What I Re-Learned in 2009
2009 was a great personal and professional year for me. Boston University won the National Championship in ice hockey. Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning had an "up" year in a down economy. My family remained healthy and happy. In addition I wrote a new book and had a huge success with Functional Strength Coach Vol 3. Lastly, StrengthCoach.com has grown tremendously.
I had lots of things reinforced for me this year that I want to share. Here are just a few:
1- Know what you don't know. At Fitness Millions last spring I watched Pat Beith speak and realized that I would be much better off letting an experienced internet marketing expert market my new DVD seminar. The result was that Functional Strength Coach Vol 3.0 was the most successful product I have ever done. In the same vein, after reading Dan John's excellent book Never Let Go I was smart enough to contact Laree Draper ( who edited Dan's book) to help me with mine. Again the result was a product that far exceeded my expectations.
2- Know What You Don't Know, Part 2. In addition to attending Fitness Millions we took our staff to a Thomas Plummer Seminar and to the Results Fitness Business Seminars You won't get better in a vacuum. Thomas and the Cosgrove's have been a huge source of both help and ideas.
3- Accept help. In line with the above, Anthony Renna came to me with the idea ( actually in 08) for the StrengthCoach Podcast. I was smart enough once again to not get in the way of a good idea. Everyone knows how that turned out.
4- Always get involved with good people. Although I have known this all along the last year just reaffirmed this for me. Pat, Laree and Anthony just add to the list of good people I'm lucky enough to be involved with. That is also why I am so loyal to Chris Poirier and Perform Better. Chris is a great person and he hires really good people.
5- Empower your employees. My partner Bob Hanson and I knew that 2009 had the potential to be a tough year for businesses. Our solution was to do a better job at everything we did. We improved our marketing, our staff meetings and made some great additions to an already great staff. The result as I said in the first paragraph was an increase in sales in the worst economy of our lives,
6- Social Media is the wave of the future. Get started. Join Facebook. Open a Twitter account. Don't be the guy sitting there thinking "It's a fad". It is not, it is like the telephone and the computer, only bigger.
7- Ryan Lee saw the future. Get a website, get a blog. I can't believe how many people ignored him, many because they took things personally. Although Ryan has moved out of fitness he helped a lot of very successful people move forward in the field. Instead of emulating him people jealously blame him for the mistakes of others.
8- Reread The Four Agreements, even if you just read the agreements without the book
9- Learn to say No but only after a bunch of yes's. If you are under 40, yes should be the number one word in your vocabulary. Can you speak at this seminar? Yes? Train this client? Yes. Never say no to an opportunity to improve yourself or your business. If you are over 40 and have kids, learn how to say No. Life is too short.
10- Celebrate over-delivery. I get emails all the time from clients praising my coaches. I used to quietly thank them for a job well done. Now I forward the email to everyone on my staff and title it Another Great Over-delivery Example. Everybody likes recognition and we have to make sure we give it. I can thank Pat Rigsby for this one.
I could go on forever. The key is to never stop learning and to always believe there is something you can be doing to improve yourself and to improve your business.
