How to Delegate in Your Gym: 5 Lessons From an Owner Who Stepped Away

What’s up, Gym World?

Ben Pickard started Lean Strong Fitness in 2015 with two polos, a laptop, and a rented space that cost him $10 per hour per client—his first month brought in $667.

Today, his general manager runs the business, and Ben calls himself “very part-time.” Mateo sat down with Ben, also COO of Business for Unicorns, to learn how to delegate in your gym without watching it fall apart.

Lesson 1: How to Delegate in Your Gym Starts With the Job You Hate Most

Ben loves his gym and the impact it has, but he hated running the day-to-day. He opened a gym because he likes helping people with fitness, not because he likes dealing with membership freezes and signups.

So he hired a general manager, and it took a couple of tries to find the right person; however, he now calls his current GM an absolute rockstar.

Lesson 2: Learn How To Trust

When Mateo asked how to delegate, Ben called this the most important and the hardest part: trust somebody and get out of their way.

He thinks trust is given, not earned, and he watches for indicators along the way. His GM doesn’t have the banking passwords, but she does get room to make decisions and iterate.

Ben often reminds her she doesn’t need permission for something, and she reminds him which things he shouldn’t have an opinion on.

Lesson 3: Let Them Burn a Few Sales

When Ben trained his GM on sales consults, he realized she would have to burn a few before she understood the job. Role-playing a script is very different from facing a real prospect with a hard objection.

He uses the same logic with trainers: Let someone sleep through a morning session once, and they’ll own four alarm clocks.

Here’s how he decides when to step in:

• Is the person still learning and improving?

• Did they lose to a weak pitch or to a really hard objection?

• Are they a values and culture fit?

Lesson 4: How to Delegate in Your Gym With Systems Your Team Can Follow

For years, Ben’s brain was the handbook, which worked when the business was smaller. But things become challenging once you start to have a team.

His rule of thumb is “if this happens, then we do that.”

Greeting someone by name within 3 seconds of the door chime is easy to write down.

A system doesn’t have to be fancy. It can be a spreadsheet, a Google Doc, or a screen-share video of an end-of-shift checklist.

Lesson 5: Put Your Team First

Mateo asked what Ben would tell the guy who started the gym in 2015, and he gave two answers.

Put the team first. Ben says the business would have worked as well or better if he’d put the same effort into his team. He didn’t plan compensation early, and he didn’t know the difference between a contractor and an employee.

Stop running the business like it might disappear tomorrow. For a stretch, he worked from 5:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Sometimes you have to dig in, he says, but probably not for 18 months straight.

How to Delegate in Your Gym Starting Next Week

Ben’s advice is to work on one or two things at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed. He runs quarterly planning, borrowed from Gino Wickman’s Traction (EOS), where you pick three to five projects and chip away at them.

TL;DR

If you want to know how to delegate in your gym:

• Hand off the part of the job you hate most

• Give trust first and watch for indicators.

• Let your GM lose a sale or two while they’re learning.

• Write down your “if this, then that” before the team grows.

• Put your team first, and pick three to five projects a quarter.

If you’re working on your own sales training, Will Harrison’s episode on selling gym memberships without feeling pushy is a good next read.

cheers,

j