Don't make the mistake I made that cost me 40% of my business overnight.

When I had my first studio making around 1 million with a team of 10 I had 2 high producing personal trainers conspire behind my back and leave at the same time taking a bunch of clients with them to start their own business.

Together they delivered a big portion of the business and it hurt when they left.

At that point I understood the need for systems but I hadn't felt the impact of not having them yet.

That loss kicked my ass in gear to start taking systems seriously. I reached out right away to a business coach who had already been pointing out this vulnerability and got started on the implementation of systems right away.

After that day, instead of being people focused I became system focused.

Instead of seeking exceptional people that were hard to find. That took 100 resumes to sift through to find 1 great one - I asked myself:

"How can I build a business around the skills of ordinary people?"

And with that I was forced to ask myself the difficult question I had been avoiding:

"How do I build an exceptional business?"

"One that functions without me?"

Instead of organizing my business around people I started organizing my business around the 12 functions of a service business:

Leadership, finance, management, branding, delight, service, sales, lead generation, coaching, onboarding, recruiting, and hiring.

I build systems within each business function.

I let systems run the business and people run the systems.

I realize that people come and go but systems remain constant.

That a skyscraper can only be as high as its structure will allow. The systems are the structure.

Eventually this allowed me to expand to multiple locations where all I had to do was make decisions, strategize, write and have a 15 minute meeting each day.

It also allowed me to sell that business.