Sitting back in my chair in my gym in central Massachusetts, I am letting you all in on one thought that has been on my mind a lot lately. How do you know when you are ready to expand into more space? How will you decide if you should lease or build? 

I once had a business coach who told me not to even consider expanding until I had 250 students in the gym. Holy cannoli! I can just picture the look on the faces of my coaches when they read that. How can we be productive if we add more noise, more people, more chaos in? 

Kneejerk reaction – we can’t. That’s just crazy talk.

But in reality, what should determine your expansion plans and timing is your ability to continue to thrive in either situation.

A bigger space means more expenses. A higher rent. More money on utilities, cleaning costs, insurance, equipment… More is more in every aspect of the word. So can you afford it? 

I’ll be honest with you, I am never sure of that answer. 

Look, I understand how money works, but I do not currently own a functioning crystal ball, so I am never sure of what the future holds. (Anyone remember that shut down a few years ago). I am conservative when it comes to this kind of thing. 

If you are like me, here are some things we have done in my gym that might help you.

1. We schedule where we are in the gym. Most days we have 2 teams and a tumble class all at once. We literally schedule who is where on the main floor and we stick to it. Of course we rotate and share, but knowing where you are supposed to be and when truly keeps the drama down, and the productivity up.
2. This season we started syncing the practice plans. Everyone starts with conditioning, then stunts, jumps, etc. This helps more than I thought. If you stagger your practices so Team A starts at 5 with conditioning then moves to stunts at 5:15, and Team B starts practice at 5:15 with conditioning, then moves to stunts at 5:30, it helps. It keeps the counting over each other down and the productivity up.
3. We communicate. Last night, I walked up to the coach of our elite Youth team and asked for them to slide over so our Youth prep could do some extra fullouts. They did it quite happily. The prep team didn’t just push their way over, and the coach didn’t change her plan to run extra fullouts. She just collaborated with the other coaches so everyone could have a productive practice. 

Hopefully your gym is like my gym at Supernatural All Stars where we live our core values every day.