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Last year I posted the news that I had taken over ownership and management of the MMA gym where I had been training for almost two decades. (Thread here) Since it's been a little over a year, I thought I'd report my progress in that endeavor.
Goal #1: Keep the gym open and get it back in the black financially.
Results: Success. We've kept the bills paid and have steadily (if slowly) grown our student body and our profit margin. Pretty good, considering that our facility is quite large, which means both our rent and our utilities are high.
Goal #2: Convert the gym into a professionally run business. My old coach kept the place open for a couple of decades with a decidedly less that professional management style, but for much of that time there wasn't much competition. Now we have a good number of good quality MMA and BJJ gyms in the area and we needed to up our game to stay competitive.
Results: Success. Most of the things on this list were stuff you would expect to be a given: reliable coverage for all classes on the schedule, returning all phone calls/emails/messages promptly, having insurance, paying taxes, keeping business paperwork up to date. But those are things my old coach wasn't doing and now we are.
Goal #3: Invest in fixing up the facility. After 20+ years, much of the equipment and our physical setup was not in the best of shape.
Results: Solid progress. We rebuilt the Judo floor, we repainted the lobby, we got rid of the broken-down outdoor boxing ring, we got the landlord to fix the leaky roof, and more. But we still have a bunch more improvements that I want to get done. I suspect it will take another year to have everything fixed up the way that I want it.
Goal #4: Start making enough profit so that we can pay our instructors. For 20+ years the gym has run on volunteer labor. I don't believe that's sustainable (as the coaches inevitably quit after a while) or ethical (unless we were to re-organize as a registered non-profit, which is not our goal).
Results: We are not yet making enough profit for us to reliably pay an hourly wage, unless we wanted to risk gambling every month on whether we had enough to pay both the instructors and the electric bill. But I didn't want to keep our instructors hanging on indefinitely with the promise of "one day you'll get paid." So as of this month we instituted quarterly profit sharing. Every quarter, we take our net profit from the month before, divide it by the hours of class time on the schedule, and then divvy it up among the instructors according to the total hours each teaches during the week. That leaves the other two months of the quarter where we can take the profits and either invest in fixing up the facility or pad the bank account for winter-time gas bills, taxes, ebbs in enrollment, and unexpected expenses. We handed out the first profit-sharing yesterday and will continue this way until I know our profit margin is high enough to reliably make payroll while also allowing for fluctuations in income and expenses
Goal #5: Improve my own skills and physical conditioning to match my new status as the head instructor.
Results: Mixed. Prior to taking over I was in a bit of a motivational slump and was only coming to the gym a couple of days per week. Now I'm teaching a minimum of 4 days per week, sometimes as many as 7 days per week if I have to cover for other instructors. That's definitely helped me get back in shape a bit and sharpen my skills. But I'm only attending other classes as a student about once every two weeks. I'm averaging no more than an hour per week of sparring, whereas 20 years ago I might be doing an hour of sparring per class. It's not terrible for a 62 year old, but I could be doing better. It's just hard to keep up the motivation when I have a full time day job, while also keeping up with teaching, handling the business side of the gym, taking care of family responsibilities, and dealing with the fact that I don't have the energy and recovery capacity in my 60s that I did in my 30s and 40s. But I'm determined to keep on making progress so that I can say my skills and conditioning have improved significantly when I deliver this report next year.
Overall, I'm pleased with my one-year report card. I have 5 years left until I can retire from my day job, and I'd really like our gym to be a thriving enterprise that I can devote myself to full time once I retire,
If any of you are ever passing through the Lexington, KY area, please stop by and pay us a visit. Four Seasons Martial Arts
Goal #1: Keep the gym open and get it back in the black financially.
Results: Success. We've kept the bills paid and have steadily (if slowly) grown our student body and our profit margin. Pretty good, considering that our facility is quite large, which means both our rent and our utilities are high.
Goal #2: Convert the gym into a professionally run business. My old coach kept the place open for a couple of decades with a decidedly less that professional management style, but for much of that time there wasn't much competition. Now we have a good number of good quality MMA and BJJ gyms in the area and we needed to up our game to stay competitive.
Results: Success. Most of the things on this list were stuff you would expect to be a given: reliable coverage for all classes on the schedule, returning all phone calls/emails/messages promptly, having insurance, paying taxes, keeping business paperwork up to date. But those are things my old coach wasn't doing and now we are.
Goal #3: Invest in fixing up the facility. After 20+ years, much of the equipment and our physical setup was not in the best of shape.
Results: Solid progress. We rebuilt the Judo floor, we repainted the lobby, we got rid of the broken-down outdoor boxing ring, we got the landlord to fix the leaky roof, and more. But we still have a bunch more improvements that I want to get done. I suspect it will take another year to have everything fixed up the way that I want it.
Goal #4: Start making enough profit so that we can pay our instructors. For 20+ years the gym has run on volunteer labor. I don't believe that's sustainable (as the coaches inevitably quit after a while) or ethical (unless we were to re-organize as a registered non-profit, which is not our goal).
Results: We are not yet making enough profit for us to reliably pay an hourly wage, unless we wanted to risk gambling every month on whether we had enough to pay both the instructors and the electric bill. But I didn't want to keep our instructors hanging on indefinitely with the promise of "one day you'll get paid." So as of this month we instituted quarterly profit sharing. Every quarter, we take our net profit from the month before, divide it by the hours of class time on the schedule, and then divvy it up among the instructors according to the total hours each teaches during the week. That leaves the other two months of the quarter where we can take the profits and either invest in fixing up the facility or pad the bank account for winter-time gas bills, taxes, ebbs in enrollment, and unexpected expenses. We handed out the first profit-sharing yesterday and will continue this way until I know our profit margin is high enough to reliably make payroll while also allowing for fluctuations in income and expenses
Goal #5: Improve my own skills and physical conditioning to match my new status as the head instructor.
Results: Mixed. Prior to taking over I was in a bit of a motivational slump and was only coming to the gym a couple of days per week. Now I'm teaching a minimum of 4 days per week, sometimes as many as 7 days per week if I have to cover for other instructors. That's definitely helped me get back in shape a bit and sharpen my skills. But I'm only attending other classes as a student about once every two weeks. I'm averaging no more than an hour per week of sparring, whereas 20 years ago I might be doing an hour of sparring per class. It's not terrible for a 62 year old, but I could be doing better. It's just hard to keep up the motivation when I have a full time day job, while also keeping up with teaching, handling the business side of the gym, taking care of family responsibilities, and dealing with the fact that I don't have the energy and recovery capacity in my 60s that I did in my 30s and 40s. But I'm determined to keep on making progress so that I can say my skills and conditioning have improved significantly when I deliver this report next year.
Overall, I'm pleased with my one-year report card. I have 5 years left until I can retire from my day job, and I'd really like our gym to be a thriving enterprise that I can devote myself to full time once I retire,
If any of you are ever passing through the Lexington, KY area, please stop by and pay us a visit. Four Seasons Martial Arts
