The New Era of Fitness Business Coaching:
The ‘Need-To-Know’ Guide

It’s time for you to expect more out of fitness business coaching and for your success to be the priority.

 It’s no secret that the world of fitness business ‘experts’ has had more than its share of overpromises and under-deliveries.  Fitness business owners are regularly frustrated and feeling let down by the lack of reputable resources, sustainable strategies, and genuine industry insight. 

And that’s where we part ways with the conventional.

Our Approach to Fitness Business Coaching Has Always Been Distinctively Different From the Masses 

…And never has it been more evident than it is today. 

We don’t believe in empty promises, magic pills, or one-size-fits-all solutions. That’s never been our thing. 

In fact, that’s where the ‘revolution’ aspect of our name came from. When it seemed like the industry was being overtaken with info-marketing hype and black magic, we continued to go against the tide, remaining completely focused on figuring out and providing what’s in the best interest of independent fitness business owners. 

Which is a big part of why we’re still around, having been coaching fitness business owners for almost 20 years.  

We understand the day-to-day challenges you face and how hard it is to balance those with your long term aspirations. As we’ve laid out in our Core Four Philosophy, we believe that you can have success in the short term and the long term, that you don’t have to sacrifice one for the other. 

But it’s time to debunk the grifter stigma often associated with fitness business coaching programs. We know that many fitness business owners have had a negative experience with a fitness business coach or guru in the past. We hear from them every day.  

We’ve been writing a new narrative by helping people like yourself to get a stronger feel for what you should expect from fitness business coaching, a clearer understanding of the benefits a coach should bring to your business, and learn how to cut through the noise and find the right business coach or coaching program to support YOU.   

Your experience with a fitness business coach shouldn’t be one of the low points of your entrepreneurial journey. In fact, it should be one of the brightest spots.  

To do that, the narrative around fitness business coaching has to outgrow the stigma, and replace it with a more empowering theme of strategy, collaboration, professionalism, and trust.

Inside Information You Need to Know About Fitness Business Coaching (And About Yourself)

Let’s get this out there first: the right fitness business coach can absolutely transform you and your business. 

Having that knowledgeable ally in your corner can make the difference between failure and survival, and between surviving and thriving.  

And it can make that difference in 2 years vs 10 years.  

But here’s the million dollar question: how do you find the right fitness business coach for you? 

It’s not hard to find opinions on the matter.  

What we’re trying to do here is help you form a clear 360 degree perspective for yourself.  The information below covers the ways a fitness business coach can impact your business, what to look for in a fitness business coach or coaching program, and how to go about finding the support to help you take your business to the next level. 

So what should you look for in a fitness business coach?

There are 3 key attributes you should consider ‘must-have’ in a business coach

1. Has business knowledge and evidence based coaching skills and education
2. Has a system that will fit you now and as you grow.  I’ll explain further below. 
3. Gets continuous training on the system, knowledge, and skills

With that in mind, let’s look deeper into how a fitness business coach can transform your business and the key areas they should address.

The Fitness Business Coaching Process and Systems

A quality coach or program should include a business coaching process (how their coaching gets results), and there should be a set of business systems available to the client.

In order to get the most out of fitness business coaching you need to know what you should expect out of each.  

An experienced professional business coach or consultant is going to have a process. A clear illustration or simple explanation of that process will help you understand exactly how they get results for their clients, which should give you some confidence and peace of mind.  

For example, here is a snapshot of our coaching process for the 1-on-1 coaching we deliver in the High Performance Coaching Program:

Fitness Revolution’s High Performance Business Coaching Process

The Fitness Revolution Coaching Process ensures we’re in sync with you and your business right from the start, and that we stay aligned with your goals as we work together to achieve them.

Onboarding: Discovery & Setting Key Priorities

Our coaching work begins with the comprehensive onboarding process. Our initial sessions are designed to help us understand your business, uncovering your unique strengths, challenges, and ambitions. This process helps us determine your key priorities and design a customized roadmap for your success.

APE (Assess, Prioritize, Execute) Cycle: Coaching with Continuity

After onboarding we begin our regular coaching cadence, following our APE Cycle methodology to Assess your progress and state of your business, Prioritize the biggest challenges to address next, and Execute a plan designed to solve those challenges. 

The APE Cycle ensures that your progress isn’t a one-off event but a continuous journey of growth and evolution. The APE Cycle methodology is delivered through various structured sessions:

• Annual Strategy Sessions: At the beginning of each year, we conduct a strategy session to set the stage for the coming months. We take stock of your progress, reassess your objectives, and design a strategic plan for the year ahead.
• Quarterly Planning Sessions: Every quarter, we hold a planning session to review the past quarter’s results, re-evaluate your priorities, and plan for the next quarter. This helps keep your progress on track and allows us to adapt to any changes in your business environment.
• Monthly Business Reviews: On a monthly basis, we review your business performance, examining key metrics and evaluating the effectiveness of your strategies. This allows us to spot trends, identify opportunities, and make necessary adjustments in a timely manner.
• Weekly Updates: To stay in lockstep with you and keep the momentum going, we touch base weekly with a quick update on progress, address any issues, and ensure that you’re on track to meet your goals.

The Fitness Revolution business coaching process is designed to be dynamic, responsive, and focused on your success. By continuously assessing, prioritizing, and executing, we ensure that your fitness business remains on a steady upward trajectory.

The Business System is Your Fitness Business Playbook

As mentioned above, a good fitness business coach is going to have a business system that will fit you now and as you grow. It needs to be a holistic system (a suite of systems covering strategy, marketing, sales, operations, and finance), configurable to your business (so it can scale with you), and include support curriculum (to help you and your staff learn and maintain the systems in the future).

Our business operating system, the ‘Fitness Business Alignment System’ (FBAS), brings all of these pieces together and turns business chaos into productive activity. It creates a coherent framework for the entire business, which is covered more thoroughly here: A Business Operating System: Your Fitness Business Playbook.

FBAS is that holistic, configurable operating system.  It aligns each of the business functions with the overall strategy, and breaks each of them down into a set of Core Systems.

Mastering Fitness Business Strategy: More Than Just a Business Plan For Your Gym

Every fitness business has to have a game plan.  Not just the old school ‘business plan’ – we’re talking about having a Strategic Vision that starts with your long term fitness business goals, and illuminates the path of how you’re going to go into the market, compete, and win.  

Whereas a traditional business plan was more about ‘does the math work?’ (meaning: ‘can you pay this loan back?’), your business Strategic Vision goes further into your gym’s target market and demand factors: who is your target market? What is your core offer and do they want it?  Why would they want to get it from you? 

Once established, a fitness business Strategic Vision becomes your decision making guide. It helps you chart the course and resist the constant temptation of shiny objects.  When businesses revert to tactics before strategy, activity is random, inefficient, and unproductive. Chaos and frustration reign. 

The FBAS helps you craft your distinct core offer(s) and identify your ideal client(s) so your fitness business can etch a unique identity and establish a strong position in your local market.

Fitness Business Marketing: Use Systems to Get More Fitness Clients

In the fitness business world, marketing is sometimes seen as the only challenge to be solved. And while it’s far from the only challenge to be solved, there’s no question it’s near or at the top of the list of most important. 

Marketing can be a system.  Or it can be a guessing game. 

To market any type of fitness business (gym, personal training, online fitness business, etc) effectively, you need marketing systems.  Most fitness businesses either a) don’t realize that, or b) don’t know how to build a marketing system. 

So having a marketing system gives you a competitive advantage.

FBAS includes a set of Core Marketing Systems which sync perfectly with your business Strategic Vision, turning your marketing activities into powerful client magnets.

Fitness Sales Systems: The Bridge from Potential to Profits

If your goal is to sell more gym memberships or personal training, you might need to toss the old ideas of fitness sales funnels and automated lead follow-up systems out the window.  

Conceptually – there’s nothing wrong with them. The problem is the execution.

We want you to turn that ‘sales funnel’ into a prospect’s journey, and your lead follow up into ongoing nurturing conversations.  All still system-driven,  just overhauled with a more client-centric vibe.  

And sales conversations can now take on an entirely different, unintimidating feel with a sales process and sales training backed in behavior change science.    

The FBAS Core Sales Systems help you structure crystal-clear offers and dynamic sales pipeline and follow-up systems so you (and the prospects!) feel like you’re guiding them along their journey, rather than feeling like you’re dragging them. 

Sales are no longer just about transactions; they’re about nurturing relationships.  The Core Sales Systems teach you to build profitable relationships.

Operations: Staffing and Gym Membership Retention

The general purpose of your operational plan is to deliver valuable service, support, and retain clients.  

To do those things well, your business has to be strong in these two areas: 

1. People and infrastructure: in place, with the necessary skills and competencies, and 
2. Processes to enable and support the services. 

The FBAS Core Operations Systems are designed to keep you delivering exceptional service, supporting clients, and ensuring they keep coming back for more. 

That’s done through the combination of building a well-equipped gym staff and gym member retention programs.  These systems ensure the smooth running of the business and provide a framework for delivering services, supporting customers, and retaining them.

Finance: The Fitness Tracker for Your Business

If you’re looking for help on topics like gym revenue and gym growth, you most certainly need to be on top of your financials. Sound financial systems can make a gym profitable, and sloppy financials can open the door for a gym’s profits to walk right out.  

Finance is the lifeblood that keeps your business going. The dollars are the ultimate performance metric, so they have to be attended to with a degree of care.  

The FBAS Core Financial Systems are designed to measure, track, and manage the necessary financial data so you can make informed decisions, not waste money unnecessarily, and minimize your tax liability. 

Or, better said – to keep as much of your profit as legally possible. 

A strong fitness business coaching process and business system forms the backbone of a successful coaching relationship and a growing fitness business. They ensure alignment, smooth operations, and a financially healthy business.  

Of course, every fitness business is unique, and you may still have some questions about what kind of insight a fitness business coach might offer in your situation. So let’s switch gears and give you a chance to hear what insight from a fitness business coach might sound like.

Coaches Corner: How Would Certified Fitness Business Coaches Answer Your Business Questions?

No matter how long you’ve owned a business, you’ve still got questions. But you don’t have to try to figure out all of the answers on your own.  

While finding the right resources to give you answers and guidance can be a challenge, it’s certainly worth the effort. 

This is where our certified fitness business coaches step in. With their breadth of industry knowledge and experience, they’re equipped to tackle a wide range of challenges you may face.

Who better to ask than actual certified Fitness Business Coaches?

All of our coaches are successful former gym owners who have been in your shoes. Our Success Coaches complete over 1500 coaching sessions a year. Each individual coach averages almost 110 coaching sessions per quarter. Additionally, they receive over 75 hours each year in professional development and in-service training. 

All of our Success Coaches also complete an external Business Coaching Certification course, requiring ~80 hours through an accredited organization.  

We take our coaching development seriously and our coaches are uniquely equipped to professionally handle the issues fitness business owners experience on a daily basis.

What Kind of Advice Does a Fitness Business Coach Offer?

Welcome to the ‘Coaches Corner’, our article series that brings the expertise and insights of our experienced, trained, and certified fitness business coaches straight to you. 

Every day our Team is answering the burning questions and challenges that gym owners like yourself are facing – so we’re sharing some of those answers here.  From tackling pricing dilemmas to mastering marketing strategies, our Success Coaches are offering you their expertise and proven strategies that are being used in the trenches every day.  

You’re not just reading another blog; you’re talking to a fitness business coach. 

Seizing Success in the New Era of Fitness Business Coaching

The purpose of this guide is to provide you with valuable insights into the new era of fitness business coaching. 

With the right fitness business coach and the appropriate business systems in place, the journey towards the goals you have for yourself and your business becomes not only attainable but enjoyable. And that’s how it should be. 

The goal of fitness business coaching shouldn’t be to simply earn more or get more clients. The goal should be creating a sustainable, fulfilling business. One that aligns with your aspirations and values. That means leveraging knowledge, strategy, and systems to build a thriving fitness business, one that can weather the ups and downs of the industry.

This is how our Team at Fitness Revolution is writing a new narrative around fitness business coaching. 

The business coaching experience is now one of the highlights of your journey.  

We’re replacing the stigma with the empowering theme of strategy, collaboration, professionalism, and trust.

By now, I think you’ve seen what’s unique about our coaching program at Fitness Revolution. We work to develop BOTH the business owner and the fitness business. If you’d like to learn more about how we do that, schedule a call.