Whilst arguably somewhat broad and, consequentially, offensive, George Bernard Shaw's phrase is now deeply embedded in British culture.
Perhaps a fairer line might be, "those who can, do; those who can't become politicians and run the country".
The last few years has seen the proliferation of the "fitness academy".
There are, without question, some great mentors in the industry with good courses, training new & existing gym owners in how to operate their business.
However, there are also a scary number of 'snake oil salesmen' - many of whom maybe ran a gym for a little as 6-months; struggled to make it work; and now they teach others.
But teach them what? How to fail at running a gym?!
Recent times have also seen the retirement (early or otherwise) of some of the more well-established, well-known, and more genuine operators in the industry. This has, unfortunately, left a higher-ratio of 'pretenders'.
Personally knowing several good, decent individuals fall for 'scams' where, tempted by the 'magic beans' on offer, they have paid fairly considerable sums of money to join groups where the 'guru' has little-to-no genuine knowledge to impart, this is a topic that has a tendency to elevate my bladder temperature.
Let's project ahead a little...
A struggling gym owner, failing to succeed in making their own business work, opens an 'academy'. They then pass on their 'skills' to other individuals, who go on to apply their learned knowledge to their gyms.
But, oh dear, the knowledge doesn't bring the desired results and the student is now struggling to run their gym successfully.
"I know", they think... "I can open an academy and teach others. There looks to be good money in that!"
And, so it grows, with each iteration of failed gym owner teaching the next generation how to also fail.
It truly is a Ponzi Scheme! Everyone does nicely until the last iteration of student, who has no further gym owners to teach. Every gym in the country is now an "academy" and our robot overlords step in to instigate the first, annual 'purge'.
There are an awful lot of individuals in the fitness industry who are self-professed 'gurus'.
But can one person know everything there is to know about running a successful training business?
At Quoox, we think not - and the evidence to justify our belief is seldom hard to find. By way of example, a recent marketplace review we conducted indicated that a weakness in the skills of most 'industry experts' is that of "technology". How, in 2022, can you be a fitness industry advisor and either be technology averse or limited in your technical knowledge?
This is where we believe that, as applies to many businesses, strength comes from the team.
The SGPT Infinity team comprises a team of individuals, each with multiple skill-sets, but each also having a specialist skill.
We pride ourselves in providing specialist and knowledgeable advice to our community of likeminded gym owners. We then support this further with systems, processes, workflows and automations that enable our clients to hit the ground running - and to be able to benefit from expertise in multiple areas without having to become all-round experts themselves (because, who can?!)
Membership of the SGPT Infinity community is then strengthened further with the allocation of a dedicated account manager, with whom you meet weekly. They provide the 'common-thread' between all of your interactions, and act as a gateway to ensure that you always get access to the experience & knowledge you require - whatever that may be.
