MeDirected » athletic lab

Workin’ 5 to 9

mike — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 00:27:58 +0000

Dolly Parton ain’t got nothin’ on me. Well come to think of it she does have two pretty big things – a beautiful voice and a taste for country music…what did you think I was referring to?

For the past 3 months I’ve had at least two days a week where I’ve been starting my day at 5am (for a 5:45 training session at Athletic Lab) and not leaving the training center until 9 (or later). We’re open 7 days a week and most weeks and I’d guestimate that my weekly work hours are approaching and sometimes exceeding triple digits. I’m handling it ok but I don’t want it to stay like this forever. Thankfully my wife and daughter come in to the center several days a week so I’m able to see them even while I’m working (and my wife helps out!).

The business is at a place where it’s still beneficial for me to do almost everything myself. But things have been picking up pretty steadily. And at an increasing rate. If there’s such a thing as a tipping point for a business I think we’re quickly approaching it.

All this is giving me reason to consider if the next step for the business is to hire someone to help. I have some great assistants now who are all either working in an intern capacity or sweat-equity barter in exchange for training at Athletic Lab. And we get at least 20 unsolicited applications for employement or internship every month. This is a luxury of a growing business in a still sinking economy.

So the time is coming. It will surely be an expense that may take a month or more to pay off but at our current rate of growth it’s likely an investment in future growth that needs to be made. Not only that but it will afford me some more time to spend working on my business rather than mostly in it and will allow me to have more than a free day or two each month. It’s a nice crossroads to be at.

Free doesn’t Pay

mike — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 01:55:24 +0000

About 10 months ago I moved from Ohio, where I had been living for a couple months to focus on finishing my doctoral dissertation to North Carolina to start on a new business venture. Before I could open my sport training facility there was much to be done with equipment, finding a location, waiting for lease agreements to process, etc. While doing all this I thought it would be wise to start building a client base by offering to train athletes at parks or high schools. The idea was that I would offer free training to a select couple people in an attempt to serve as an ‘on ramp’ for future clients. I was brand new to the area, didn’t have any network to speak of and I thought this might be good in helping to spread the word so I could ‘hit the ground running’ when I opened up my facility. While I did gain a couple people like this the free training idea wasn’t worth it. Of the handful of people I worked with only a couple are with me today. All of these individuals I trained for at least 2 months before opening my facility. Did they stop training with me because they didn’t like what I offered or weren’t getting results? Hell no! Everyone got much better and loved the training. What happened is that some moved on when their sport season came up and some moved on when it came time to bill them. It was as if they were shocked that the service wouldn’t be free forever. And it wasn’t as if the payment was something that got sprung on them all of a sudden and these were not people who couldn’t afford to pay. I do after all need to make a living. The problem however was mine in the making. I undervalued my services and set a precedent that became too comfortable. In retrospect, I should have provided the same services at a discounted rate and rewarded these first local clients for their early trust and continued loyalty by offering the same discounted rate as long as they kept training with me. As they say, hindsight is 20 / 20 but the circumstances were a nice lesson and provided real world support for a recent quote that made an appearance on the Athletic Lab wipeboard about a month ago:

The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get less than you settled for.

-Dowd.

The Benefits of Diversifying Revenue Streams (medirected.com)

5 Things I’m Thankful For

mike — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:48:20 +0000

Ok…I know I’m a little late to be completely holiday appropriate. I figured I’d take Thanksgiving, my first free day in the last couple weeks, to spend some QT with the fam. But it’s never too late to say thanks and reflect on what you’re thankful for. With that said here are five (semi-business related) things I’m very thankful for as this Thanksgiving weekend comes to a close:

The people who have helped me get this latest business venture off the ground. That includes my sister, father and brother-in-law who’ve helped build things around Athletic Lab; my mom who’s helped with babysitting, some purchases for the training center, and most importantly supported me to do what I want (rather than follow some canned notion of success), and mom-in-law who has helped with baby sitting and loaned me a place to stay while I finished my doctoral dissertation; my wife who has painted and cleaned more square footage than humanly possible at Athletic Lab; Chris (my intern), John and Jade (my athletes) for helping with with clean up around the center; Kelly (another athlete) for helping to edit a book I’m putting together and do business-related research; and Eric (another athlete) for being the first athlete to move here to train and more importantly for being my right hand man with facility maintenance and marketing.
A wife who puts up with my long days, late nights and financial risks associated with dropping a secure full-time job so I can pursue my dreams.
Being in a country, time, and personal financial situation where I can pursue what I want to do.
Having clients and athletes who support the business and spread the word.
Being blessed enough to have repeatedly found myself in the right time at the right place. Over. And over. And over again.

What a Week!

mike — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 15:40:50 +0000

I’ve had an incredibly busy and exhausting past couple weeks. Especially the last 2 weeks or so. Don’t get me wrong though…I’m not complaining. I figure if a small business owner isn’t overworked at least some of the time during the start-up phase of a new venture then things probably aren’t going too well. All told, I went 23 straight days working at Athletic Lab with an average workday over this time period being a little over 13 hours. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s been going on for all those following this venture:

Mon-Wed: Training, training, training; learned that our biggest competitor in the area will be going bankrupt very soon; met with several employees of said business to consider a future place at Athletic Lab (with existing clients in tow).
Thursday: Meet with out-of-town TPI professional to discuss his potential future employment as manager of our Golf Player Development program….something I’ve been working on but haven’t had time to really get off the ground.
Friday: Training, training, training; the biggest competitor in the area that I mentioned earlier closes doors and files for bankruptcy; I proceed to mount a full-frontal multi-day attempt to pick up some of their members by posting flyers on their door hourly (since other competitors childishly take down all but their own).
Saturday: Morning practice with HPC Elite training group; make training plans for all correspondence trained athletes, catch up on email, do editorial duties for Journal of Sport Science; work on own research project.
Sunday: Stop by just-closed competitor to post signs and flyers and talk with disgruntled former members in need of a gym; hand out flyers at a local road race; move pole vault mat in to Athletic Lab; late night private training session; Board of Directors meeting for Pole Flyers which lasts til 10pm and finalizes their move in to Athletic Lab. Pole Flyers is the Pole Vault club I’ve been working with since I arrived in the area who had been leasing space at the gym that shut down.
Monday: Organize sponsorship of 2 local road races; develop print media for marketing at these road races; training, training, training.
Wednesday: Training from 8am to 9pm; Pole Flyers has their first practice at Athletic Lab from 6:30-9….setting record for most athletes in our facility at one time.
Friday: Normal training schedule; plus late night training session with a visiting elite sprinter who’s come to the Triangle for the weekend.
Saturday: Morning practice with HPC Elite training group; give presentation at the Pitcher’s Boot Camp in Apex, NC; hand out flyers at NC State High School Soccer championship til 6pm; make training plans for all correspondence trained athletes.
Sunday: Early morning practice with visiting elite sprinter; Pole Flyers practice til 2:30; attempted (and failed) installation of in-ground pole vault box in Athletic Lab; clean up of attempted installation (concrete dust EVERYWHERE) that lasts til late in to the night.
Tuesday: Meet contractor to knock down wall at Athletic Lab to expand our sprint track; normal training sessions; develop marketing materials for Vype magazine and also Fire and Rescue teams in the area.
Wednesday: Clients from 8am-6:30 pm with not a single time slot free, even for lunch. That’s the first time we’ve been that busy at Athletic Lab. Some time during that time period, we received an unsolicited call from one of the local professional sports teams. Very exciting and I’m meeting with the head coach of the team on Monday….hopefully to set up training for the team.
Thursday: And on the 24th day I rested and gave thanks for my family and all that’s good in my life.

Working In or Working On Your Business

mike — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:55:32 +0000

Over the past month one of the realizations I’ve made is that I’m spending too much time working IN my business and not enough time working ON my business. Part of this is to be expected being a small business owner on a new venture. I’ve had Athletic Lab open for 4 months now and in addition to the training, coaching and program design that is our core-business; I end up doing the majority of the menial tasks just to keep the gym in working order as well as handling the less-local consulting and correspondence training operations of HPC. But I’m coming to the realization that to get things to accelerate at Athletic Lab I need to start working more ON the business rather than so much in it. Things are working ok right now but as the business continues to pick up steam I’m inching closer and closer to the limits of what I can handle. By working IN my business, I’ve been spending too much time doing things that I should be delegating or outsourcing. The tricky thing is that making the transition from IN to ON takes additional time investment. To make the switch you not only have to handle what you’re already doing; you also have to figure out what needs done, develop a system for doing it that others can follow, and then train someone to do the job your currently handling. To work ON your business you need to start out doing all the work but have the goal of eventually turning much of it over to someone else. You need to keep track of what you’re doing, when you’re doing it and how you’re doing it. In my case, I’ve started writing down detailed procedures as I do the things that I think will eventually be passed on to an assistant.

The four main things you need to remember in this process are (via Gerber):

What can I do to make my business run without me?
How can I get my assistants to work with as little interference or direction from me as possible?
How can I own my business but still be free from it?
How can I spend my time doing the work I love to do, rather than the work I have to do?

The ultimate goal of working ON your business should be to make it function well enough that you can go on vacation, get sick, or deal with family emergencies and not have to shut your doors or worry that things aren’t operating like they would if you were there. You need to make the business autonomous enough that it isn’t DEPENDENT on you. For someone like myself who is very exacting and particular with how I want things done and typically does them myself because of that, I realize that making the transition will not happen overnight and that it will take a concerted effort on my part to trust others and be patient with the process.

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