and build that hope. In leading the member to fitness and success, we share in their victory.

These are just a few suggested values that you should consider including as part of your core values, based on my observations and experiences. Develop your own version and invite input from your employees. Once you’ve decided what the core values are that inspire you and get you up in the morning, you’re ready to get to the next level of strategic declarations, which I will discuss in detail in the next part; a statement of the vision of where you see your business going and then finally your mission statement.

Over to you:

Have you developed core values for your fitness business and shared them with your staff?

What are your business’ core values?

This updated blog was written by Lawrence Fagan and originally published 2/17/2014.

Gym Insight

Welcome to our weekly blog! Thank you for reading and we hope it provides inspiring ideas for running your gym. We are a gym management software company providing custom-designed club management tools that are the easiest-to-use in the industry. Our software makes it simple for even the smallest gym to feel, and act, like a major player — without all those nasty extra expenses. And, if you already are a customer enjoying our awesome technology — thanks! Either way, give us call at 1-855-FOR-GYMS. Perhaps you’d like to tell us your story via our YouTube channel, the Gym Owner’s Podcast. Ask for Anthony. He’d love to hear of your struggles and successes.