How to Make Your Life Easier

A Fitness Marketing Post by Chris McCombs

Hey there, hope you're having an awesome day…

I talk to a lot of trainers, and one thing that keeps coming up is how complicated many of them make things for themselves… I touched on this in a post recently that you can read here.

Basically the post covers getting clear on your goals, working backwards from the end result, cutting out the fluff and taking massive action. Pretty basic stuff, but easily overlooked and forgotten. ( Feel free to check out that post to get up to speed)

Today, it's real easy to get caught up in the 24/7 hecticness going on all around us… ( I don't even know if hecticness is a word… but it is now)… we have information coming at us 24/7… moving parts to our businesses where something always seems to be going wrong… customer issues… cool things we wanna do but it seems like we'll never have to… constant demands being thrown on us by other people… iphones and blackberries sending us seemingly urgent text messages / phone calls and emails faster than we can keep up with… twitter… facebook… car maintenance… bills… you name it…

We are getting friggin slammed… and us entrepreneurs can get it the worst… your typical person can clock in… clock out… and leave the problems back at the office, gym or factory.

We get to carry these little stressors around with us wherever we go… it's the curse of the entrepreneur… even though being a business owner is a gift I wouldn't trade for anything in the world… it's easy to get caught up in the craziness of being so damn busy sometimes… success happens in the midst of chaos and that's just the way it is…

However there are some things you can do to simplify your life and business… here's a few work well for me…

1. Everyday ask yourself what are the most important one, two or three activities you can do to get to your goals… what are the BIG things that will get you there fastest… and then do those things

2. I talk about this one all the time but that's just because it's so damn important…

Outsource as many things as possible that don't actually need to be done by you… whether it's in barter like Zach Hunt does ( he barters group training workouts with like 12 or 14 different people who do everything from build links, write blog posts, post Craigslist ads, put his lead gen. boxes around town… to even finding, screening and hiring more barter people.)

And if you can afford it, hire the work out… here's some of the things I hire out…

• Customer service
• Article writing
• Accounting
• Incoming sales calls
• Personal training
• The boot camps
• Managing the trainers
• Outlining business and marketing audio and video programs I haven't had a chance to listen to yet and then have the key components explained to me
• Content creation
• House and office cleaning
• Car detailing and maintenance
• Hotel and airline reservations
• Craigslist ad posting
• Traffic generation
• Web design
• Graphic design
• And on and on and on

Most of this is done with one customer service person working part time, one full time personal assistant, one part time web guy and one "paid by the job" article writer, some personal trainers and boot camp instructors and a few commission based appointment setters setting appointments for the trainers… and it really doesn't cost all that much to pay other people to all this… yet it NEEDS to get done… but if I did it all I'd have no time for the really important stuff ( one of the most common situations the majority of fitness professionals are in) and I'd've never gotten ahead

And for the most part my only points of contact in the business are my wife Sarah and my assistant Del who oversee everything and everybody

I pretty much try to just spend my time on strategizing, writing blog posts, email marketing, a little copy writing and networking / nurturing current relationships… and peaking in once in a while to make sure everything is running smooth ( remember, you get what you inspect not what you expect)

Now… I wouldn't be able to do that unless I had this next thing in place…

3. Step by step systems for every aspect of the business – every part of the business that is repeated with any kind of frequency has a system to it… it's the systems that free the business owner

Effective Systems + The Right People to Implement the Systems = Happy Chris

Without the systems, I'd have NEVER been able to get ahead…and I'd be friggin stressed out 24/7 and always feeling behind ( been there, done that, never again…. BAD place to be)

Simply document the steps to every part of each process that needs to get in your business with any kind of regularity… and then have the right person or people follow the steps… it's really pretty simple… yet so many trainers avoid it all together… and they're stuck working "in" the business and rarely ever working "on" it… hard to get ahead that way.

So… it's really comes down to…

A. Simplifying the actions down to the most important ones ( 5-20% of the actions are gonna be responsible for 80-95% of your income)

B. Create systems for every part of your business that doesn't absolutely need to be done by you personally

C. Hire the right people to implement the systems

I do this, Sam Bahktiar does it, Zach Hunt does it, Steve Hochman does it, Bedros does it, and just about every other successful business owner I know does it who isn't stressed out all the time and feeling like they're always behind, overworked and never getting anywhere.

If you'd like help with having systems in your business to actually do the work for you, finding and hiring people, bartering out work, sales systems and basically everything you need to make your life easier while your business grows, then check out the Auto-Delegation Tool Box and Kick Back Lifestyle Club for just a buck

It'll give you what you need to get more done in your business in less time… so your business can grow without you being bogged down 24/7

Check out the Auto-Delegation Toolbox HERE for $1

I'd love to hear your comments in the comment section below…