Know yourself for complete success
Having worked my way from being a personal trainer as well as then managing hundreds, I have first hand experience of the challenges and battles that face building a successful business.
The challenges are many but the rewards are potentially so good they outweigh these. Being able to manage yourself, your business and be in complete control of your time is a true blessing. For me, the greatest challenge of all is yourself and this isn't just a challenge that you face once but an ongoing journey that everyone who decides to operate self employed should commit to continually reflecting on.
The thing is, in a job environment, you have your set parameters. You have (in most situations) a clear role description and understand your responsibilities as well as a team of people around you who are there to guide, support and work cohesively alongside you. If a scenario occurs that you know isn't within your remit, you know who or where to go with it ensuring that it is dealt with properly.
As I mentioned, I'm speaking from personal experience and in the early days, like most trainers out there, my priority was to build a business and I made mistakes of wanting so hard to please clients and potential clients that I would try and be the expert of everything. Let's face it, if you were the expert on all matters relating to health and fitness, you wouldn't have time in the day to speak with clients. The industry, research and trends move so fast that you would have to keep your head in books every hour of every day and still, that time wouldn't be quite enough.
The key is to know yourself, your strengths and what you enjoy. Inversely, know your weaknesses, what you're not so great at and what you don't enjoy. Being honest with yourself on this and aligning this knowledge to how you project your professional status to your clients will bring you a much stronger chance of a long and successful business. Trying to profess in areas that are a little out of your comfort zone is an extremely dangerous strategy that puts you, your client and the lifespan of your reputation at risk. Giving clients the best possible service whether it means you delivering the work or referring them to the best placed individual is absolute best practise and you'll benefit on many levels. Clients will give you the credit for having directed them in the first place and you'll be able to start developing a successful referral scheme with other professionals. The other side is that, knowing your strengths will help you understand your niche and areas of specialisation. Again, these may change through your career and continually reflecting on knowing yourself, strengths and weaknesses will help you be in tune with this.
Whilst businesses survive on cash flow, prioritising giving the best value to the customer over putting the most value in your pocket in the quickest time will help keep your business alive and flourishing longer term.
The challenges are many but the rewards are potentially so good they outweigh these. Being able to manage yourself, your business and be in complete control of your time is a true blessing. For me, the greatest challenge of all is yourself and this isn't just a challenge that you face once but an ongoing journey that everyone who decides to operate self employed should commit to continually reflecting on.
The thing is, in a job environment, you have your set parameters. You have (in most situations) a clear role description and understand your responsibilities as well as a team of people around you who are there to guide, support and work cohesively alongside you. If a scenario occurs that you know isn't within your remit, you know who or where to go with it ensuring that it is dealt with properly.
As I mentioned, I'm speaking from personal experience and in the early days, like most trainers out there, my priority was to build a business and I made mistakes of wanting so hard to please clients and potential clients that I would try and be the expert of everything. Let's face it, if you were the expert on all matters relating to health and fitness, you wouldn't have time in the day to speak with clients. The industry, research and trends move so fast that you would have to keep your head in books every hour of every day and still, that time wouldn't be quite enough.
The key is to know yourself, your strengths and what you enjoy. Inversely, know your weaknesses, what you're not so great at and what you don't enjoy. Being honest with yourself on this and aligning this knowledge to how you project your professional status to your clients will bring you a much stronger chance of a long and successful business. Trying to profess in areas that are a little out of your comfort zone is an extremely dangerous strategy that puts you, your client and the lifespan of your reputation at risk. Giving clients the best possible service whether it means you delivering the work or referring them to the best placed individual is absolute best practise and you'll benefit on many levels. Clients will give you the credit for having directed them in the first place and you'll be able to start developing a successful referral scheme with other professionals. The other side is that, knowing your strengths will help you understand your niche and areas of specialisation. Again, these may change through your career and continually reflecting on knowing yourself, strengths and weaknesses will help you be in tune with this.
Whilst businesses survive on cash flow, prioritising giving the best value to the customer over putting the most value in your pocket in the quickest time will help keep your business alive and flourishing longer term.
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