"“If you spend too much time learning the 'tricks' of the trade, you may not learn the trade. There are no shortcuts. If you're working on finding a short cut, the easy way, you're not working hard enough on the fundamentals. You may get away with it for a spell, but there is no substitute for the basics. And the first basic is good, old fashioned hard work.”
--John Wooden
Getting back to basics is the strategy to turn to when you feel lost, when you feel like things aren’t going the way you expected them to go.
As business owners, we can get lost in the cloudy, ethereal nature of the high-level kinda stuff. Which, by the way, is perfectly acceptable if you are, in fact, happy with the progress of your business.
If, however, the bathroom is out of toilet paper and the floors are dirtier than Pig Pen’s ever-enveloping cloud of dirt, all while you’re plugging away at a new marketing strategy you read about last night, then you probably need to halt, and get back to basics.
And since there is hardly anything more basic than a closing checklist, here’s our Closing Checklist Template!
If you’ve already got a closing checklist, compare, contrast, and edit yours if it needs editing.
If you don’t have a closing checklist yet, use this as a guide and then make it your own.
A Clean Gym Is A Happy Gym
Time to Complete: 25 Minutes
Expected Standard: Gold Standard
- Vacuum the floors
- Mop the floors
- Clean the bathrooms
- Empty and take out the trash (indicate number of trash cans and where to dump trash)
- Write up tomorrow’s WOD and the #preworkoutpedagogy
- Pick up/put away misplaced equipment, chalk buckets, personal items, etc.
- If applicable, set up equipment based on tomorrow’s WOD
- Charge all devices (name the devices here and indicate where to charge them)
- Turn off the standing fans (insert number/location of fans here)
- Turn off exhaust fans (insert number/location of fans here)
- Turn off the TV (insert # of TVs here)
- Turn off the house lights
- CLOSE AND LOCK ALL DOORS (indicate how many doors)
- Ask yourself: Did I hit the Gold Standard?
- Give yourself a fistbump—you’re awesome!
Since literally checking things off lists is EXHILARATING, laminate your closing checklist! Attach it to a clipboard and attach a dry erase marker to the board. As you and your coaches go down the list, you check off the boxes. (And this isn’t just fun, but also more effective: You’ll have a better chance of everything getting done if there’s a physical checklist that coaches can use.)
Notice the “Expected Standard” component below the estimated time to complete the checklist. This is there to remind everyone responsible that simply checking things off the list is not enough. The tasks must be held to a high standard, a “Gold Standard.” We even make this part of the checklist to reiterate that this isn’t just about crossing things off a list, but rather about upholding a very high expectation for excellence in all we do.
Add, subtract, and/or modify this template until it’s truly your own. But hop to it! The sooner you have a Closing Checklist, the better. The box will be more organized, cleaner, and ready for action. And your coaches will LOVE having concrete expectations.