Got a question from a gym owner recently about team meetings.

It’s actually a great question and yours truly has a great answer.

The question was: 

How do you structure team meetings when everyone has competing schedules?

There’s a LOT I can unpack here but I’m going to work hard to maintain my 500 word maximum on my emails…. bonus points to you gym owners that count every word of my emails to keep me honest.

I can easily go into an answer but there are few considerations before I shed some light on this. 

Consideration #1: Decide if a weekly full team meeting for everyone is truly necessary 

When businesses grow, there tends to be a lot flying around. The fastest way to get people to hate meetings and all of sudden start “having trouble” fitting the meeting into their schedule …you know that the meetings were covering too much boring stuff that was not relevant to them. 

For instance, your trainers may not want to know or care about the latest evergreen marketing strategy you are putting together. 

The fix here would be a weekly training meeting where only the trainers would meet weekly to communicate on everything needed to continue to do a great job on the floor.

Consideration #2: Is forming a leadership team necessary?

In my experience, once gyms get to around 300K in revenue and have over 7 team members, forming a leadership team is a great decision.

I formed my leadership team about 7 years ago and it’s been a weekly meeting ever since.

This team is usually formed by your top team members that either own a particular function of your business or have shown great leadership through solid performance over an extended period of time. 

This team meets weekly for 60-90 minutes and discusses the most important issues related to the business. As an owner that’s usually on an island with your thoughts…this meeting gets the rest of your key team members to help not only breakthrough through challenges but also hold YOU accountable. 

There is no worse feeling than to show up at a meeting and to tell your team you did NOT do something you said you would do. 

If a FULL weekly team meeting is necessary here are some thoughts 

1. Demonstrate the value of the meeting. The team needs to know why they should attend and should help them do their job better and improve the business. If they don’t get behind this, visit your core values and be sure everyone is on board.

2. There should be a proposed agenda or structure to the meeting. No one wants to be part of a long tangent.

3. If in the budget, pay team members to attend…that ought to do it J

4. Allow virtual attendance but only when absolutely necessary and set a rule they need to notify you in advance of them being virtual 

5. Keep meetings at same day/time every week and never cancel the meeting. The meeting needs to be built into their schedule. The more flexible the meeting day and time the less effective the process will be. In instances where there are schedules that vary often, possibly consider changing meetings a few times per year.

6. Have a group discussion as to the best time and day to have the meeting, then get a full commitment from the team. 

7. Have someone create an outline with notes from the meeting to give to people that miss the meeting.

8. There MUST be action items at each meeting, otherwise nothing will get done. 

9. Add personal development to your meeting agendas to give value to your team and help them become better at their role.

10. Remember that when your staff has competing schedules there may not be a perfect solution the only thing you can do is your best to build a sound structure but understand there could be times when things get off track with your meeting pulse. That being said, the times where I have been off with our meeting structure are the times things get the most chaotic…if you’re too lenient, things will get crazy. 

I’m well over my word count.

Gotta go.

Vince Gabriele 

P.S. Want some advice about how to become a better leader for your team? 

Send an email to Jill@vincegabriele.com with CHAT and I’ll help you out.

P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here are 4 ways to work with me

1. Join the Marketing Master Insiders Club for 60 Days for $1 (Most Popular)

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2. Get a FREE Copy of My Marketing Book

Get a complete guide to marketing your gym shipped to your door for free (just cover shipping). The bonus resource page that comes with the book delivers thousands of dollars of free marketing advice.

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3. FREE 45-minute Marketing Strategy Call
Book a call with me so I can dissect your current marketing plan and give you advice to get it cranking.

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4. Work with me 1-1 for 90 Days

Each year I work with a handful of 1-1 clients and have one spot remaining for private client work. This is NOT for newbie gym owners but if you’re cranking out strong six figures and need the leadership coaching to take it to 7 figures this is for you.

Send an email to Vince@gabrielefitness.com, with “Coaching” and we’ll hop on a call to see if this is the right fit.
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