Last week I had a great opportunity to publish a guest post for the dude, Pete Dupuis (Co-Founder Cressey Sports Performance). I wrote about the 3 reasons I failed to open my gym back in 2016. Without recapping that whole article - you can check it out right here- I wanted to touch on three things you SHOULD do if you want to live out your own dream of owning your own facility.

1) You should have a transferable revenue stream that covers your monthly fixed expenses

My BFF John Moljo (Owner, Team Moljo S&C) has always given this advice to ANYONE who wants to open their own facility (check out the full podcast episode reference here). Do you have an exisiting revenue stream that can come to your facility? Is it your client roster list? Is it online coaching? Is there a product you sell? Do you have contracted yearly speaking engagements?

You want the cash flow. You need the cash flow. If you read my article for Pete, then you know cash flow is king.

2) You should have enough capital to avoid taking out a loan

This is the advice no one takes seriously. I always get the response of “well then my gym is going to be small” - GOOD! Become efficient, become excellent at your service, and THEN in lease two, explore something bigger that you do not need to take out a loan on.

Tip #2 will keep your build out budget in check and make you appreciate tip #1.

3) You should have a soft 1 year vision and firm 3-5 vision that see’s out your first lease

I say a ‘soft’ vision because things can happen in the first 12 months. Regardless, you should have a written out vision of where your facility will be after a year. Now do that same practice for the length of your lease. When you know what you want and where you want to be, you can work backwards and create the ‘check points’ at various time periods.

Map out your happiness the best that you can so when you wake up questioning all your decisions you have the positive mindset of knowing what you’re working for!