Show Notes
Summary: Dan explains why most business owners glance at numbers without using them well, and shares a complete KPI system to track what matters, focus your effort, and build a better life. This one works really well as a video, as Dan does a walk through of a KPI spreadsheet. You can watch that here, or read the article (including visuals) here. 5 things you'll learn in this episode Why glancing at revenue or checking the bank balance is not the same as having a proper KPI process, and what changes when you build one. How to design the life you want before you set a single target, because your numbers should serve your life, not just your business. The exact spreadsheet structure I use, including how to set medium and long-term targets and keep things clean across months and years. A complete list of KPIs across marketing, sales, customers, revenue, finance, time, and even life quality, with equations for every single one. How to use the traffic light system so your priorities are immediately obvious every time you open the sheet. Your action steps: Write down what you want your life to look like before you build or update any KPI spreadsheet. Set up a simple spreadsheet with a column for KPIs, a medium-term target, and a long-term target. Manually pull your numbers from Xero, your CRM, and other sources at the end of each month. Review your KPI sheet every week and identify the one or two numbers that most need your attention. Apply the traffic light system so your biggest constraint is always easy to spot.
More from The Business of Fitness Podcast
In this episode Dan explores why chasing more leads can worsen your life, and how fitness business owners can rethink success to build greater freedom, purpose and profit. You will learn: Why chasing more clients could be keeping you trapped in the gym owner rat race. What a disastrous rat bounty reveals about a mistake you might be making in your business. How to tell whether your numbers are improving while your life gets worse. What rocket science can teach you about questioning the way you run your business. How to work backwards from the life you want to the business you actually need. If you enjoy this, you'll also enjoy the following, they're some of my most popular articles and podcasts on topics similar to this one: How my business earns me 23 hours a week. read | listen The Ultimate Guide to Business KPIs. read | listen I tracked every minute of work time for a year. Here's what I learned. read | listen Your REAL Hourly Rate: The True Cost of Running a Fitness Business. read | listen A philosophy for a full and good life. read | listen
In this episode, Ben Luckens interviews Dan about why remarkable client experiences will become a major competitive advantage for fitness businesses in the age of AI. This episode covers some of the topics from the 2026 Perth Fitness Business Client Experience Workshop. Learn more about that here. Dan explains why businesses need to move beyond simply delivering a service and start creating experiences that make people feel something and give them stories to share. They discuss experience marketing, the value of doing things that do not scale, and how better member experiences can improve retention, referrals and revenue. Dan also breaks down his one-size-fits-all, one-size-fits-some and one-size-fits-one approach, and explains why the employee experience will become just as important as the client experience.
In this episode, Dan Williams explains how personal trainers can design a PT session that clients remember, value and talk about. (it's also a summarised 'sneak peak' of the upcoming 2026 Perth Fitness Business Client Experience Workshop) He walks through how to map every client touchpoint, identify the pits that damage trust, improve the forgettable parts of the session and create a small number of memorable peaks. Listeners will learn how to use intended feelings, intended stories, benchmarking and the Ten Star Thought Experiment to improve client retention, referrals and the overall personal training experience. Learn more: 2026 Perth Fitness Business Client Experience Workshop
I'm proud to use this episode to announce the 2026 Perth Fitness Business Client Experience Workshop: https://gobsmack.com.au/fitness/ The Perth Fitness Business Client Experience Workshop is a practical, 12 hour event to help fitness business owners design a more remarkable client experience. You'll work with myself (Dan Williams) and my team to design a jaw-dropping client experience strategy that helps your fitness business become the one clients remember, return to and recommend. We are capping this event at 15 attendees, tickets $1497 each. Afterpay is available. Learn more at: https://gobsmack.com.au/fitness/
Retaining staff is one of the biggest challenges in the fitness industry, yet Ben Luckens's four key team members have each stayed with him for more than seven years. In this episode, Dan asks Ben the leadership principles behind that loyalty, including self-leadership, vulnerability, difficult conversations, empathy and leading by example. He also shares how Stoic philosophy shaped his approach, why leaders are often their business's biggest bottleneck, and the practical actions business owners can take to build a stronger culture and become the kind of leader great people want to follow.