Ben Pickard on Handing Your Gym to a GM Without Losing Your Mind

🌎 Ben Pickard, owner of Lean Strong Fitness in Ontario and COO of Business for Unicorns, joins Mateo to break down how he went from doing everything himself to trusting a general manager to run his gym, why you have to let good people make mistakes, and how to turn the systems in your head into ones your whole team can follow.

P.S. If you like the show, then you'll love the Gym World newsletter. Every Friday, John Franklin breaks down the possibilities of making money in the fitness industry. Subscribe here (https://usekilo.com/gym-world/) so you don't miss out.

📱 Socials:

Ben Pickard (Instagram): https://www.instagram.com/benjamin__pickard/

Lean Strong Fitness (Instagram): https://www.instagram.com/leanstrongfitness/

Lean Strong Fitness (Website): https://lsfit.ca/

Business for Unicorns (Website): https://www.businessforunicorns.com

🔥Show Notes

• 0:00 — Intro & meet Ben Pickard, who started his gym with two polos, a laptop, and a $667 first month
• 0:58 — The niche: a 55-year-old with two kids, a bad knee, and no love for the gym
• 2:13 — Why Ben stopped chasing pro athletes and found the clients who light him up
• 5:16 — Run a successful gym with Kilo (visit https://usekilo.com/gw)
• 5:48 — Why Ben hired a general manager after hating the day-to-day
• 7:17 — Trust your GM, then get out of their way
• 8:18 — Why you have to let them burn a few sales
• 10:56 — How long to let a team member struggle before you step in
• 12:11 — Scaling without systems: when your brain is the handbook
• 13:26 — Systems made simple: "if this, then that"
• 15:24 — Advice for his 2015 self: put the team first
• 17:08 — Why he'd stop running the business like it might disappear tomorrow
• 19:35 — One thing to do next week: pick 3 to 5 projects and chip away
• 21:00 — Why a 1,100-client gym runs its lead follow-up on spreadsheets
• 25:13 — Outro: where to find Ben
• 27:02 — Run a successful gym with Kilo (visit https://usekilo.com/gw)