Stop Confusing Your Coaches: The Simple Truth About LAGs vs Leads

You're sitting in a meeting with your coach, trying to explain why they need to make more phone calls. You start talking about lead measures and lag measures, conversion rates, and how everything connects to business value.

Their eyes glaze over.

Why? Because they thought they were just counting reps and sets and designing workouts. They didn't sign up for this level of business complexity.

Here's the problem: most gym owners overcomplicate goal setting. They confuse their team with business theory when what people really need is clarity and simplicity.

Understanding the Lead-Lag Spectrum

Let's get the fundamentals clear. A lag measure is an end result. A lead measure is something that leads to that end result.

Simple enough, right?

But here's where it gets interesting: every single lead eventually becomes a lag because of time. It's a spectrum, not a binary choice.

For example, phone calls are a lead measure that leads to appointment bookings. In that relationship, appointment bookings are the lag measure. But zoom out, and appointment bookings become a lead measure for appointment shows. And appointment shows become a lead measure for memberships sold.

Keep going down this chain and eventually you get to business value. Technically, there's a certain number of phone calls you need to make to increase the value of your business by one million dollars. But that connection is so far removed that it's not useful for day-to-day goal setting.

We don't say "I want to increase my business value by one million dollars, so we need to make X amount of calls." That's too abstract. Instead, we focus on phone calls leading to appointment bookings leading to shows leading to memberships. Each step clearly connected to the next.

Meeting Your Team Where They Are

Here's what I've learned: when you're talking to coaches who didn't know they were getting involved with these types of conversations, you've got to take it easy on them.

Keep it real simple.

For a coach who's new to thinking about business metrics, start with something concrete: "How many FC appointments are you going to book this week?" That's their goal. Then ask, "How are you going to do that?" The answer might be, "I'm going to call 50 people." Great. That's the play.

Notice how we're working on the far right side of the spectrum, closer to the immediate actions. Phone calls. Appointments booked. These are tangible, measurable, and directly within their control.

Now, if you have an existing general manager or a more experienced team member, you can move further left on the spectrum. You might say, "My goal is to get 10 memberships this month." They respond, "Cool. I'm going to make sure I have 30 appointments." Perfect. They understand the relationship between appointments and closes.

The more somebody's tuned into the business, the more you can move to the left side of the screen toward bigger outcome goals. The newer somebody is or the less in tune they are, the more you work on the right side with specific activities like phone calls and lead generation.

When the Play Works, Run It Again

Let's say your coach had a goal of 10 memberships. They planned to book 30 appointments to hit that goal. And they did it. They hit both targets.

What should you do next? Change the strategy? Add complexity? Try something new?

No. Just do it again.

Successful business owners are boring. I'm pretty boring. You've got to be able to do the mundane stuff over and over again.

Think about football. There are coaches who find a play that works and they run it again and again in the same game. It worked once? Run it again. Still working? Keep running it. They'll only switch to a different play once the defense finally figures it out.

As long as there's a clear relationship between the lead measure and the lag measure, and you're hitting your goals, don't change the play. Keep running it.

I find that team members often think they need to do something different just for the sake of variety. But that's not how winning works. When you find something that produces results, you repeat it until it stops working.

The Calibration Rule: Don't Change What You Didn't Do

Here's a critical rule for goal setting: don't change your commitment if you didn't actually do it.

Let's say your commitment was to make 200 calls. You didn't hit that number, and you also didn't hit your end goal. The problem isn't the commitment. The problem is you didn't execute.

Don't recalibrate yet. First, actually do the 200 calls. Then assess.

This is all about calibration. If you hit 200 calls and that gets you your end result, perfect. Keep doing 200 calls. But if you didn't hit your 200 calls, you have no data. You can't know if 200 calls would have worked because you never tested it.

Now, if you consistently hit 200 calls and it's not getting you the end result, then you recalibrate. Maybe you need 250 calls. Maybe you need to change the approach entirely. But you've got to make sure you do your commitment before you change it.

This discipline prevents your team from constantly shifting strategies without ever fully testing anything. It builds accountability and helps you gather real data about what actually works.

Keep It Simple: Rules of Thumb

One final note on keeping things practical: if you only have two people on a team, don't do a separate WIG meeting. Just build it into your one-on-ones.

The power of the WIG meeting comes from the group setting. It provides accountability and benefits from group thinking. Multiple people tracking toward connected goals, sharing ideas, holding each other accountable.

But if it's just you and one other person? You're already having one-on-ones. Don't create an additional meeting just to check the WIG box. That's overthinking it.

Cover the lead measures, lag measures, and commitments in your existing one-on-one structure. Don't overdo this. Don't add complexity where simplicity will do.

The Path to Clarity

The biggest mistake gym owners make with LAGs and leads is overcomplicating the conversation. They try to explain the entire business model in one sitting. They expect coaches to immediately understand complex conversion math.

But clarity comes from simplicity.

Start with where your team member is. If they're new to business thinking, focus on immediate, concrete actions. If they're more experienced, you can connect those actions to bigger goals.

When something works, repeat it. When it doesn't work, make sure you actually executed before changing the plan. And above all, keep the conversations simple enough that your team can actually use the information to improve.

Because at the end of the day, the goal isn't to impress people with business theory. The goal is to help them succeed by giving them clear targets and a straightforward path to hit them.

That's how you turn coaches who just wanted to count reps into business partners who understand exactly what drives results.