Do you pay yourself first? Meaning both do you pay yourself a wage and do you give yourself time off to recover and time you plan to workout exactly the way you’d tell your clients to? This post is just for you. Because most trainers who have started their business in 2020 don’t yet have the business side of things down. How to pay themselves, how much, when, whether that’s moving money from one account to the other or it’s a business check… first steps first. Let’s talk about how much the job you’re doing is worth and how can show up to do it best. Pay Yourself First As a fitness entrepreneur I would bet you fall into one of two categories. 1 – You don’t pay yourself enough. You take a payment from your business only if you make money and you move it to your personal account when you need it. You pay yourself less than you would pay anyone else for the same job you do. You will workout before anything else, there’s no way you skip that but you’re not as disciplined when it comes to running your business 2 – You don’t give yourself the same disciplined exercise and nutrition support as you do your clients to get. You get caught at your computer, returning emails and phone calls and writing your programs … and don’t eat, don’t get up often enough, don’t workout the way you should, drink too much coffee…. And you promise yourself that tomorrow will be better, that when you catch up, or when you make enough money it will be different. If they’re not perfect descriptions for you, they’re very close. How do I know? 37 years of doing it myself. One or the other or both. And even if I have made huge leaps and bounds… 2020 put me right back a few steps. In fact, today… this year I’m committing to two things myself, I pay myself first… 1)with workouts. No more .. work straight through from 5am to 11am or noon and miss the workout I wanted to do. … and 2) with support staff. I paid myself crap for much of 2020. As we all did, I cut expenses everywhere I could to balance the months where panic was evident and spending from customers was down. But… as business took off (and it definitely did) I continued to do jobs that could have been done by someone for $10-15 an hour instead of the value that I have in the company. You Can Afford It: You Can't Afford Not To You may have always wanted to hear this from someone… the sun rises and sets with you. But in your business, it’s true. Yet, it’s not the podcast production, or the blog posts or the scheduling of clients or social media posting… it’s in the vision and the programs and products only you can make and the team of support that only you can lead. No one else on your team should see themselves as a visionary of your business. You’ve got a problem if that’s true. You hire a team to implement the things that you can’t. Within their scope of practice – say technology – they can tell you what’s possible when you’ve described to them what you want, but YOU and only you, call the shots. So.. if you aren’t sure how to not do it all… and you aren’t sure if how you spend time is the BEST use of your time how to create systems and schedules that fit with the growth you want how to be more than a fitness instructor or health coach with a “certification” or collection of them Then let’s change that. Now Is the Time If you have the skills, the heart, and the desire to help without the marketing and sales skills your business will be just a dream. Or a nightmare… lots of time money and energy but not much to show for it. It’s something you like to call a business but truly couldn’t survive if that’s all you had to depend on to survive. I know how that feels. And I know the mistakes… I’ve made them. You don’t need another certification. Even after you get it, or another degree, you need to market, to sell, to have visibility and a voice. You're Invited Meet me Thursday evening January 7th. Whether you want to work with women in midlife where I’ve made my niche, or you have a niche you love, the abil