269. You CAN’T control everything, complete ownership is clickbait, too many PT staff doesn’t work

Navigating the choppy seas of studio ownership after a recent buyout, I found myself steering through a storm of digital dilemmas and staffing structures. The anchor dropped in our latest team meeting, revealing key insights into the transfer of power and the intricacies of managing shared usernames and passwords with the past owners. We also tackled the balance between a sea of part-time staff and the steadiness of a dedicated team, emphasizing the importance of a focused management crew to keep the studio ship sailing smoothly. Join me as we chart the course of both professional and personal growth, understanding the significance of cultivating lasting relationships and fostering the development of others.

As the moon shadowed the sun during a recent solar eclipse, I was reminded of the beauty of relinquishing the helm to forces beyond our control. This celestial event became a metaphor for life, teaching me to embrace the unpredictable, like cloudy skies during an eclipse, and to cherish the constants—family, friends, and nature's splendor. This episode is a voyage into extreme ownership of our actions and the serenity that comes from accepting the ebb and flow of the uncontrollable. Set sail with me as we explore the art of finding joy in life's simple, yet uncontrollable moments, and learn to ride the tides of change with grace and poise. Business Buyers Club
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:32

All right, we are zipping home, we're having a great day. Today is a great day. We're not going to overwork, overstress or panic. So I had the team meeting went well, a couple items that popped up that I'm learning from in a transition Someone from one of the old studios. So I bought a studio that was under the ownership of one equity cohort, one investment group, and of the three studios I bought one of them.

Speaker 1: 1:03

Someone bought another one just recently and the group is keeping that first studio and, unfortunately, some of the administrative headaches is the usernames and passwords for items like a file storage system, a scheduling system, a photo library system. Sometimes the username and passwords are under someone's name, sometimes they're under a location account and so our studio since it was like the third of the three studios' ownership a lot of the usernames and passwords are either under one of the guys that sold or it's under the studio email from the first studio that they ever owned. And so where it's been a hassle for us is now that the three studios have been split apart. An owner at the starting studio is saying, hey, I wanted to clean up some of our files, save money on storage costs, I'm gonna start deleting some photos and videos and, you know, flyers and brochures and PDFs, because I don't want to pay for storage costs and in the contract my studio is going to have access to everything. And so we've just had this whole time own like they're sharing their username and password with us. That's cool, that's nice. However, that's a hassle because now when they want to start deleting files, they're deleting their file but also our files, and so now we're having to say you know, thanks for the heads up. Contractually we have access to those.

Speaker 1: 2:26

So either, like, hand over that username and password so that we can keep it and you won't have to maintain it, or we need copies of all that, and so just some back and forth, like miscommunications, getting all that organized. What I should have done right away I should have transferred ownership and access instantly so that only my studio, my studio, would have a copy of everything and not allowing the sharing all going on. I should have had a clean cut from all the other studios, all the other individuals, so that any changes they would make would not impact us whatsoever. So that's something I'm learning Cut ties from co-mingling stuff far too much earlier on. I should have done that. I talked with the head manager one-on-one. Afterwards it went really well.

Speaker 1: 3:14

Some staffing things that we're seeing, at least, is we have a handful of like part-time shift leads, other individuals that help run the studio when the head manager is not on site, and it's been a little tricky because some of the when you're working like two shifts a week or three shifts a week, you're not going to be in the know as to, like club weekly happenings, certain promotions, different things that we're running each and every week, and there's less, there's communication. Things get dropped as well, as it's a little trickier when, like, something in studio has to happen Like hey, can someone update this billboard, can someone replace the water filter? This bathroom needs an out of order sign, things that happen in person that you can't really do at home, and when you have a lot of part-time staff, they don't get the memos, they don't get up to speed on things because they assume all the head manager will do it or one of the other many part-time managers will handle it, and so there's no one that is personally invested in that responsibility list, and so I'm learning. It's good to have lots of part-time people so that things for sure get covered. A drawback, though, is that when everyone assumes it's going to get covered, then no one makes sure it gets covered, and so the head manager is still implicitly dealing with a lot. So I'm learning a happy medium Asking around like what do other studios do?

Speaker 1: 4:43

What other studios hand as their employment structures? They have one head honcho general manager and they have an assistant manager that's doing the rest of everything, and so they have shift leads that will handle and fill hours for like vacations, for evenings that are kind of random, and they make sure, like the place is staffed, but the responsibilities are 100% on either the top person or the second tier person, and there's no like third, fourth, fifth, sixth, part-time managers. And so that's something that I'm learning you need. You can't have too many people involved, but also not too few, otherwise responsibilities trickle down, and so that's probably why a two-person marriage situation works out best. Responsibilities even happen to person A or person B, but you don't have seven people in a marital relationship, otherwise stuff just never happens and things fall through the cracks in your home life. So anyhow, just a comedic take on so that I'm seeing in a working environment.

Speaker 1: 5:48

So time to zip home, do some follow-ups from the studio session and figure out like, okay, we're going to stress about the things we can handle, we're not going to stress about the things we can handle, we're not going to stress about things that we cannot handle. And easier said than done. But I have so much energy in the day, and let's fast forward. 60 years from now, what do I want as an 80-year-old? As a 90-year-old, I want my kids to love hanging around with me. I want my wife to be happy to hang out with me. I want friends that have been there my whole life. I want to have some career accomplishments would be cool. I want to help train and up-level and equip people to win in life. And that's the destination. And along the way, hopefully there'll be some great businesses that have happened. Hopefully there'll be some good employee-employee relationships that have happened.

Speaker 1: 6:40

But realizing, like I'm not going to have owned this studio 60 years from now, I'm not going to I may or may not know my staff 60 years from now. I mean they'll all be older than me, so I probably will have outlived them. But at the end of the day, I need to invest my time and my energy where, 50 years from now, it's going to be something that I'm engaged on, and so I cannot stress myself into anxiety and uncertainty on things that I don't know will be, and so, um, I don't know. Man, that's when I invest my time and my energy. My job won't be here, my studio won't be here, my friend groups, hopefully, will still be alive from here, and if we're having a light session coming up, darn it. I didn't do enough to tee it up well, and I'm not going to let that be the be-all end-all.

Speaker 1: 7:37

We got a solar eclipse to prep for the rest of the day, so I'm going to go pick up, see if I can find some, some what are they called, those little glass things? I want to see the solar eclipse. It's cloudy today, though, so I hope the clouds fade away. I don't know, we'll find out, but that's where we're at today, that's where we're going. That's where we're going, and I'm learning to just let stuff go, to let it go, to not have stress when I breathe in and breathe out, to not upset my digestive system, to not lose sleep over things that I cannot control and, yes, there are things I cannot control.

Speaker 1: 8:13

Despite what the gurus tell you, I will have extreme ownership over everything. I'm going to have ownership over the input. I'm going to allow things to be outside of my output because I am not going to act like I can control everything. The eclipse is happening today, whether I control it or not, and that is not my fault that the eclipse is happening today, so I'm not going to panic if the sun goes out for two hours today. It is foolhardy to think that I can control that. No, I can't. That is ridiculous. So control what you can. You got 12 hours in a day. You got a family, friends, meals, oxygen, water and just let the rest be, because all it's supposed to do is to drive you crazy to think you can't control everything. So let's enjoy life, and enjoy life we shall. That's where we're at, that's where we're going. Let's rock and roll.