Master The MomentTM

Gary Heavin, Curves

In 1992 Gary Heavin and his wife, Diane, founded Curves, a fitness center helping women stay in shape, in the most convenient way possible, and in a supportive environment. Soon thereafter, they realized they had an idea they could replicate. Over the next decade, Curves grew at breakneck speed, quickly becoming a worldwide organization with over 10,000 franchisees and millions of customers. Success like this rarely goes unnoticed: Curves is recognized as the fastest growing franchise company in history.

What’s more impressive is they grew the franchise on word of mouth. While most franchise companies spend as much as forty percent on marketing costs, Curves spent less than one percent. At one point, one out of every three leads wound up buying a franchise. Compare this to the average for franchise sales, which is closer to one in a hundred, and you begin to understand why I thought Curves was quite different from the rest.

I asked Gary if he could tell me anything about time management. His response was it all starts with values. If you stick to certain principles, everything else falls into place. This works in business, and it works in all other human endeavors.

The values Gary thinks are most important are:

• Honesty: This means telling the truth the best you can, all the time.
• Integrity: This amounts to being consistent and reliable, and doing what you say you’ll do.
• Service: If you’re serving other people, you’re always going to be in demand.
• Power of unity: If two or more people can agree, they can go much further together than they can individually.

“If you have a value system based on principals much like these, what people think of traditionally as time management comes naturally,” Gary explained. “Relationships based on trust are super efficient. Relationships that are stable and that don’t have to be revisited or rebuilt save you a tremendous amount of time.”

Applying this idea to business, Gary said, “So many organizations don’t really aspire to integrity and honesty. They just want to make the next deal. The problem is you never go beyond the next sale. But if you can develop relationships that are trusting and long lasting, can you imagine the time you save?”

Gary went on to say, “At Curves, from the beginning, we’ve held up these values so other people would know what to expect from us, and our partners saw these values as something they could aspire to, and they could see what we expected from them.”

Setting aside morality, and strictly viewing these ideas in terms of the best use of your time, you can see their power. Rather than spend your time chasing after somebody who didn’t do what he or she promised, put your effort into building trusting relationships. With that in place, you won’t have to spend much time following up.

Rather than spend your time knocking on doors trying to get people to buy something, focus on helping them get what they want. Once you establish a reputation for service, they’ll come to you.

Rather than spend time in meetings trying to figure out what one another are doing, look to establish unity. Once you achieve agreement on the fundamentals, the group will move in the same direction and can accomplish just about anything they set out to do.

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All text copyright © Pat Brans, 2009, 2010, 2011.