The fundamentals of strength training are relevant to any endeavor that aims to improve a measurable outcome in pursuit of a clearly defined goal, including business performance. The framework is: define a goal, establish a primary measurement for that goal, identify the variables that influence the primary measurement, define activities to manipulate those variables, organize the activities into recurring habits, and execute consistently. For example:

1. Define a general goal or aim. E.G. get stronger, make more money.

2. Establish a primary metric to measure performance against that goal. In strength training, it’s your working-set weight for each of the primary lifts. In the gym business it’s “Monthly Recurring Revenue” (MRR).

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3. Identify the relevant variables and how to measure them. In the context of strength training, the variables are:

• Number of training sessions missed
• Technique
• Weight added to the bar
• Protein intake
• Caloric intake
• Reps
• Sets
• Sleep quality and quantity

In the context of gym ownership, and in order of the biggest impact on revenue, the variables are (per coach and gym-wide):

• Total members (at the end of each month)
• Monthly churn (percentage of members that canceled last month and the current month’s trend)
• Weekly cancellations
• Weekly member additions
• Opportunities (attended a free session but not converted yet, or hasn’t shown up for a free 30-min session yet)
• Member conversion rate (percentage of trainees that signed up for membership after attending a free session)
• Free sessions conducted
• Free session “show rate” (percentage of trainees that showed up)
• Free sessions booked
• Free session booking rate (percentage of website visitors that booked a free session)
• Website visitors
• Lead sources (where did free session bookings originate from before visiting the website)

4. Define activities that are designed to improve those metrics. For example, in strength training, you may need to reorganize your schedule to miss fewer training sessions, improve your sleep quantity, or double the meat portion on your lunch order to keep the weight on the bar going up. As a gym owner, you may need to check in with your members more regularly to reduce churn or train your coaching staff to become better consultants so they can understand the goals, motivations, fears, and preferences of your prospective members which will result in an improved free session conversion rate.

5. Organize the activities into recurring habits. For strength training that might look something like this:

WEEKLY HABITS:

• Train Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
• Create a 90-minute block in your calendar to train after work on those days.

DAILY HABITS:

• Sleep 8 hours.
• Eat 200g of protein.

Improving the performance of a gym business is more involved. Here’s my recommendation:

MONTHLY HABITS:

• Check in with every member and every coach – discuss mutual expectations and progress towards defined goals to improve motivation, performance, and retention.
• Review last month’s churn, member additions, and lead sources – decide which metrics need improvement.
• Set an agenda for weekly team meetings and one-on-one meetings with your coaches to improve performance for those metrics.

WEEKLY HABITS:

• Generate 5* free session bookings.
• Conduct 4* free sessions.
• Gain 2* new members
• Meet with your team and go through every member that canceled (or went on hold), every free session that didn’t turn into a membership, and every free session booking that no-showed.
• Conduct training with your staff to improve “technical excellence” and “concierge service” to improve performance specific to these metrics.

(*these numbers will vary based on your conversion rates)

DAILY HABITS:

• Contact current, former, and prospective members that are due for a check-in.
• Return missed calls and respond to emails from prospective members within 20 minutes.
• Perform a minimum of one “outreach” activity to increase local awareness and interest in your gym, e.g. a chamber of commerce meeting, a video on social media highlighting a grandpa adding the second plate to his deadlift, a newsletter that improves your community’s understanding/belief, a presentation to a local mom’s group for post-partum fitness advice, etc.

6) Execute consistently. Improvements accumulate from consistent behavior. Don’t let your attention be distracted from the diligent implementation of these fundamentals in your training and in your business.

Exercise can be easy – enjoyable, even. Get a pump, cruise on the stationary bike, and sweat in the sauna. Training on the other hand, needs to be done whether you enjoy it or not, because in the words of Mark Rippetoe, it is the guarantor of your [physical] independence. A Starting Strength Gym, managed in line with the principles of strength training, can be the guarantor of your psychological and financial independence. My advice: put in the work, consistently and intentionally, to maximize all three.

Business fundamentals for Starting Strength Gyms can be summarized as: Hire outstanding people. Create a positive training environment. Ensure technical excellence in every aspect of your operation, especially coaching. Ensure you and your coaches are delivering the highest-level concierge service so that prospective members become paying members and paying members stick around and refer their friends. Review your key performance indicators (KPIs) weekly. Follow our guides. Lean on support from your peers and the franchise team. Remember that your adherence to these principles will get you closer to the outcome that you desire, and just like in fitness, there is no way to produce material results without consistently implementing a process that’s underpinned by the correct fundamentals.

This is the approach I am using as a franchise owner in Austin. The current goal: To make Starting Strength Austin, Sunset Valley, the first $1M gross revenue gym (annually) in the franchise by continuously improving our execution on the fundamentals outlined in this article. I’ll post an update when we get there.

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