I recently sat down with Mark Fisher from Mark Fisher Fitness and Business for Unicorns to talk about all things fitness and business. Watch the full interview here and check out the show notes below.
Show Notes
At the top of the show, Mark talks about his 2 NYC gyms, Mark Fisher Fitness. Mark talks about how the tagline sums up his 2 gyms “serious fitness, for ridiculous humans.”
He talks about his business coaching “Business for unicorns.”
I ask Mark about how he creates such a compelling experience for clients.
Mark believes that emotional intelligence, and being able to “meet people where they are at” and create genuine friendships are both highly important.
Mark highly recommends reading the classic book “How To Win Friends and Influence People.”
Mark believes that community is built by talking about things that really matter to you with people who really care. This is why “coaching conversations” has been a course included in “Business for Unicorns.”
Mark said that the feedback for this course has been incredible. This is because this is helping to create better experiences for people. When you do this, people get better results, and you have more fun as a coach.
Mark thinks that a lot of business courses are very “brain dumpy.” That you get bombarded with tons of information. Instead he runs his courses by focusing on small habits where people can build momentum.
Constant feedback has been a huge part of Mark’s courses. He talks about getting huge amounts of data and surveys back every week, so that they can continue to improve.
Mark emails 1/13th of his 7-800 ninjas every week. So people aren’t harassed continuously, that favor is only being called in every 3 months or so.
They also have glow and grows emails for team members . “Glows” are where someone has exceeded expectations and done something amazing. The whole team gets an email update about this. The “grows” are a point of missed expectation. This is where a customer is having an informal conversation with a team member and expresses in the service. That team member will do a report that everyone on the team then gets by email.
These are the 3 feedback systems.
Mark also talks about how you can’t get too hung up on overly vocal complaints. Sometimes we can react a bit too much to the emotion here, and it may skew your perception of how things are actually going. The service may just not be for them, or they are having a bad day. Having these systems in place helps Mark not get swayed by this.
When it comes to getting feedback for online businesses, Marks advice is to just start asking. This could be as simple as sending an email out to everyone every 6 months with a survey.
Mark is fascinated that more businesses aren’t asking for feedback from customers. This can be a great source of continual improvement for you as a business owner.
For anyone that might be sensitive when receiving negative feedback, Mark recommends reading “Thanks for the feedback.”
Mark says that although it can be tough to receive negative feedback, it’s crucial for mastery of any skill. Mastery in anything requires both deliberate practice and feedback.
When people are finishing their membership, Mark tries to get feedback here too. He wants to find out what they could have done differently that would have made them stay.
They also send a follow-up email 2 weeks later asking again. They make this anonymous so that people can share their true thoughts without worrying about hurting their feelings.
Mark thinks that MFF has continued to be successful because they have never bought into their own press. They continue to look for honest feedback and not get too caught up on the nice things people are saying about them. This and staying hungry have been big factors in maintaining success.
I quiz Mark on his advice for people, who have been in the fitness industry less than 5 years, wanting to make more of an impact.
Mark thinks that great coaching is more than coaching a push-up or kettlebell swing. That said, he thinks it’s critical to get good at those things first. After this, developing the soft skills of communications and coaching is critical.
You are not going to grow your business by getting even more proficient at deadlifting with Mrs. Rosini. What you need is to get better at marketing and client communication.
You can learn more about Mark Fisher at:
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