Ep. 177 - Sharing the Wealth : 3 Investments You Must Make to Keep Your Business Growing

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Show Notes:

In this episode, we sit down and challenge a common small business finance trap: labeling everything as an expense instead of asking what return it should create. When we change the language, we change the decisions, and we change the energy customers and staff feel the moment they walk in the door.

We walk through three investments we believe a growing youth sports facility must keep making. First, continued education for coaches, not only the high level competitive staff but the recreational coaches who shape the daily experience and drive retention. We talk conferences, in house training, lesson plan meetings, shadowing, and simple ways to build leadership by letting your best coaches teach the rest of the team.

Second, we dig into the front desk as your first impression and your most consistent parent touchpoint. We share practical systems that create consistency, including a quick reference cheat sheet and a daily checklist plus log for positives, staffing issues, customer complaints, and injuries. Finally, we get specific about facility upgrades and equipment refreshes, why first impressions matter in a competitive market, and how to set an annual reinvestment budget.

If you’ve been wondering where to reinvest for real ROI, this will help you pick a clear next step and build a plan. What’s the one area you know you’ve been skimping on?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome back to Learning to Thrive. I'm Courtney. And I'm Michaela. And today we are continuing our series on finance, and we're talking about sharing the wealth. And this is looking at three investments that we believe you must make in order to keep your business growing. Yes. And we use the words investments intentionally because some people might call them expenses. And the difference between an expense and an investment is an investment you get a return on. Right. And so switching our mindset and switching our language to reflect that we're we are spending this money as an investment, as in we are getting a return on this money. And we are, we are investing in, meaning we are adding value to. Right. Right. So that little shift in mindset can go a long way in business because one of the top things that I hear business owners complaining about is payroll expense or you know, the expense of, you know, customers, or, you know, the expense of the, it's like, or the expense of equipment. And that's true, right? That's going to happen regardless. You're going to have to, you're going to have to pay people to run your classes, you're going to have to pay people to do your customer service, and you're going to have to replace equipment. That's just like, those are profounding facts of business. However, looking at that as an expense gives it kind of a negative connotation. It creates that energy around it of scarcity, right? Like, oh, it's it's a push-pull on the resources. Whereas looking at it as we are going to invest in a new spring floor, we are going to invest in a new round of laser beams, right? Well, when I invest, that means it's I get an ROI, I get a return on my investment. What is the return on my investment when I we just did this? We when I replace all my laser beams that look like they have been through war. Well, the return on that investment is my customers look around and go, oh, that's really nice. Right. And they're like, oh, these are these are like it just elevates the experience for the customers. Then when they're paying their tuition at the end of the month, they feel like their money is going towards keeping that gym nice, right? And if I can definitely highlight the fact that we're purchasing new equipment, that creates an even bigger ROI.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Right. So I lay that point out before we get into all this to say, look at your mindset right now around the expenses of your business. And if there's any sticking point, can you be switching your mindset about that to find the good in it versus the scarcity piece? The abundance versus scarcity mindset is huge in business and it really in the way that you experience business and you that then comes through in the way that you treat people and the experience that other people have. So that's my little my little tip on just switching that expense versus investment. I love it. Makes a big difference.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Yeah, absolutely. So what's our first investment,

Continued Education for Coaches

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Larry? Our first of three is continued education for coaches. And this goes for your team coaches as well as your rec coaches. I think a lot of times you think about continued education and at least what I see advertised a lot, right? Is these high performance camps and these, you know, high-level camps and clinics and things like that for your competitive coaches, especially those at like a higher level. But equally as important, if not more important for your bottom line, would be investing continued education, training, and resources into your recreational coaches as well. And that can look like several different things. I mean, for us, that looks like going to Congress, regional Congress, for any coaches who are interested and helping guide them into what courses might be the most beneficial for them. To us, that looks like our monthly lesson plan trainings that we do. That looks like staff meetings. It looks like meeting with your leader, your 1010 person. There's a bunch of different ways you can go about doing this, but the bottom line is reinvesting time, energy, and money into your coaches of every level. So for your recreational coaches, this might look more like investing time into them and energy into them and doing more in-house training versus sending them off to, you know, big expensive camps or clinics or things like that. Always an option, especially if you have someone who's like a high performer and you want to invest a little bit more, give them a bigger opportunity. But on a daily, weekly, monthly, you know, look at things in terms of your rec coaches, what is their training look like when they first get hired? What kind of follow-up do you do throughout the month? Do you do quarterly, you know, we do a quarterly spotting clinic, things like that. So just pouring back into your coaches and making sure that they are working towards mastering the level at which they're coaching at now, and also providing the opportunity so that they can continue to grow and continue to learn. So maybe you have someone who's a phenomenal beginner-intermediate teacher. That's all they teach, but they want to learn to teach more. So giving them the opportunity to learn, train, shadow an advanced level class or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Yeah. And I think that's also where you develop leadership within your company, is that when you have somebody who is really good at something, like let's say you have a coach that can teach any kid a back hand spring, right? Then have that coach lead a backhand spring clinic for the rest of the younger staff. Like it doesn't have to be complicated, it just needs to be tied, it needs to be thoughtfully done. Right? Somebody needs to be looking at your staff going, what do we need? What do these people need? What do these people need? And then creating opportunity for it. If you can go to a conference, great, because it's fun to immerse yourself in the world of gymnastics or the world of sports, you know, for a period of time. But it's not required. It can be done in-house. Um, there's also online opportunities to do that. There's training videos, like there's a wealth of things, but making them accessible for your staff and also making making the fact that we do continue education from the instructor that's on the job for the first day all the way through the person that's been there for 15 years. Like we never stop learning.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Right. So our

Front Desk Staff & Systems

SPEAKER_01 6:46

second tip of where you should be investing is your front desk staff and the systems that they follow. So point blank, your front desk is your first impression, typically, of your business. Maybe some internet, you know, looking up online your website can also be a first impression point or your social media. But in terms of human-to-human interaction, your front desk is your first impression, and first impressions are so important. They are also the person who is the majority of the time the one interacting with the paying customer, which is the parent. So whether it's someone brand new who walks into your door or someone who's been with you for five years taking classes, your front of house or front desk staff have to be top of the line. They don't have to be. In our world, in the Thrive world, they have to be. But no, technically they don't. No, they don't have to be. There's an effect. There's a cause and effect there.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Yes. But if your classes are not full or you have a high turnover rate, it is worth yeah, it's worth investing. Investigating, sorry. Well, and it's always worth investing in in the front desk people. And also valuing. A lot of times, I a lot of gyms I talk to, they're like, you know, there's the front desk person is just the per like because they're not teaching anything and physically up, it's like, oh, that's pretty easy. Nothing makes me sweat harder than a front desk shift. Because the expectation of customer service and parents and answering questions and and filling needs and that kind of thing is just it, it is truly an art. And yeah, you and those that are really good at it, you want to make sure that you're valuing your front desk. Can I tell the story?

SPEAKER_01 8:41

It's an old story about you on front desk. Oh dear.

unknown 8:44

Maybe.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Yeah, go ahead. This okay. First off, this was a couple years ago. And second off, the question you got asked was a good, it was a really good question, right? That you didn't just want to give an answer on the flight to. Yeah. So a parent comes up, and I forget exactly what the question was, but Courtney was working front desk because there was a there was a hot minute there where you had a weekly desk show. Yeah, occasionally they do put me on desk and then they're like, wait, why do we do this? Put her in the gym. Put her in the gym. A parent comes up and I don't remember exactly what the question was. Or it might have been on the phone, but something, but they had a really good question, you know? And I'm sitting next to Courtney and I hear, uh-huh, okay, uh-huh. And Courtney goes, you know what? That is a really good question. Um, I'm gonna have to talk to my manager and get back to you and let you know. And then you took their information and you, you know, figured out whatever it was that either was the issue or you have to think on or whatever, and you did get back to them, like you followed up, but I was just sitting there laughing hysterically because I'm like, Courtney, you have to talk to your manager. You are the owner, but you know, but that just goes to show you gotta, you know, you gotta be on when you are on front desk.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Yeah, you've gotta be on. And you, and I think you've also got to give accurate information. And so there is there is in the front desk world this idea of like, oh, we'll just, yeah, that'll work. Or and and that's what I have been guilty of, which drives a lot of people crazy, is when I go rogue. So the the idea that we pause to get it right is good. Right. That I, if I'm remembering right, that might have been a customer complaint issue that I wasn't ready to handle.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

I I yeah, to this day, I don't remember what it was. I might still do that sometime. It was just sitting next to you, because I was also on desk, sitting next to you and hearing, I don't have to talk to my manager. And who's like, who? Who is the manager? But anyway, yeah, so front desk, your staff, your systems, again, investing the time into coming up with a system that they everyone follows, right? Because that leads to consistency, which leads to better customer experience, which ultimately the return on investment there is that you have happy customers that stay enrolled, tell their friends about you, and hopefully, you know, helps maintain, if not increase, your bottom line.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Yeah, absolutely. And I think the systems that support that for us that that have worked really well is number one, having a cheat sheet at desk. So, like all the just the general, like general information, general questions, you know, price of tuition, like all of that stuff just on the desk, just in case whoever's up there, you know, just used a reference point. We also have every day we fill out a front desk like checklist. So the things that you do when you open, then that goes with the things that you do when you're closing. And on the back of it, which is my favorite part of the whole the whole system, is four questions. One is what is the two positive things that happened that night, right? So two shout-outs essentially. And that is key because then we we're just back to mindset. We're priming our brain to look for what's going right. So, okay, what did go right? Because sometimes you can get off desk and be like, everything went wrong. And it's like, well, no, there was only just like one or two things, but they're really big things, you know? So you got your two things that go right, and then you got your any staff issues. So did anybody not show up? Did anybody call out? Did anybody get sick? Like what happened with the staff? And then you have customer complaints, and then you have any injuries. And so by logging that, and then that that gets snapped a picture, and then it's sent to um myself and our director of operations. And so it just gives a nice snapshot and then put in a binder so the next person who's coming in on desk can also like the Monday morning or the you know, Tuesday morning person can see what happened on Monday and know. So it helps a lot. Took us a minute to get everybody to do it. So if you're gonna implement that system, number one, double check it, make sure that's happening and give reminders to get it to be in a consistent spot. And number two, I think now that people do do it, they do like it a lot because it also allows them to kind of vent if things are not going right. And then that vent, as long as it's getting addressed, is helpful. If they keep putting the same thing on the paper and you don't do anything to address it or fix it, that gets a little bit old. But for the majority of, I think our staff, they do like the front desks. And it also logs injuries. It's one more way to catch injuries, it's one more way to catch customer complaints, it's one more way for everybody to be on the same page. So you could even post that if we wanted to, we could post it in our you know leadership group me and everybody would know it. Um, I think the leaders would probably not like that, but you know, it's all good. Yeah. So investing in your front desk as well as your coaches, your revenue generators. That's who that is. And so you putting time, money, energy, effort into them, the ROI on that is then your customers have a better experience. When your customers have a better experience, your bottom line increases. When your bottom line increases, then hopefully your profit increases. Right. And hopefully they profit from that too, which is a whole nother podcast. But making sure that you're sharing that wealth, right? That return on investment should also be part partially uh going to your staff as well.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

All right. Our third and final area for

Reinvesting Into Your Facility

SPEAKER_01 14:11

investment to help continue to grow your business is reinvesting back into the facility itself, the equipment and facility upgrades. So this we're we're talking dollars here. You know, the other ones had a little bit more like an investment of time, an investment of energy, as well as the investment of money. This one's a little more straight dollars, right? So especially if you are in an area where there is a saturated market of whatever it is that you do, whether it's sports, like field sports, dance, martial arts, gymnastics, whatever the case may be, swim school, if there if you have a decent amount of competition in your area, then when someone is shopping around, again, first impressions matter. And how your facility presents itself is also a reflection on like what do you value. So if your equipment is being held together by duct tape, to as I would think, as a customer, it's like, okay, we just slap a band-aid on stuff here, we just wrap it up with duct tape and call it a day. That doesn't seem very safe. That doesn't seem like maybe cleanliness is a high priority for these people.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

It doesn't when my kid gets hand foot and mouth, I'm thinking back to your facility because I saw I saw the duct tape and I saw the stain or I saw the whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Right. So do you have to have the brightest, the flashiest, the newest everything? No. Do you need to replace everything every year? No. But your customers notice when things start to look disheveled, especially if they're shopping around. If you've got other people in the area who do the same thing as you, it's obvious. You see it with your own eyes. Um, and then two, it's it's a value signal of what is it that your company values. So one thing, you know, just as an example, this was a big investment that we did, but it's something any, if we were to ever open any other gyms, it'd be like number one on our list, right? Way back. I'm curious about what you're about to say. Oh, I'm gonna say it, and you're gonna be like, oh yeah, of course. Okay. Way back when we moved to Annapolis for the first time, we were basically not building a gym from scratch, but we had an empty warehouse and we were like, we're going all in, new stuff, you know, whatever. We did LED lights instead of the fluorescent like tube lights, and the difference it made, every single person who walked into the building commented on how bright and how clean it looked. And our previous facility, our original facility, smaller facility, the Arnold one, still had like the f fluorescent tube lights, just because that's what it always had. And you know, they're lights, they work, it's fine, it's great. The difference between the two became so obvious that we then switched Arnold to all LED. Then when we moved in Annapolis again to our current facility, our much larger facility, that was one of the first things. I mean, we did a total overhaul of this building, but one of the first things that was like, it's a non-negotiable was the LED lighting. And it's expensive, it's a huge, huge financial investment. But if we were to ever open another facility, step step number one, absolutely yeah, LED lights. Yep, the cleanliness factor, it looks brighter, it looks cleaner. The visuals from like a picture. I mean, I do the social media, so I'm always like, Yeah, oh, the LED looks so much better on camera, you know, the lighting's so much better, but but it makes a difference. And also just like the mood, it's just so much happier, so much brighter.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Yeah, feels like daytime. Yeah, it feels like daytime, yes. And also you don't have to change those as often too, which logistically helps a lot.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Because the ceilings are high.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

So that's a big jump to go from a mat covered in duct tape to completely switching out your facilities lighting to LED, but the general idea is the same.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

True. And I think I think that goes back to, and again, I hate to be the be the broken record, but that goes back to your mindset about how you want to be utilizing the finances, right? If you are a steward of everybody else's money, so you're, you know, this is a community and there's people teaching and there's people taking classes and we're all doing life together and so forth, there should be, and are there, yes, there should be, in my opinion, a set budget every year that you're putting back into the facility. Because if you pick a set budget every year that you're putting back in the facility, then you can, then you're never gonna get in the place where you need to spend a hundred grand to get this facility back up to speed, right? If you're constantly reinvesting money each year, and that is your standard, right? You are you, my, your standard is we at least spend 30k back into the business, right? What do we need this year? Some years it's paint, right? Which is not cheap, but it's also not super expensive either. Like some years it's we need to we need to paint the lobbies again. Every three years-ish, we need to paint the lobbies. Sometimes it's the floors, right? Sometimes it's a bathroom. This bathroom is just it's just worn. Like actually, this weekend we're having our bathrooms in Arnold. New sink, new toilet, like new paint. What yeah, they just needed a refresh. Were they gross? No, they weren't gross. Were they were they broken? No, they were not broken. But we set aside a certain amount of money every year to reinvest into the facility so that we never get to the point where somebody's like, you, that gym. And we've you guys, we've all been. We've all been in a gym where we're like, oh, we should probably take a shower after this.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Right? So, like, pit blocks, that's another thing that we constantly, every other year, at least, if we do an order, an order of pit blocks, mix the new ones in, take the old ones out. Like, it really matters. And it's all just about how you how you set yourself apart and the standards as you set. Excellence is a decision, is one of our core values. So it would make absolutely no sense to me to say excellence is a decision and then have really gross like equipment. Yeah. Oh yeah. Right? Because that's not excellent.

unknown 20:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

So now I'm walking around with this shirt on that says excellence is a decision, and I'm hauling my duct tape mats across my floor that, you know, was from, you know, the 90s. No, no. And that's not to say we don't have parts parts of our facility that needs to be.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Yeah, they're on the list, they're on the list of things to upgrade over time. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

But I will tell you a funny story about that because our rule in the gym is no duct tape. Like we don't, like, that's kind of our, it's like we don't hold stuff together with duct tape. Sitting there on the tumble track and out comes this mat, like probably four rolls of duct tape on it. This like, what is that block thing?

SPEAKER_01 21:35

That oh, the half circle.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

And I'm like, what is that?

SPEAKER_01 21:41

And where has that been? It hides in the team area. And the girls, we use it so much, which is why it gets so busted down. And like we love it. It's like one of our favorite mats, but we know if Courtney sees it, so we hide it in the team.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Yes, they stand on it or something. And I'm like, what? What is that? Like, oh no, no, it's fine, it's fine. It's our it's like our one thing and it usually stays hidden, but it's out. I can't remember why it was out. I was like, oh my gosh, but it's so bonass like, don't you think we could find a new one of those?

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Well, there was this thing, we had a sting mat too that was just so Yeah, that died. It's the yeah, it finally got thrown away. But it's the one that the old the upper levels drape over the bar for their release move. So it it takes a lot of tension and it gets ripped. Yeah. And it was so ripped. And you were like, can we just buy a new one?

SPEAKER_00 22:32

This looks horrible, but the girls love it because it's so soft, because it's so good. But yeah, yeah, it's funny. So, so my point, our point being set yourself standards before the before it becomes a money issue, right? So before you look at the book, how do you want to conduct yourself? Right? How do you want to, what, what do you think would be reasonable to spend? And then make the plan to reinvest and spend that every year. And if you can up it, up it. If it's been a really good year and you're getting towards, you know, December and you're like, wow, we're doing really well. Go to, I mean, we do this in December. I go to the directors and I'm like, give me your wish list. Yep. Some of the things I can give them, like, or some of the things we can we can invest in, and then some of the things I'm like, good to know they would like that. That can go into the next year. So yeah, it's it hurts to let go of the money, but it's totally worth it.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

Yeah. I will also say, so again, like from a uh well, social media standpoint, because that's where I post it on, but in terms of like letting your customers know too, and your customers seeing it, right? I usually we we put those wish lists in in December, and then usually by the time things get ordered and shipped and manufactured, they come in the summer. So I I usually have some sort of like Christmas in July post or something like that of like new stuff that we get put on social. Everyone loves to see it. They're like, oh, that looks so nice, or that looks so fun. And then one year we did a big investment and another big investment, and it was a new, all new carpet bound foam for a spring floor, which is what how what that's a good is that's a whole budget?

SPEAKER_00 24:17

10 grand maybe 10, 15. But okay, yeah. But it was a healthy chunk of it. You get like one massive expense a year, and that that was I think our big expense for the year. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

And so I ended up filming a little video, 30 seconds, and it was just like showing the new carpet bound foam and being like, Yeah, we just installed brand new two inch or two and a half, whatever carpet bound foam.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

This is great because X, Y, and Z, you know, like we Yeah, well, and also then when the team parents were asking about their registry, like they were asking us about the fees that they pay. One of my responses to that was it was it was an honest response of, well, here's how much money we invested in the team side of the gym. And here's the new equipment we bought for team. Yeah. And that literally got several thank you emails of like, oh, yeah, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Like on that, on that carpet bound phone video, there, if you go back and look, there are comments on it that are like, this is so great. Like, thank you for keeping such a well-kept facility. Like, there's literally thank yous in the comments from that video. And it was a 20-second, 20, 30 second video that we did. We were gonna buy it anyway. Like, we didn't do it for the video, but no, but it it shows your community what you're what you're doing, and and it it goes appreciated. Yeah, it does.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

So the common theme that's running through these the continuing education for coaches, the front desk staff and systems, the equipment is essentially the goal of investing, which investing is a long-term strategy. It's not a quick fix. And what you want to be doing is setting your mindset, setting your values, setting the way that you do things, setting your intentions to the long-term mindset of we are going to spend in order to get a return on our investment that I'm gonna go one higher level is good for everyone. Would be great, right? Because it's good for the customers, it's good for the coaches, and it's good for the business. So are you playing the long-term game? And where, here's the here's the self-reflection question. Where have you been skimping? Yeah. Where do you know you should be investing and you have chosen not to?

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Yeah. What duct tape covered mat have you just been going?

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

And turning around every time you see it.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Yeah. Ask yourself that and then let's get to work on that. Right? It's it's, you know, early in the year, even if you can't fix it right now, can you budget it for November? Right? Can you earmark, you know, for for December when, you know, you so can you plan that staff meeting in the at the end of August that will be serving as your rec coach investment, right? So see what you can do with that. Where where is it that you need to be investing that you know that right now you're not? And can you make an action plan to fix that? Yeah. All right, everybody. We hope you enjoyed this episode and we hope you keep on thriving.