I've been fortunate enough to spend the last couple of months in San Sebastian, Spain.  As well as being a beautiful part of the world, San Sebastian is famous for its Pintxos Bars. They are everywhere in the old town of San Sebastian.  The thing about these Pintxos Bars is that you often go to one bar which is famous for its pork dish and another bar for its mushrooms or another bar for its dessert.  You get the idea.Over the years, these different bars have developed a reputation for excellence with a particular dish.  

We call this the one great thing. Sure, they serve other dishes, but ask a local where to get a Tortilla and they will send you to Bar Nesta.  You want cheesecake, they send you to La Vina. These little bars get known for doing something extremely well, their one great thing is what drives their business.  

They have perfected it and everything else comes second to delivering this one great thing consistently well year after year.  This is how reputations are built in the highly competitive dining culture in Spain.There are several important lessons that we can apply to our fitness businesses from these Pintxos Bars:

1. Identify the one great thing you want to be known for.  Is it body recomposition?  Is it training high performing athletes?  Is it fun group classes?
2. Once you have determined your one thing - work your ass off to become the best at it.  This includes being up to date with your education and deploying slick systems that let you concentrate on this one thing.
3. Don't expand your service offerings until (a) you are known for excellence in your one great thing and (b) you are sure you are not going to dilute that excellence when you start offering these additional services.
4. When you are excellent at something, people talk about you.  Going back to the Pintxos Bars, their one great product is the basis of ALL of their marketing activities.  People blog about them, talk about them and recommend them.
5. Everything is clearer when you understand your one great thing - your marketing efforts can focus on a simple clear message, you know what to focus on and it is easier to say NO to all those distractions in your business that take you away from your one great thing.

We work with great businesses all the time.  The ones that succeed are the ones with a clear purpose.  They say no often, especially to things that take them away from their core purpose.  They are patient.  Unfortunately, there are no quick hacks to excellence.  It is a process and shortcuts don't get you there.

To quote Warren Buffet -It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently"

Drop us a line - we'd love to know your one great thing!

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