Thomas Plummer - Naked Woman at My Door and Why Thats a Bad Thing: Lessons Learned in the Fitness Business From a Life on the Road

Lessons Learned in the Fitness
Business From a Life on the Road

Thomas Plummer

2009 Healthy Learning. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Healthy Learning. Throughout this book, the masculine shall be deemed to include the feminine and vice versa.

ISBN: 978-1-60679-012-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2008935825

Book layout: Studio J Art & Design

Front cover design: Sue Kell, Susan K. Bailey Advertising, Ontario, Canada

Back cover design: Studio J Art & Design

Text photos: 2008 Jupiter Images Corporation

Healthy Learning

P.O. Box 1828

Monterey, CA 93942

www.healthylearning.com

One book for my mother, Delores. She always let me believe that all things are possible. I love you, mom, and thank you for everything youve done to help me along the way. Ill look for this new one on the coffee table with all the others.

In my wildest dreams, I never expected the journey to continue for so many years.

This book, and a most interesting life, has been made possible by the people who have wandered by on my path through the years as clients, friends, and business associates.

The information in this book, and all the others as well, come from my direct experience with everyone who comes through the seminars or who I have worked with as clients.

In previous books, I have thanked the individuals who have guided or supported me through the years, but looking back, it is almost impossible to translate the additional huge impact that so many thousands of people who have either been in the seminars or have been clients has had on me.

Through the years, I think I have seen just about every aspect of human behavior including extreme good and the very bad. I have sat at kitchen tables, helping people come to the understanding that they are going to lose everything they own. I have testified in divorces so bitter that the anger lasts for years, and then watched one of the parties never recover from the damage and ultimately fail at life. Owners thumping Bibles have taken cash payments the day before they close their clubs for good, and yet they have felt entitled to steal from their communities and even the people in their own churches.

And there is always the next new, business-changing concept that will reinvent the fitness business that fails yet again. Nothing lasts forever, and the hot chain/equipment company/class concept/arrogant owner is not the exception to this rule, and often the arrogance associated with whoever is hot at the time makes you want to cheer when they crash.

Chains rise and chains fall, and yet the independents seem to go on and on. Equipment companies buy each other, and many of the big names are gone. I have seen clients make their first big money and become arrogant fools who forget where they came from and who helped them. I have had clients so crazy and mean that even their own parents hate them.

Yet there have also been clients who give much of their time and money back to their communities and others who would rather fail than steal a nickel. For every mean, nasty owner who has cheated someone, there has always been a gentle soul whose only mission in life is to help people realize the importance of fitness.

There are few people as jaded as a business consultant with 30 years of experience, yet there is also hope. I used to think I could change the world, and now I would settle for just 10 percent of any seminar participants being more successful in their life or business for just one dayand even this small number is worth the fight.

This book is dedicated to anyone who ever, even for just a brief hour, enjoyed a better day or a little more success because of one of my ideas. Thank you for the faith.

Why the title?
Naked woman at the door
and why thats a bad thing

I was born to be a consultant. Born to it by personality, which means you have to be somewhat overbearing and strong. Born to it spirit, in that if youre right, and know youre right, then you dont back down from forcing an individual to do the things that will help him and his family survive in business, ever. You also have to have the ability to see the entire situation in front of you at the time and then decide what is important and what isnt, which is a skill Ive found over the years few people really have.

And most importantly, I have probably survived as a consultant, and doing the job for a living for far longer than most people would ever imagine, because of one basic tenet I was taught early in my career: always do the right thing concerning the people who hire you. Dont lie, cheat them, hurt them, or take advantage of them when theyre weak, tired, stupid, or just plain worn out from the struggle.

Consulting has paid for my years on the slope as a ski instructor. What other job can you do where you work for two straight weeks and then are able to take two months off to ski full time? Consulting has also allowed me to live life on my own terms, giving me the gift of always being able to work, pay my bills, and live just about anywhere in the country I choose.

Perhaps the best advice Ive ever received from anyone was by accident in high school. I was going through a tough time, facing college with no money, while all my friends had parents who were not only supplying cash but also preplanned careers that were waiting for them once they graduated. Go to school, learn the trade, and then come home and take over the family accounting firm or chiropractic business. My mom, on the other hand, was a hard-working woman who gave me everything she could, including a lack of fear for new adventures. On the other hand, it was up to me to find my own way to pay for most of my own schooling. Such a prospect scared me to death when I was 17 years old.

One of my teachers, knowing the situation and trying to give me advice, said something accidentally that has stuck with me forever. He said you would always work and always make a good living if you just learned more about one thing than anyone else in the world, and then taught other people what youve learned.

It took a while for that information to make sense. I had always worked out and been a year-round athlete in school. I did everything, but really mastered nothing. Sports were in my blood, however, and working out was something I have never stopped doing since I was 15. The fitness world had me early, and it has never let go. Even when I tried to escape for other careers, the workouts and enthusiasm for this realm always hung on.

The one thing that became my destiny to learn about was the business side of how small businesses worked, especially fitness businesses. In reality, no one exists on this planet, and might never be than me, who has set foot in more fitness centers, gyms, karate schools, spas, health clubs, yoga studios, and other business concepts too weird to mention. I had to check them out to see if they had anything worth learning. I had to learn, and then I knew I had to figure out how to get paid for that information.

When youre in your 20s, consulting is something that is almost too good to be imagined. You travel, and someone else pays; you eat, and someone else pays; you dispense information, while being paid, and then you go out and party with the guy who hired you, and he still pays. How can you imagine a job better than that when youre first starting your career?