Want more client referrals? Here’s a quick checklist to make sure your referral program is on point.

Analysis of a $60,000 transformation challenge

Do you know how much a lead is worth to your business? Here’s how to find out…

You spend a lot of time and energy in your marketing. You need to know what is working and what’s not. We cover how to determine your marketing success in this blog.

Many fitness business owners end up stuck. There’s a common cause of ‘getting stuck’ at all levels and a simple way to ‘get unstuck. I’ll explain in the video…

Getting more clients and adding revenue is challenging for any business, but fitness business marketing can particularly difficult due to low budgets, manpower and time. Here’s what will work for you in 2019.

High performing fitness business owners ‘always be marketing’, even when it’s hard, because it’s a necessary behavior for their success.

The fastest way to help more people is to learn how to attract more of them into your personal training business. If you’d like to get more personal training clients for your business, and who wouldn’t, then marketing is critical.  

Let’s assume you have the required credentials, certifications or education to deliver great results (and that you are doing it with the clients that you have now). You won’t extend your reach, help more people and, in turn, make more money if you don’t learn to promote yourself and your business.  

There are 3 simple steps you can take to improve your marketing and get more personal training clients! Keep reading to find out what they are…

Get Clear On Your Ideal Client

The power of identifying your ideal client isn’t in having a nice avatar or profile to add to your business strategy. You get the biggest benefit by learning how to understand the pains, challenges and fears that your Ideal Client deals with on a daily basis.

Luckily, your training programs solve those problems for them!  

Here’s a short list of info you need to build into your Ideal Client Profile:

• Name
• Age
• Family
• Occupation
• Income
• Home Type
• Neighborhood/Subdivision
• Hobbies
• Activities
• Pains
• Goals
• Challenges
• Fears
• Objections

Build Your Ideal Client Marketing Plan

Now that you are clear on who you are marketing to and what problems you can help them solve with your training programs getting your marketing in front of them will be much easier.  

A great marketing plan will include marketing activities that work to get the attention of your Ideal Client and motivate them to take the next step with you. This plan also needs to be diversified. You don’t want to rely on one source of leads to get more personal training clients.

You should have an internal, offline and online marketing activity in play at all times. The minimum acceptable is one activity per channel. The perfect amount of marketing is the amount that helps you reach your sales and growth goals.

Figure out how you will get your marketing message out to your Ideal Client. This includes referral programs, social media, Facebook ads, networking, public speaking, writing, podcasts, etc.

When creating your marketing plan consider how your Ideal Client will see your marketing and what you’ll ask them to do to take the next step with you. It’s easy to say you’re going to write blogs for your marketing, but if no one sees the blogs you write they aren’t going to produce for you.

The most effective marketing activities usually require the biggest investment of your time, energy or money. For example networking is still very effective (when done right) but it requires time or Facebook ads can get you a lot of leads but require a financial investment.   

Measure Your Results

There’s no way to know what is working or how to speed up your growth if you don’t measure your results. Tracking your leads, where those leads come from and your conversion rate from lead to client will give you a lot of insight into your marketing.

Remember, the real outcome we want to achieve with marketing is more personal training clients. Getting 1,000 leads is great, but not if none of them become clients.   

You want to be able to look back and know what marketing activities brought in the most leads, which produced the most clients, and your overall conversion rate. With this information you can identify bottlenecks or key areas to improve your marketing and sales.

The Best Plan Needs Action…

A perfect marketing plan is only good if you implement. Imagine creating the perfect workout for your client, guaranteed to get them the results they want in record time, but they didn’t show up to the gym to actually put in the work.  

They end up with the same poor results they’ve always got from training, right?  

That’s how many fitness business owners treat a marketing plan. They create it, spend time building a marketing calendar and never get out to actual market!  

If you need some help creating a great plan and a little accountability to ensure you implement it schedule a complimentary call today where we’ll discuss your current marketing and put a plan together to get you more clients and increase revenues.

Most fitness business owners dread the holiday season that ends the year. Client consistency declines and new clients are holding out until the start of the New Year to make any changes.   

You can still increase sales and get more personal training clients during this notoriously slow time of year. Here are a few tips to ramp up your marketing and get more clients…

Run a Holiday Challenge

Back when I was running my studio there was a statistic that came out stating the average person gains 10 lbs between Thanksgiving and the New Year. To help our community combat this weight gain we ran a short 21 day challenge between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  

People are busy during this time of year and fitness is usually a second thought, but if you can make it easy for someone to maintain their weight or even lose a few pounds over the holidays with a small challenge you can bring in some extra revenue and get some great Front End Offer clients to convert to Core Offer clients in the New Year.

Reactivate Previous Clients

There’s a good chance that former clients are going to be looking for a fitness solution in the coming year. Comb through your list of former clients and create a reactivation campaign for those who left on good terms or just fell off from your programs to bring them back. \

Holiday Gift Card Programs

During Black Friday or Cyber Monday you can sell holiday gift cards to your current clients to provide as gifts or to use themselves for upgrades. You can sell gift cards for a specific Front End Offer, pre-sell a New Year Challenge, offer discounts on gift cards or provide upgrade packages to generate some new sales.

Premium Programs

Many of your best clients are willing to invest a little more with you for a premium level program. Run a few specials to your best clients to offer them additional training, premium level services or paid in full packages that generate some extra revenue for you at the end of the year.

Be careful here not to discount too heavily or to take a big hit on your monthly recurring revenue coming in from these clients.  

Give Back To Your Community

Find an organization to partner with during the holidays to give back to your community. You can volunteer your (and your client’s) time, donate money, or collect food/gifts/money for an organization.  

This is a great way to get some exposure but also to help those who need a little help. Each year in my studio we did food drive, charity bootcamps, adopted a family and a ran a toy drive during the holidays. Our clients were always happy to participate, we got some good exposure in the media and from the organizations we helped and collected a few leads along the way.  

It’s up to you…

You can sit around and complain about the holidays being slow or people not wanting to start their fitness programs during this time of year or you can take action. With the right plan and some focused marketing activities you can grow your business during this traditionally slow time of year for personal trainers.

Pick one or two of the tips from above and include them in your marketing plan for the rest of the year.

Need Help Growing Your Business?

Schedule a complimentary 60-Minute Discovery Call with an expert on the Fitness Revolution Team to help you find a solution to your growth challenges. On this call, you’ll be able to uncover the obstacles holding you back from reaching your goals and put a plan in place to overcome them. It’s time to end the guesswork and frustration so that you finally create the income and business you want.

We’ve all seen those “As Featured In…” lists on the websites of experts. Why do they put them on there? Who the heck cares?

It’s all for credibility and positioning. Letting your target market know that you’ve been featured in a magazine, newspaper, online information site or other media channel automatically gives you expert status in the mind of your visitors.  

Listing top media outlets on your website and marketing materials is a great status boost. Don’t miss the opportunity to leverage your local media outlets to improve your marketing and get more clients.   

There are a lot benefits to staying local when it comes to Public Relations or PR. First, it’s often easier to get opportunities in your local market than it is to chase national or international media. Second, there’s a good chance your target market will recognize you and search you out when seeing you on local media. Finally, it can serve as a stepping stone to get bigger opportunities later on.

How Do You Get Media Attention?

Networking your way onto to TV, radio, podcasts or in print media is the easiest way to get your foot in the door. Leveraging those you already know to make introductions to the hosts, individuals who work for the media or simply finding ways to get in the same room as these media personalities or decision makers can set you apart.

But, you need to have a story that is worth talking about! Too many business owners send out press releases or pitch stories that serve better as commercials or promotions than actual newsworthy content. These media outlets are looking for stories that appeal to their target viewer. You need to be able to deliver something worth airing or printing.

Here are some tips to create a great story pitch:

• Have real news to share. Don’t think everything needs to be “Breaking News” material but don’t solely rely on pitching your upcoming challenge. If you’ve read some new research or helped someone with a new concept or method for delivering results share it with your network.
• Be the first to the party. If you’re business is the first to integrate something new that helps people get results and you think it’s newsworthy make sure to share it. People love innovative companies and their ideas.
• Play off trends and hot topics. If there is a national or world wide trend that you are noticing popping up in media offer your help to provide a local perspective on the topic. Be available to provide content and you’ll get more publicity.
• Post people stories. Success stories, new hires, recognition gained, etc are all great chances to share success stories about people in the community with the media. It may not get picked up for the headline on the 6pm news but it will make the local business section.

Build Your PR Calendar

If you’re going to use PR as a way to get new leads you need a plan. Simply hoping you’ll remember to send out press releases or network with media won’t deliver results. You’re going to need to be persistent and consistent with your marketing via this channel.

Using a marketing calendar will help and aligning this with the Triple A Marketing Method will give you a great chance for success.   

Here’s how to tie your PR Calendar into your marketing calendar:

• Create 3-4 media themes for the year that relate to your Ideal Client
• Create a list of 10-12 small interesting marketing related themes for ongoing press releases
• Add in the media themes and press releases to your marketing calendar as a “promotion”
• Create a template for your one-page press releases to use
• Connect with your media network monthly by sending them your pitch or press release

Maximize Your PR Plan

The above PR calendar will help you stay top of mind with the media and give you a great shot at getting published or featured. However, if you want to maximize your success make sure you build relationships with your local media.

The first step is following up individually with the members of your network in the media. Start by following up monthly with them to check in and even congratulating them on a successful story. You can set up Google Alerts for articles or published content created by them or follow them and the media outlets on social media.

Once you get a feature or a little PR love from your network make sure to send them a hand written thank you note. This will go a long way in standing out and them remembering you the next time a fitness, nutrition or health story rolls across their desk.  

Share their content and amplify their reach with your social media. Comment on their posts, share their content, and make sure you are seen interacting with them when it doesn’t involve promoting you or your business.   

Want Help Building A Plan To Grow Your Business?

Schedule complimentary 60-Minute Discovery Call with an expert on the Fitness Revolution Team to help you find a solution to your growth challenges. On this call, you’ll be able to uncover the obstacles holding you back from reaching your goals and put a plan in place to overcome them. It’s time to end the guesswork and frustration so that you finally create the income and business you want.

All businesses have competition, even if you’re the only trainer in your area. You have to compete with local gyms, other trainers, Yoga, Pilates, online training and streaming videos.

There are lots of options your Ideal Client has to choose from to help them reach their goals. You need to be aware of these options so that you can position yourself against them and make your business the obvious choice for your Ideal Client.

This IS NOT about changing your strategy based on the competition. Instead, look at this as a guide to help you understand your competition and your differentiators.  

Where Do You Find Out About The Competition?

There is competition everywhere fighting for your Ideal Client’s attention. Don’t rely on your memory or current knowledge of the competition to do your review. Dig in and spend an hour or so researching the options available to your target market.

You can get clues to the existence of competitors from:

• Local business directories
• Your local Chamber of Commerce
• Advertising
• Press reports
• Exhibitions and trade fairs
• Questionnaires
• Searching on the Internet for similar services
• Information provided by customers
• Flyers and marketing literature that have been sent to you

Questions To Ask Yourself…

Once you’ve got the list of competitors ask yourself the following questions to help you complete your review:

• Who are your competitors?
• What products or services do they sell?
• What is each competitor’s market share?
• What price points do they sell their products or services at?
• What are their past strategies?
• What are their current strategies?
• What type of methods are used to market their products or services?
• What are each competitor’s strengths and weaknesses?
• What potential threats do your competitors pose?
• What potential opportunities do they make available for you?

A competitive analysis is a critical part of your marketing strategy and Local Market Positioning™. Using this article to help you identify and evaluate your competition will give you a clear path to differentiate your business.

Want Help Creating A Marketing Plan To Grow?

Schedule complimentary 60-Minute Discovery Call with an expert on the Fitness Revolution Team to help you find a solution to your growth challenges. On this call, you’ll be able to uncover the obstacles holding you back from reaching your goals and put a plan in place to overcome them. It’s time to end the guesswork and frustration so that you finally create the income and business you want.

A strong Front End Offer can help grow a fitness business quickly. Not only will it speak directly to the needs and desires of your Ideal Client, but it will allow anyone on the fence about joining your program to test drive the experience.

Remember, the objective of your Front End Offer is to provide a positive experience for your Ideal Client. In order to do so it must:

• Have a low barrier to entry (it doesn’t have to be free)
• Provide a quick result or solution
• Not undervalue your Core Offer

Your Front End Offer should help your Ideal Client start seeing the results they typically want. It can positioned as a Jump Start, Test Drive or Kick Start program. You want to give the impression right away that it’s the start of the program, not one that will give them the end result. 

Using a Fat Loss Jump Start, Tone Up Test Drive or Fitness Kick Start program will help you bring in more potential clients. Typically you want to run these for 14 days in a group training business and 7 Days or less for a personal training business. Providing 2-3 sessions per week for these programs allows the potential new client to experience enough of what you have and see some tangible results.

However, we want to call out the result and stand out in our marketing a bit more than a generic Jump Start. So, you’ll need to create a ‘hook’ or tagline for the program that really catches the attention of your Ideal Client.

To create the hook or tagline of your Front End Offer follow this formula:

[RESULT] in [TIME FRAME] without [PAIN YOU HELP THEM AVOID]

Here is an example:

“Drop 2 Inches In 14 Days Without Dieting”

For extra credit list out the top 3-5 benefits the client will experience in this time such as:

1. Increase your confidence
2. Develop new strength
3. Tone up your trouble spots
4. Discover how to eat right without starving yourself

These can be used in your marketing and the copy to promote the Front End Offer.

With so many options for your Ideal Client to choose from to help them reach their fitness goals it’s important that you are able to attract them with a Front End Offer. Growing a fitness business is tough work, but with the right Front End Offer you’ll get more clients quickly.

Need Some Help Getting More Clients?  

Get hundreds of resources, modules and a complete marketing curriculum inside of The Academy! The Academy is the #1 resource for fitness business owners to discover the secrets to attracting more clients, increasing profits and creating systems to run their business.

Positioning is a powerful piece of your marketing plan. It tells your target market who you are, who you help, and why they should choose you. It also gives you credibility and should position you as an expert. So, how do we tell the world that you’re an amazing fitness pro?

Before you begin telling the world how awesome you are we need to create your Local Market Positioning™. Think of this as your strength coach or personal trainer resume, but packaged up in a way that actually matters to your target market. This is how you will stand out in your market, position yourself as an expert and clearly communicate why someone should listen to you.

To begin creating your Local Market Positioning™ you’ll need to do a brain dump of the following:

1. Features of your program
2. Benefits of your program to the end user
3. Statistical data, tangible results and awards won
4. Describe in detail how you deliver your program and get these results

This will be challenging, don’t worry about getting it perfect. Your goal is to get as many ideas and thoughts out of your head and on to paper as possible to be evaluated later.

The easiest place to start is with your statistical data, tangible results and awards won. You’re probably overlooking a lot of great differentiators that can position you as an expert inside of this category.   

For example, I was recently coaching a former D-I strength coach turned private sector strength coach through this exercise. During our coaching sessions we discovered that he had coached 3 Olympians, 5 professional athletes and hundreds of D-I athletes during his career. Those are incredible results that would grab the attention of any parent or coach of a young athlete.

Here are a few examples to spark some ideas for you:

• [Your Business Name] clients lose an average of [XX] pounds in [YY] days
• [Your Business Name] clients have lost a total of [ZZZZ] pounds in [Timeframe]
• Best of [City] Personal Trainer/Gym/Fitness Center in [List years]
• [XX] happy clients trained in [YY] years/since [Date]
• [XX] [Your Business Name] Athletes have earned a collegiate scholarship

Don’t forget any awards you’ve won as an athlete, including your own transformation, or awards you’ve won professionally.  Your target market may not know why those are important but simply knowing you’ve been recognized as top in your field is important for your credibility.  

Once you’ve got these dialed in its time to go tell the world through your marketing!

Need Help With Your Positioning?  

Take 60 minutes to talk with a member of the Fitness Revolution team to dig in to your business and help you discover the path you need to take to reach your biggest goals. The call is completely FREE! If you think working with us at the end of the call can help you reach your goals we’ll discuss what may be the best fit for you.

It all starts with the right question…

You likely started your business or entered into the fitness industry because you asked yourself a question about what you wanted to do, who you wanted to help or how you wanted to make a living.  

Your growth as a person and business owner start with questions about skills you need to develop, obstacles you will face and finding the path to success.

It’s simple…you don’t know what you don’t know.  

To find out you have to be willing to ask questions. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it saves the entrepreneur!

Fear and insecurity hold back many fitness business owners from experiencing growth. The fear of asking for help or looking stupid. Questions don’t make you less of a business owner, they make you a successful business owner.  

Here are a few questions you need to be asking throughout your journey of fitness business growth:

1. What should I not do at this stage to get to the next?
2. What should I focus my energy on at this stage?
3. What are the biggest risks for me?
4. What does success look like and how will I recognize it?
5. What did you do?  How did you do it?
6. What might I be missing?
7. Who do you know that I should know?
8. How can I (insert your goal or obstacle)?
9. Who can help me (insert goal or obstacle)?
10. What are my blind spots?

These are just a start, but the more questions you ask the more knowledge you will acquire. That knowledge, when put into action will result in fitness business growth.

So, what questions do you have for us at Fitness Revolution?

Seeking Answers To Your Most Challenging Business Questions?  

Take 60 minutes to talk with a member of the Fitness Revolution team to dig in to your business and help you discover the path you need to take to reach your biggest goals. The call is completely FREE! If you think working with us at the end of the call can help you reach your goals we’ll discuss what may be the best fit for you.

It’d be great if you could build your business off referrals alone, right? There are a few businesses out there who are able to do this, but they are outliers. Most of us mortals have to expand our marketing to other channels to grow our business and hit our goals.

That doesn’t mean you should neglect your internal marketing channel of referrals. Too many fitness business owners sit back and hope to get more referrals or word of mouth leads instead of taking control from the start.

Let’s breakdown what goes into a referral plan that can perpetuate itself, essentially allowing for a constant stream of referral leads into your business.  

How Should Your Clients Refer?

Don’t take for granted that you know exactly who you want as a client in your business and how to communicate with them about what you offer. Your clients only know their story and are not well versed in talking about your business. Outside of a great experience or the results they are getting you will be lucky if they can explain what you do to other in a way that matters.

Take charge of your referral experience by laying out:

1. Who your clients should refer
2. How they should refer them
3. Why it’s important to them and their friends/family

Package all that up into a simple and easy way for them to refer and you’ll have a winning referral program on your hands.  

First, tell your clients exactly who you are looking to bring into your business, this would be the demographics of your Ideal Client profile. Something like “I’m looking for a busy professional who wants to lose at least 20 lbs but can’t find the time”. This paints a clear picture inside the head of your client and allows them to easily connect that to the people they know.

Next, lay out a simple and clear plan for them to refer the client. It could be VIP Referral Passes they can give out with their name on it for tracking or simply having them make an email introduction to the person they want to refer. The easier you can make this the more effective it will be.  

Finally, let them know what’s in it for them. Tell them what they get and why it’s important for them to refer. That can include things like referral rewards, improved experiences for them, improved results, or maintaining the culture of the gym.

Plant The Seeds Early

You want to inform your clients that you love, almost expect referrals from the very start of your relationship with them. Acknowledge that you need to earn the referral but if your client loves their results and the experience you provide the biggest thank you they can give you is to refer others like them who could use a little help.  

Immediately after a new client sign ups you should be requesting referrals. These are called Point of Sale referrals. Right after a new client has completed all of their paperwork to start training inform them of your referral program and let them know how to refer their friends. Leverage statistics for success rates of those who workout with a friend vs those who work out alone. It’s also key to let them know that this provides a support system out of the gym as well.  

Follow Up With Requests

Over the first 30 days of your new client’s experience I recommend that you have a pre-scheduled and systemized follow up process to ensure they are having a great experience. This includes text, email, calls and in person meetings. During this 30 day follow up I also recommend that make 3 referral requests, most of them through written communication to the client via email or letters.  

This reminds them of the referral program during their initial experience with you and takes advantage of getting referrals during one of the times they are most excited about being in your program.

Opportunity Referral Requests

Many fitness pros miss key referral request opportunities because they fail to listen. This is especially true when you build a team in your fitness business. Train yourself to request referrals when a client hits a milestone or tells you something positive about your program.  

Another key opportunity to get more referrals is to listen for your clients talking about their friends or family asking about what they do for their workouts, nutrition, or complimenting them on their results. You’ll hear things like “oh, my sister was asking about Fitness Revolution the other day…”  

Often times that goes unnoticed or the fitness pro will simply tell the client to have that person call them. Instead, take control and get the individual’s information or invite the client to bring that individual in for their next workout as a guest.

These opportunities will pop up frequently once you train yourself to recognize them.

Reward Referrals

When you get a referral it’s important that you reward the referring client. Avoid discounts and other intangible rewards for something that you can physically hand the client. It’s important to note that the client isn’t referring to earn money or get a reward, but the reward is important so that you can acknowledge them for their referral.  

The standard referral reward is a $25-50 gift card or cash. This is enough to show that you truly appreciate the referral and gives you the chance to recognize the referring client in front of your other clients.

Make a big deal about getting referrals by handing the client their reward at the end of their sessions, hopefully around other clients, and taking photos to share via your newsletter, social media and other marketing channels.

This act of recognition and then marketing of the photos will keep referrals top of mind for your clients.

Putting it all together

Any one of these referral programs would help you get more referrals, but when you put them all together you can create a steady flow of new referral leads for your business. It won’t take long for you to see an increase in referrals for your fitness business. This is also one of the highest return marketing activities you can do for your business because we both know that referrals are pre-qualified and pre-sold.

Need Help Putting Together A Referral Plan or Marketing Plan to Grow Your Business?

Take 60 minutes to talk with a member of the Fitness Revolution team to dig in to your business and help you discover the path you need to take to reach your biggest goals. The call is completely FREE! If you think working with us at the end of the call can help you reach your goals we’ll discuss what may be the best fit for you.

Training people from the comfort of your own home, not dealing with client sessions or having to work around your client’s schedules. It all sounds amazing, but is it really all it’s cracked up to be?

Running an online fitness business seems incredibly appealing, especially if you’ve endured the long days, split shifts and headaches of having to run your in person fitness business.  

Let’s take a look at what you need to know about running an online fitness business if you want to be successful.

Start Small

The first mistake many fitness pros make is trying to tackle the entire world with their online fitness business. You start running FB ads, posting IG selfies and start blogging relentlessly.

Instead of trying to have your online fitness business bring in all of your income think of it as your side hustle or complement to your in person training business. Not doing training in person yet? Then you probably want to consider if you should be training people online at all.  

I’m a big believer that you need some in person experience to be able to train people online. Can it be done without that experience? Sure, but it’s going to be a tougher road and you’ll likely need to have another source of income for a while.

In fact, one of my mentees started out this way. He was working for the city while training himself for a fitness competition. As he made progress and shared his journey he also interned with me at my studio and was training clients on the side. From there he picked up some online clients and gradually worked with them in his very limited spare time.  

He’s running a six figure online business now and a studio. But, I think he’s the exception not the rule.  

Instead of trying to make your millions and live on the beach through your online fitness business let’s set a goal of adding a $1,000/mo in extra revenue to your business through online training and get your systems in order.  

Market Local, Serve Online

The easiest clients to get for your online fitness business are going to be previous clients you’ve worked with that moved away or couldn’t afford your in person services. The next easiest will be friends and family that are willing to give you the opportunity to train them online.  From there I would still focus on capturing a lot of my local market before taking my online fitness business to the world via FB ads or other marketing channels.

Once you’ve worked with several clients and got testimonials you will have the marketing resources and pressure tested systems to market to a bigger audience.  

As you are working with these local clients, previous clients who’ve moved or friends/family you will want to start building your marketing resources such as social media following, email list and any content platforms you use such as blogs, YouTube, etc.

The Delivery Is Different, Principles Are The Same

Don’t treat your online fitness business differently than a brick and mortar or in person fitness business. All  the principles stay the same and your journey will be very similar.

Most fitness pros jump into online training without thinking through their Core Offer, Local Market Positioning or pricing structure. It is as if you think because its an online business you can just kinda figure it out as you go.  

That’s a recipe for disaster.

Instead, determine how you will deliver your services, what systems you’ll need to do it and what you are going to charge. You’ll also need a clear marketing plan for attracting new clients. As you are doing this think about how you will be able to grow this business, take on more clients and earn what you want without it driving you crazy.

You will still have a culture in your online fitness business, need systems, have to learn how to lead, manage and delegate. Online doesn’t mean easier.  

Don’t Take The Personal out of Personal Trainer

Online training still requires a personal touch and interactive component to it. Don’t try to automate everything from your marketing to sales process and delivery of your programs.  

Create your Core Offer so that you have personal interaction with your clients, check ins and ways to develop relationships with them to increase client lifespan and client lifetime value. If you want to be completely hands off or rely on automated delivery of workouts combined with a FB group to run your online fitness business you’re in for a long, tough road ahead.

Here’s an example of how I would set this up:

Core Offer – 1-1 Online Personal Training

• Intro Success Session and Evaluation 60 minutes via Zoom
• Monthly Program Design, included weekly updates as needed based on progress
• Weekly Check Ins via Email
• Monthly 15 minute 1-1 Coaching Session via Zoom
• Weekly Nutrition Adjustments as needed via check in
• Unlimited email access
• Price $199/mo

From there I would also offer a premium service that doubled or tripled in price for a set number of exclusive clients, say 10 max, which included weekly Zoom Coaching Sessions and unlimited text, phone access to me.   

*Note: Zoom is a video conferencing platform.

This could also be blended in with in person training once or twice a month as needed for clients if you are running a hybrid model.

Marketing Your Online Fitness Business

The wheels usually fall off here…

You start your online fitness business and think “if I start it they will sign up”. Then crickets. No one buys your program. You follow the digital marketing advice from the pros but its not working for you.

Now what?

Here’s what I would to do launch my program:

• Create a compelling Front End Offer such as a 21 day Rapid Fat Loss Program that leads to my long term program to get some traction
• Reach out to 5 people in my network, including previous clients to start a beta program or invite them to test drive my FEO for the online program daily
• Post content to Instagram and Facebook daily including posts and stories
• Start a blog and update it with content once per week
• Build an email list and add 10 people per week to the email list through various methods including online marketing such as FB ads, network connections, strategic relationships and my website traffic
• Email that list 3x per week with valuable content and offers
• Ask for referrals from my current clients, family and friends.  Let’s say 3 asks per day

As my continued marketing plan, once I got some traction I would do the following…

Daily:

• 1 Instagram post
• 5-10 stories on Instagram
• 1 FB post
• 3 network conversations
• Follow up with leads and prospects
• 1 Referral Ask

Weekly

• Add 5 people to my network
• Send 3 emails to email list (MWF)
• Add 10 people minimum to email list
• Write 1 new blog post and publish
• Publish 1 new YouTube video
• Check FB ad statistics/metrics and optimize
• Connect with 3 online or local business strategic partner prospects

Monthly

• Collect and share 1 new client testimonial
• Promote FEO to my email list

This plan would include running targeted FB ads using a small budget to test my offers and then ramping up as I began to get a feel for my return on investment. I would outsource the FB ads to someone like Lead Engine Marketing and focus my efforts on following up with leads they got me.

Can You Be Successful With An Online Fitness Business?

Absolutely, but its not going to be an overnight success story and you aren’t going to be working 4 hours a week if you want to make any money or have any sort of meaningful impact on your clients. There’s work involved, it takes time and you have to follow basic business principles.

Commit to putting in the work, developing new skills and providing an incredible service and you’ll have success.

Want to see if we can help you start your online fitness business or take it to the next level?

Take 60 minutes to talk with a member of the Fitness Revolution team to dig in to your business and help you discover the path you need to take to reach your biggest goals. The call is completely FREE! If you think working with us at the end of the call can help you reach your goals we’ll discuss what may be the best fit for you.

Every day we meet a new fitness pro who is struggling to get their fitness business to the next level. They are frustrated with their growth, stressed out by their business, and confused about what to do next.

Time’s running out to find a solution for many fitness pros. And when that time does run out we see a lot of great fitness pros leave the industry or never reach the number of people they should because of these struggles.

Here are the not so sweet 16 reasons your personal training business fails…

You Never Learn To Sell

This is one of the first skills you need to develop as a good trainer. Being good at what you do isn’t good enough and simply offering training services doesn’t mean the clients will come. You need to learn how to get people to pay you, and pay you what you are worth, for your professional services.

Listening To The Wrong People

The wrong mentor, coach or advice giver can do some serious damage to a business. They may send you off with a bad strategy or worse give you advice that puts your entire business at risk. You need to pick your mentors and coaches wisely.

Failure To Track Performance

What gets measured gets managed. Failing to measure the performance of your marketing, financials and other business basics will leave you guessing when it comes time to make decisions. You don’t have the time to guess, business is hard enough without making uneducated decisions.  

Not Developing New Skills

When you started training you didn’t know nearly as much as you do now. You developed new skills and methods for delivering results and creating change in your clients. The same focus on personal and professional development needs to occur for your business.

No Cash Flow
The ability to invest in your marketing, your team and your business can accelerate your growth.  But, you’d be surprised how many businesses doing $200,000/year or more in gross revenue don’t have a dime to invest. Store up some cash so that you have a cushion to invest in your business when it’s time. You won’t miss that new piece of equipment as much as you’ll miss not being able to bring in new clients or hire that new trainer.

You Don’t Learn To Manage Your Time

Building a great business is nearly impossible on your own. Eventually, you’ll need to hire and delegate so that you can free up some of your time. But, before you do that it’s critical to learn to manage your own time and priorities.  

Misinterpretation of Systems

Systems don’t mean a checklist and they don’t mean automation. Too many fitness pros try to automate a process or system that should be run by a person because you know, we’re in a personal service industry. Systems should empower the people running them and when appropriate you can automate things to make it easier on the person running it. Examples would be putting clients on autopay for their memberships so a person doesn’t have to track and bill them for sessions.  

You Are Disorganized

As an entrepreneur, you’ve survived in a world of chaos. Doing every job, knowing where everything is and exactly how it should be done. That will be your achilles heel when it comes to building a team and being efficient with your time. You need to have your systems, processes, and business organized to allow others to flourish. Don’t expect them to be able to ‘just figure it out’.

You Hire The Wrong People

Slow to hire, quick to fire. That’s the rule when it comes to building your team. Now that doesn’t mean you should let someone go at the first mistake because often time that’s on you. It does mean that you need a great hiring process, clear expectations for each team member and a process to ensure they are trained to do their job well. Do everything you can to hire, train and retain the right people.

Burnout Blows Up A Business

You only have so much gas in your tank. Burning the candle at both ends, running around with your hair on fire trying to grow your business can’t last forever. Even if you outlast this, most your performance won’t be what it could. Learn to say no to opportunities that aren’t directly tied to your current goals and delegate tasks that you should no longer be doing. Oh, and take some time to recharge. Even if that’s just an afternoon on Sundays.

Bad Partnerships

Partnerships can be great or they kill a business. Most fitness pros bring on a partner for the wrong reasons. Before you take on a business partner get clear in what they will bring, get everything in writing and know exactly what the expectations are from both parties.

Putting The Brakes On Marketing

This industry is too competitive to stop marketing. Many fitness pros get ‘too busy’ to keep up their marketing. Eventually, their funnel of new leads dries up and revenue starts to drop. But, you can’t just turn your marketing back on and hope for immediate results. It can take weeks, even months, for marketing to turn into revenue. Don’t take your foot off the gas….EVER!

Refuse To Let Go

As you grow into a business owner with a team your roles shifts from ‘do-er’ to leader. If you refuse to let go of the technical work in your business, including some of the training. NOT ALL, if that’s what you love to do, but at least some of the training needs to be delegated. Your job now is to get results through other people, which requires a majority of your time is spent leading them.

Growing Too Fast

Have you ever had a client who wanted to progress on an exercise too early? They usually end up hurt and then set back with their progress. The same goes for a business owner who tries to open up another location too soon, doesn’t master the fundamentals at each stage of their business or tries to be an absentee owner too quickly. You have to earn the right to grow as a business owner and that requires putting in the work.

Your Ego Gets In The Way

After you’ve seen some success its easy to drink a little too much of your own Kool-Aid. If you think you’ve got all the answers and that you ‘know better’ things are eventually going to catch up with you. You’ll avoid addressing pressing issues or being real about the issues in your business. You need to be in a constant state of learning and growth.   

Business Doesn’t Evolve

The market is constantly shifting and changing if you don’t adapt your business will suffer. Doing things one way because that’s how you’ve always done them is a surefire way to eventually go out of business. Many giants have fallen, such as Blockbuster, because they refused to adapt. Your small business is even more sensitive to market shifts.  

BONUS: You Don’t Get The Support You Need Fast Enough

Every single successful business owner and entrepreneur finds mentors and coaches to help the learn and grow. You should look at this as an investment in your future and your success, it’s not an expense. In fact, you can’t afford to not find a mentor or coach. If you want to learn how FR can help you and see if we are a good fit, schedule a Complimentary Discovery Call with a member of our team. We’ll figure out if any of these 16 things are occuring in your business and help you address them quickly.

If we’re having a conversation exactly one year from today, and you had to look back over the past 12 months, what would have needed to happen over that period of time for you to be happy with the growth in your personal training business?

Take a minute and really think about your answer…

It’s easy to think about where you need to be in order for you to be happy with your success, but the challenge comes in figuring out the plan to get there. And more importantly having the accountability to execute that plan!

There are 3 elements of success in a personal training business. This is the trifecta for growth in your business and accomplishing big things in your business.

3 Elements of Success For A Personal Training Business

From our experience working with hundreds of personal training business and fitness business owners these three elements will put you on the fast track to success:

1. Live Events
2. Support from a peer group
3. Support from a coach

Live Events

One of the most powerful experiences you can have is attending a well run summit, conference or workshop.  

“Stepping away to work on developing your business in a live, hands on environment will create breakthrough moments for you.”

The first step in learning how to be successful and what it takes to grow your personal training business is putting yourself in a growth environment where you can learn from experts. Live events not only give you the chance to learn new strategies but you also get to see what’s possible by surrounding yourself with other like minded business owners.

Our most successful coaching clients attend two events per year.  The first is a Live Coaching Meeting designed to help the accelerate their business growth and the other is the Elite Fitness & Performance Summit.   

Momentum grows when you attend live events and the relationships that are developed help develop a strong, supportive community for you.  

Support From A Peer Group

You’re not in this alone!  There are other personal training business and fitness business owners out there who are dealing with the same challenges as you.  The trick is finding them and leveraging them to help you grow as a business owner.

You share common issues, challenges and opportunities. A strong peer network is a critical element to your success. Engaging with them will make life much easier for you.

“FR has streamlined our growth and allowed us to be a business with measurable goals and a direction that is leading somewhere we can see.” 

-Trevor Warnke, Athletic Revolution Mundelein

Your network will give you the power to “see what’s coming next”, essentially to predict the obstacles you’ll be facing before you get there. The experiences of the other business owners can be a valuable asset if you engage.  

WARNING: Make sure you find the right peer group. Not all are created equal!

The combined experience and knowledge of your peers and the lessons you can learn from them for bigger, faster growth for everyone. Always try to ‘level up’ with your peer groups and in your network. Aspire to connect and share ideas with those who are more successful than you or are where you want to be.  

Support From A Coach

You’ve probably experienced some level of chaos in your business. You’re on the verge of being burnt out, feeling as if you can’t add one more thing to your plate. Finding time to spend with your family or friends seems impossible and you may feel like you’ve hit a ceiling in your business.

You’re in a never-ending cycle of going to work each day but have lost sense of your true purpose.

You know there are solutions to your problems and answers to your questions. You tell yourself “it doesn’t have to be like this!” but struggle to create the solutions on your own.

That’s the beauty of a business coach for your personal training business. They provide an extra set of eyes that can give you a fresh look at your challenges and help you see the opportunity in your business.   

A great coach will help you do the following 3 things, in this order…

Step 1: Get Control

The first thing any great personal training business coach will do is assess your business and help you prioritize the actions that will produce the best results. You need to get control of the chaos and start freeing up some of your time and energy so that you can focus.

There’s a good chance your coach will be be very ‘hands on’ during this portion of your time together. You’re going to need a clear plan of action and accountability to get the job done. Your coach should work with you to ensure you’ve got healthy cash flow, your marketing is improving and there are no critical warning signs in your business.

Step 2: Build the Machine

Now that you’ve freed up energy to focus on your long-term vision for the business, it’s time to start building the machine. You’re beginning to sense momentum in your business.  Marketing efforts are more productive, your revenue is growing and there are far less fires and emergencies that arise in your day-to-day.

Your coach shouldn’t let you relax too much at this point. The real work is just getting started!  Don’t confuse the reduced chaos with success, now you have to implement the systems and structure within your business that allow it run like a well oiled machine.

This is where your coach should make systemization simple. Your systems will empower the people in your business to do great work and you’ll start to feel a sense of accomplishment each day.  

A coach will help you spend more of your time on the things you love doing and it’s paying off for you!

“I felt I was in the same spot I was when I opened the business four years prior. I was busy. I was doing alright financially. But I could not envision what the future of my business was going to be like. I was worried that I was just going to continue to be a trainer with a studio to train clients rather than a trainer with a business.

FR helps me evaluate the state of my business—performance numbers I should be looking at, who is my ideal client, who I should be marketing to, and what systems if any did I have in place. And then they helped me establish a vision for the future of my business.”

-Rich Ruffing, Accelerated Fitness  

Step 3: Run an Aligned Business

Your relationship with a coach should be transformative, but it can take time. At this point it’s time to make the leap from fitness pro and grow into an entrepreneur and leader for your team.

Because of the plan you and your coach have implemented your business is working as a cohesive unit, with clear purpose and direction. Your vision is defined and goals are clear.

You should sense incredible momentum and have the ability to evaluate more opportunities instead of dealing with constant problems. Most importantly, you’ll see issues early and be prepared to address them quickly.

This isn’t the end for you though…it’s simply the beginning! It’s the beginning for your newly aligned business and the opportunity for you to grow as a leader. To keep the momentum going you’ll use the system your coach has taught you (they do have a system right?) in your business consistently. Now your focus is maintaining alignment and making faster progress towards your vision.

Now no level of growth seems out of reach!

Your 12-Month Roadmap

We started this blog post with a simple question…

If we’re having a conversation exactly one year from today, and you had to look back over the past 12 months, what would have needed to happen over that period of time for you to be happy with the growth in your personal training business?

There’s a good chance that you can clearly see what you want your business to look like and what you want it to do for you. The challenge always comes in creating (and sticking to) the plan to reach those goals.  

You don’t have to do it alone!  Fill out the form below and schedule your complimentary Discovery Call to find out if we can help you build that plan and get it implemented quickly.

As you start your fitness business word of mouth marketing is your bread and butter. You do a great job working with clients and they in turn help you grow your business. But, that doesn’t last long!

Eventually you need to grow faster and acquire more clients than word of mouth or referral marketing allows. Which brings up the million dollar question…

“Where do I find more clients?”

Unfortunately, many fitness business owners end up spinning their wheels in an attempt to get their marketing message out into the world. You scramble to attend networking events, beg for referrals and maybe even take a crack at running Facebook ads. This uncalculated and random approach to marketing rarely works in your favor.

Here’s a better way…

Develop Your Prospect Profile

Fitness marketing, any marketing really, requires that you have an intimate understanding of your prospects. Here at FR we call this your Ideal Client Profile and use a resource called Prospect Profiles to help you layout a plan to communicate and find more clients.

Building your prospect profile doesn’t take long when you use a simple framework to help you think through the exercise. The secret to creating a great Prospect Profile however is taking your time to really step outside of what you think you know and get inside the head of your prospects.

The Demographic

Your Prospect Profile is centered around building a character. You want your prospect to come to life so that it’s easier to imagine communicating with them and helping them solve their problems in your fitness marketing.

Begin by laying out the following:

• Age
• Gender
• Marital Status
• Family (Kids, ages, etc)
• Location (Neighborhood, City, etc)
• Occupation
• Income
• Home Type
• Car
• Hobbies
• Interests
• Level of Education

Don’t be afraid to get specific. Age ranges don’t work for this exercise! You need to zero in on just ONE prospect. That doesn’t mean you will only work with this person, but it helps with your marketing. You can create multiple prospect profiles to account for different genders, age ranges, etc.

Goals & Values

The next piece of the prospect profile puzzle is identifying goals and values. This is pretty self explanatory, but important. Know specifically what goals and the reason that the individual wants to achieve those goals for themselves. Work hard to go deeper than “get in shape” or “move better”. Be specific about the outcome your prospect wants to achieve.

Buyers value different things when making a choice to work with a company or person to help them accomplish their goals or solve a problem. Ask your clients what they value in a business, how they choose to work with a company and understand their personal Core Values. This will ensure that you are building a business around clients who will support your culture, not create their own.

Challenges & Pain Points

If your prospects could change on their own they would do it. No need to spend a few hundred bucks a month for a trainer if I could just go to the gym and eat better, right?

Your prospects will make decisions emotionally, we all do, so it’s important to know what they are struggling with during their decision making process. You want to know what is holding your prospects back, what causes them frustration, what obstacles have kept them from making this change on their own or keeping this change. You will use all of this in your fitness marketing to show your prospects that you understand what they need and what they are going through.

Pain points are important. Behind every fitness goal is a motivator, a pain point that drives someone to make the change that they desire. You need to know the deep down emotional reason that someone would invest a few hours a week and change their lifestyle to reach a specific goal.

Objections & Fears

You know those little voices in your head that tell you not to do something or that tell you that you’re not good enough to reach a goal? Your clients have those as well, so you might as well be prepared to address them. Based on the demographics of your prospect, what are the things that would keep them from starting with you in the first place?

Their objections such as time, money, having failed before, etc are important to bring up in your marketing. By overcoming them in your content and in your marketing messages you’ll better prepare them to make a good decision when it comes time to sell. Their fears are the little voices in their head telling them they can’t do this or what if they try and fail at it. What is holding them back from at least trying you out?

Where You Can Find Them

A lot of fitness business owners go to the same old sources for leads. You’ll try to build relationships with chiros, physical therapists and maybe even a massage therapist only to be disappointed because the relationship didn’t produce fast enough for you.

You have to realize that every fitness pro is targeting those businesses or people for more leads. How can you be different? Ask the following questions:

1. What organizations do my prospects belong to?
2. What charities do they participate in?
3. Where do the shop and spend their disposable income?
4. What schools do their children attend?
5. What social media are they using most often?
6. What restaurants do they eat at?
7. Where do they spend their free time?

If you can do a brainstorm list of these areas, or even ask some of your current clients these same questions, you’ll have a large list of potential places, business or people to leverage in your marketing.

Once you have identified the places you can find more people you need to create a marketing plan to get your message in front of these prospects. That could be paid advertising, joint ventures, networking or any other marketing method that will effectively get their attention.

Master Your Fitness Marketing…

Learning how to find and attract your Ideal Client doesn’t have to be difficult, but it does require that you have the right framework and resources. If you want to be able to grow your business, help more clients and still have the freedom to enjoy time with your family and friends you need to join The Academy.

Inside The Academy you’ll get access to Fitness Marketing Mastery (along with several other curriculum and courses) to help you create a marketing plan for your business. Leverage our training modules and discussion forum to accelerate your growth while you put things in place to free up time and make more money.

Get started for just $39/mo (with no commitment!)

Do you know why your clients REALLY invest in your services?

Here’s a hint…

They aren’t buying sessions or even great training. They are buying results. The outcome that you deliver is what will attract more leads and clients to your business. It’s also what will help you charge what you’re worth and eliminate a lot of the price objections you get from leads.

Marketing the outcome you deliver and the problems that you solve for your potential clients allows you to grab their attention. You can speak directly to their needs and desires. Once you have their attention marketing your credentials, how you deliver your programs and all the bells and whistles of your business becomes a lot easier (and more effective)!

What you are marketing is an offer, one that allows your potential client to achieve their goals. Creating marketable offers, both Front End Offers and Core Offers, for your business could be the game changer that you’ve been seeking.

Here are 7 questions to help you nail down the marketability of your programs:

1. What specific result can you promise and deliver to clients?
2. What time frame can you deliver those results in?
3. What challenge, obstacles or pain can you help them avoid (that are important to them)?
4. What is that important to them?
5. What are the top 5 benefits of someone will get from working with you?
6. Is the result you’re promising and the time frame appealing for your target market?
7. Does it stand out from your competitors claims and offers?

If you highlight the answers to these questions in your marketing you’ll start to attract more (and better) clients!

Need Help Getting More Clients?

Schedule a complimentary 60-Minute Discovery Call with an expert on the Fitness Revolution Team to help you find a solution to your growth challenges. On this call, you’ll be able to uncover the obstacles holding you back from reaching your goals and put a plan in place to overcome them. It’s time to end the guesswork and frustration so that you finally create the income and business you want.

Wanna chase that “Lifestyle Business Owner” dream?

This probably isn’t the place for you. All the hype and BS surrounding the gurus telling you about being able to become a 7-figure online trainer or work just a few hours a week while building an empire is holding you, and the rest of this industry back.

That message is the equivalent of a trainer telling a client they can get cover model ready in 2 short weeks by simply taking their supplements and following their proprietary workout routine. It ain’t gonna happen…

Now that we’ve got that stuff out of the way we can get to the good stuff. What does it really take to run a highly successful fitness business? Online, studio, bootcamp or even a great business as an independent trainer.

A successful fitness business is built off the work of a High Performing Fitness Business Owner. Without a leader ready to tackle the toughest challenges and take risks, the business stands no chance at reaching its full potential. You must transform from fitness professional to fitness business professional to achieve your biggest goals.

Seek The Truth

High Performers want to know the truth. And sometimes the truth hurts. Surrounding yourself with ‘yes people’ and only wanting your decisions to be confirmed is a dangerous game to play as a business owner.

Your mission is simple…

Always look to be challenged and uncover the truth about your decisions and your thought process. High Performers don’t always make the right decisions and the outcomes of the best decisions don’t always work out in their favor. Mistakes are made, but the High Performer learns from those mistakes.

Bet On Yourself

High Performers are willing to bet on themselves. They will invest in their marketing, in their personal development and in their growth as a business owner. The best investment you can make with time or money is on yourself.

You’ll see business owners who continue to struggle constantly make excuses for why they can’t afford to market or hire a coach to help them grow their business. It’s not that they can’t afford it, but that they don’t value the investment.

If you knew that you could invest $1,000 today, but it would turn into $2,000 in 3 months you’d make that happen, right? That’s what marketing and coaching, when done right, can do for you and your business.

Kind, Not Nice

High Performers deliver kindness.

You may be thinking “WTF does that mean?” It’s pretty simple. Kindness is delivering information to someone with the intent to help them grow. You deliver kindness because you care about the individual. Being nice is telling the person what they want to hear or omitting information that may upset them.

As a High Performer you’ll need to learn how to communicate with your team, and even clients, kindly. There are going to be times that you have to be critical of someone’s performance or actions to help them grow as a member of your team. You can’t be afraid of conflict and avoid delivering this message if you want to be a High Performer.

Create Space

You can’t be busy and be a High Performer. Busy is what the average business owner calls themselves. Productive is how you describe a High Performer.

To be productive and think strategically about the growth and development of your business you need to create space. Space to think, to ponder, to ideate, to grow.

You’ll be tempted to put out every fire, tackle busy work, and seem busy to avoid having to spend time with your thoughts. In a world that moves incredibly fast it can be a real challenge to slow down and think.

This isn’t wasted time! Your best ideas and strategies will often come after an hour or two of sitting and thinking about your business without distractions.

A High Performing Network

There isn’t a single High Performer that I am aware of who has accomplished their success alone. High Performers understand the power of surrounding themselves with people who make them better and lift them up.

The saying that you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with is proven true over and over again. In fact, many of the times that I’ve felt stuck in business or my own personal development have been because I either outgrew my current network or wasn’t surrounding myself with the right people.

Finding a group of peers that you can connect with, lean on for help in challenging times and that help you grow as an individual and business owner will accelerate your progress. There’s nothing more powerful than being around the right group of people.

Seize Opportunities

High Performers tend to identify opportunities and take action on them quickly. Not every opportunity is worth moving on, so you’ll have to learn to make good decisions. Often times the decision to act means evaluating risk and learning how to manage that risk as you continue to move on the opportunity.

One of your biggest opportunities as a Fitness Business Owner is being apart of the Elite Fitness & Performance Summit. This is the #1 event for Fitness Business Pros in 2018.

Will you seize it?

This is your opportunity to learn from top experts in the industry, discover strategies that will transform your business and connect with a network of High Performers.

Reserve your spot today…

It’s easier than ever to access information from experts all over the world. Blogs, podcasts, YouTube and social media make everyone and everything accessible. Which makes you think long and hard about attending a live event, conference or summit.

When attending a live event you have to fork out travel expenses, hotel, food, time away from the business and time away from family. There’s no question it is an investment. The determining factor is the return on that investment.

After running a 3+ hour workshop for sports performance and youth fitness business owners at last weeks IYCA Summit I did a little reflecting on the benefits of getting to these live events for a business owner. Here are my top 10 reasons you MUST get to live events if you want to succeed.

10 Reasons You MUST Attend Live Events

1. It gives you the chance to connect, in person, with other people who are going through the same challenges and facing the same difficult situations as you.
2. You have the opportunity to feel connected to a community bigger than yourself that can motivate you and inspire you take bigger, bolder actions to grow your business.
3. There is no better learning environment than live, in-person learning from experts all over the world. You’ll naturally absorb more information at a conference or summit than you will online.
4. You get the chance to escape the day to day rigors of running your business to focus on growing your business. The space this creates will allow for faster and bigger growth. Learning online in between sessions and then jumping right back into your routine kills some of that creativity and momentum.
5. The content and knowledge being shared at live events is cutting edge and innovative. Much of what you see online is created after this information has been shared to audiences all over the country.
6. You get the chance to connect with the experts and ask them questions. Emailing back and forth or connecting on social media is great, but being able to look a presenter in the eye, shake their hand and have a fluid conversation can’t be beat.
7. Just ONE idea from a live event can dramatically impact your business. You don’t need to absorb everything from the event, you only need ONE big idea that will transform your business.
8. You get to cut loose and have some fun! You work incredibly hard to grow and run your business. Attending these events allows you to kick back with other like minded individuals and have a little fun. You’ll go back rested and recharged.
9. Your commitment to your craft and personal development can be used to position you as an expert. Showing your clients and target market that you are growing as a fitness and business pro helps you stand out among the trainer who’s biggest concern is running the rack for bicep curls on a Saturday.
10. You’ll open your mind to new possibilities. It’s easy to get stuck in your own little world, running your business and gridding away. Stepping away for a few days allows you to see what’s possible in terms of growth in your business and for yourself. Your mindset will shift and growth becomes easier because you are able to think bigger.

If you aren’t willing to invest in yourself how can you expect your clients to invest in themselves with you?

The Elite Fitness & Performance Summit 2018 is the #1 event for Fitness Business Pros! If you want to level up as a business owner and grow your business then this is a MUST attend event. Save $100 on your registration and get $1,036 in bonuses by registering today.

4 Tips To Leverage Social Media

Love it or hate it, social media is here to stay and it’s a critical part of your fitness business marketing plan. If you’re not using social media to build your authority, position yourself in the local market and communicate with your audience then you’re making things hard on yourself.

These tips aren’t going to turn you into the fitness equivalent of a Kardashian, growing 100+ million followers, but it will help you stay front and center for your local market.

Create Your Own Reality TV Show

Social media allows your audience to get a ‘behind-the-scenes’ look at your life as a fitness pro. They want to know what your day is like, what you’re thinking, where you eat, etc. Stories, especially on Instagram, give you the ability to create your own reality TV show.

Now, you may not want to let everyone in on your personal life. That’s okay. Show them what your gym life is like as you go through training sessions, share client successes, etc.

However, the more you can seem like a real person in your stories the more powerful they will be.

Set a goal to share 5-10 stories each day with your followers and give them a behind the scenes look at what life is like as a fitness pro.

LIVE with…

Creating live videos on social media allows you to connect with your audience in real time. This is one of the most powerful ways to share your content (and one I need to do a lot more!)

Stay away from live Q&As until you can figure out what to expect in terms of your audience engaging. Start off with sharing tips on nutrition, toning up your arms, tightening your midsection, glute exercises, etc. Whatever is most appealing to your target market, talk about that.

Be consistent and don’t get discouraged if you’re audience is small at first. It takes time to build a following and get them to engage.

Go live on each social media channel at least 1 time per week.

Do Your Research

This is particularly useful for Instagram. Using the right hashtags and locations in your posts are two of the most powerful ways to grow your local audience.

Following the right hashtags allows you to engage with your audience and enter into conversations that you may have missed otherwise.

For more info read this article on Buffer.

Be Social 🙂

Do you put up your post, scroll for a bit, maybe like a post or two and then jump right off social media?

If so, stop! Use social media to actually be social. (This is admittedly another area I need to improve on!) Comment on posts that you see, engage with your followers, DM or PM someone you haven’t talked to in a while.

The more you engage on social media the more it will give back to you, especially as a brand.

You can even use this to build up joint ventures by sharing and commenting on posts from other local businesses. This is a great way to get your foot in the door without cold calling.

Aim to reply to all your comments (unless you have 100,000+ followers) and DMs in a reasonable amount of time, comment on 3 posts each time you jump on social media and DM at least one person a day.

Don’t overcomplicate it!

Social media can become overwhelming and confusing. Don’t let it! Set a few simple rules for yourself, establish your behavior goals and then follow through. After 60-90 days evaluate if you feel like you got enough out of social media to keep with it or go back to the drawing board and find a new plan.

You don’t need tens of thousands of followers for social media to impact your business. All you need is a consistent plan to expand your reach and add value to your audience.

Here’s the cheat sheet if you skipped to the end:

Facebook

• Post 1x per day with a video or picture
• Go LIVE 1x per week
• Reply to all comments and PMs
• Comment on at least 3 other posts per day
• Share 1 other business post per week
• PM one person per day

Instagram

• Post to your feed 1x per day with a video or picture
• Go LIVE 1x per week
• Post at least 5 stories a day
• Research hashtags and locations to build your audience (and use them)
• Comment on at least 3 posts per day
• Comment or Repost another business post once per week
• DM one person a day

Twitter

• I don’t know, don’t use it much 🙂
• No seriously, I can’t help you here….

Using the tools you have your fingertips, mainly your smartphone, you can now share valuable content and be the first fitness pro your target market comes to when they are ready to change their lives.

Join Us At The Elite Fitness & Performance Summit 2018

This year at EFPS we’re going to be sharing a ton of great marketing and business growth strategies, just like what you learned here today. We’ll go on a journey together at this event to uncover the hidden obstacles and opportunities in your business.

You can consistently and confidently attract high-quality clients. All you need is the right fitness business marketing prescription. A marketing plan isn’t a random compilation of marketing ideas and tactics done inconsistently. Yet, many fitness business owners and personal trainers do exactly that and hope to get more clients.

If you witnessed a trainer randomly running around from machine to machine, from the dumbbells to the squat rack, performing a bunch of different exercises with reckless abandon you’d raise an eyebrow and think “what a joke…”

A great fitness pro would lay out a program, with specific exercises, rep schemes, etc to deliver the desired result for the client.

Now, think of marketing as the program and the client as your business…

You need a specific plan, with the right exercises and volume to hit your sales goals and growth goals for your business.

PLEASE STOP RANDOMLY MARKETING!

While you may feel like you’re staying busy it’s not producing results. Over the past few years I’ve been teaching the Triple A Marketing Method and building marketing plans for business owners. After hundreds of reps and watching the results come in I’ve got a pretty specific marketing prescription that I recommend…

The Referral Rewards System

You must be able to get your current client base to perpetuate your growth. You’ll see evidence of this in a lot of the activities I’ll be prescribing to you today, but the easiest and most direct way is via referrals.

Most referral programs underproduce or fail because they are very passive. To have success you need your program to reward, acknowledge and stay top of mind. An effective referral rewards program is promoted consistently through recognition of the referring clients.

Your Marketing Rx: Instead of passively waiting for referrals to come in set a target for the number of referral requests you’ll ask for each week.

Testimonial Collection

The next best thing to a referral is a client testimonial. This provides social proof to use in your marketing. Great testimonials tell a story. They allow your target market to see that you understand their problems and can help them get the results that you want.

If you’re looking for examples of great testimonials watch a late night infomercial for a fitness product. They are full of success stories that move people to take action.

Your Marketing Rx: Ask for at least one testimonial each month

Social Media Marketing

There has never been a time where building an active audience is easier than it is right now. And that’s all because of the power of social media.

Social media gives you a platform to share your ideas, connect with your audience and showcase what you do. The use of stories and video allow you to literally have your own reality TV show channel without all the crazy drama (I hope!).

Instagram is the channel that you should focus on for the time being, especially with your free content.

Your Marketing Rx: Post at least 3 times per week to your feed, using hashtags (do your research) to build your following. Add to your story every day, at least 3 times per day to communicate and connect with your current following.

Facebook Ads

The changes at Facebook recently have caused a bit of a stir, but I don’t think they are cause for panic. What you’ll notice is your organic reach for business and fan page content will go down and ad costs are going to continue to rise.

But, that DOES NOT mean you avoid running Facebook ads. It means you need to dial in your marketing message, spend your marketing budget wisely and focus on your follow up to make the most of the leads you get.
The mistake you want to avoid is selling directly through your FB ad. Instead, the goal of your ad is to acquire a lead or prospect via an opt in form or application. Let your follow up and sales process convert them to a paying client.

Your Marketing Rx: Run ads constantly, rotating between ads to build your email list and ads to promote a Front End Offer application. AND FOLLOW UP RELENTLESSLY!!!!!

Email Marketing

This is something I’ve preached about for years and very little has changed. Every single personal trainer or fitness professional should have an email list. Email is still the best and easiest way to communicate and sell to your audience.

The key to making email marketing work is sending valuable content on a consistent schedule.

Your Marketing Rx: Email your list at least once per week. One out of every 4 emails should be a direct promotion to your Front End Offer. Add every lead you get to your email list and ask your network if you can add them as well.

Networking

“Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future…”

That’s a biblical concept with serious business application. Your ability to add value to others, connect with powerful people and have a presence in your community will dramatically improve your business growth.

When I was growing my fitness business I never turned down an opportunity to attend an event. It didn’t matter if it was a networking event, Chamber of Commerce event, charity gathering or a client’s party. My presence at these events allowed me to rub shoulders with key members of the community and connect with other business owners who opened up doors for me.

Not to mention if you have clients at the event they will always introduce you as “This is my personal trainer…” That’s nearly as good as a referral.

Networking with a purpose can transform your business. Even for introverts 🙂

Your Marketing Rx: Add 3 new people to your network each week and connect with 3 of members of your current network.

Putting It All Together

You may be looking at this list and feel overwhelmed. Or maybe you think you’re already doing all this and not getting results. Or, you could need a little more detail to get things going.

If any of those sound like you make sure you book your ticket to the Elite Fitness & Performance Summit 2018. I’ll be taking a deep dive into the Fitness Business Marketing Rx and bringing in experts on many of these topics to show you exactly how to explode your business growth with them.

Why Should A Prospect Choose Your Business Over The Competition?

Your business should be the most well known and respected fitness solution for your target market in your community. If its not, then you’re blending in with the competition and likely struggling to bring in new clients.

Taking the top position in your market shouldn’t be complex. It does require a great strategy and disciplined approach.

Positioning is being able to clearly communicate what you do and who you do that best for.   You should attract your target prospects and repel others.

3 Keys To Successful Positioning For Your Fitness Business

Differentiate. Address. Articulate. Your Local Market Positioning™ should be able to accomplish these three objectives to be successful.

You need to differentiate your service from the competition. Clearly being able to communicate why a prospect would choose your business over others is a powerful marketing skill that will help you take top position in your community.

Addressing important customer buying criteria is next on your list. You’ll need to determine what matters to your prospects when they are making a decision for hiring a personal trainer or joining a gym.

Articulate key service characteristics that make you the best choice. You need to be able to put a little spin on things to make them attractive for your target market. What is better about your service, how you deliver it or the results it provides than your competition.  You get to decide how your training services are perceived by your audience.  They can either blend in or stand out.

Avoid These Positioning Mistakes

The most common mistake, but one that is detrimental to your marketing success, is having bland and boring differentiators. You’re going to want to state the obvious in your differentiators and create a list of things that you think make you stand out, but in reality don’t matter to your prospects.

Differentiators such as using assessments, creating personalized workouts, caring about your clients, etc fall into this category. It doesn’t mean they can’t be differentiators, but you have to do some work to craft them up into something that is impactful.

The second most common mistake is relying on a list of features as your differentiators. If equipment or technology is listed as a differentiator you’re at risk. It’s easy for your competition to wipe out your differentiators by implementing it into their business.

Placing too much of an emphasis on your education can be a mistake as well. Simply relying on your certifications or a degree isn’t impactful. On the flip side, if you have a lot of experience (more than most any other fitness pro) or advanced degrees that allow you to stand out, such as being able to practice as a physical therapist or being an exercise physiologist those can be used to your advantage.

Remember, for your positioning to be great it has to differentiate, address, and articulate.

Creating Powerful Differentiators

You’re looking to have 3-5 strong differentiators to use in your marketing. Each of these differentiators may not secure your spot at the top of your market, but when put together they should ensure your business stands out as the top choice.

Here’s a quick rundown of how to create your differentiators:

1. List all the features of your service
2. List all the benefits your client will get from your service
3. List any statistical data, tangible results, and awards you’ve won
4. What are the top 5 buying criteria of your clients?
5. List your top 3-5 competitors, their positioning, and the rates they charge.

If you take your time answer these questions and complete the exercise you’ll have a foundation for your differentiators.

Compile the top differentiators that specifically address your Ideal Client’s buying decisions and that help you stand out from the competition. There’s a good chance you’ll have 5-10 possible differentiators.

Spend some time crafting them into powerful statements that make your business the obvious choice for your Ideal Client.

Once you feel like you have your top 3-5, stop and ask why each of these is meaningful to your Ideal Client. Check to make sure that’s clear in your statements.

Your Positioning Statement

Now that you have a solid list of things that make you stand out it’s time to create your positioning statement. This is comparable to an elevator pitch or unique selling proposition.

The positioning statement for your business should address who you are, who you help, how you help them and why they should choose you.

It looks a little like this…

“Fitness Revolution helps fitness business owners create a successful business they love through strategic business coaching programs with highly trained, experienced Success Coaches using a proven system for delivering results.”

Yes, that was a shameless plug 🙂 

A powerful positioning statement will be able to explain how you get the client their desired results. It should also prompt more questions such as “how” and “tell me more about that”.

Consider how you can explain what you do in your programs in a way that is attractive and appealing to your Ideal Client.

Taking Over The #1 Spot

Creating your differentiators and positioning statement won’t automatically help you get to the top of your local market. You’ll need to test them in your market, refine them, and use them everyday in your marketing to get to, and hold that top spot.

When you’re able to differentiate, address and articulate your Local Marketing Positioning the marketing you do will be more impactful. Things will become easier and you’ll notice that you’re attracting more of your Ideal Client.

Your Local Market Positioning should permeate all of your marketing. It helps you make decisions on where to market, your message and the types of marketing you do in your community. It’s a filter to ensure you’re focused on the things that will help you be the #1 fitness solution for your target market.

One business owner came to Fitness Revolution looking for a better way to grow his business.   The first priority for Filipe Cotas, owner of TFW Medway, was to get a systematic marketing plan in place to bring in more clients.  He had some success with marketing and client acquisition but it wasn’t as smooth as he wanted, especially for the goals he had set for himself.

Like many other business owners he was working 80-100 hours per week in gym.  He loved what he did, but he knew he couldn’t keep up this pace forever.

Filipe and his Success Coach, Pearla Phillips, intiated a marketing plan in the first month.  This plan resulted in Filipe selling out his first transformation challenge of 2018 by adding 34 new members in a matter of days.

Filipe trusted the process and committed fully.  That’s the biggest reason for his success.

– Pearla Phillips, Success Coach

There’s no question Filipe will experience continued success on his journey.

Want to see if we can help you with your business?

At Fitness Revolution we specialize in strategic business coaching for serious fitness business owners.  If you know there has to be a better way and are ready to take the next step apply for a complimentary Coaching Call today!  On this call you’ll speak with an expert on our team to see if we can help you with your business.   The #1 investment you can make in your business is in yourself!

Complete the application below to schedule your call…

Is your marketing plan bringing your fitness business enough new leads and clients to hit your goals?

If you’re like most fitness pros the answer is “NO!”  But, it’s not your fault.  You’ve probably never been taught how to market effectively and if you’re looking for help many “gurus” will give you bad advice.

Hate to break it to you, but there’s no single marketing idea, FB ad or fancy funnel that will drastically transform your business.   It’s easy to buy into the snake oil that’s being sold to most struggling fitness businesses out there trying to get more clients.   You want to believe that you can put a FB ad and instantly get more clients.

And, yes, there are a few success stories out there of business owners who hit it out of the park on their first try.  They bring in dozens of new clients almost instantly.  But, for the majority that plan won’t work.  Plus, its dangerous to put all your success and the growth of your business on just one idea.  The second something changes (like Facebook’s algorithm or rules) you’re in serious trouble.

Instead, let’s take a look at your marketing plan to discover opportunities for improvement.  Sound good?

What’s your marketing strategy?

Ever feel like your marketing just isn’t hitting the target?  It’s like you’re talking to no one.  Or worse, bringing in the wrong type of leads.

If that’s the case, start with doing a quick audit of your strategy.

The following is a good place to start:

• A marketable Core Offer
• Perfect Prospect Profiles or Ideal Client Profile
• Positioning Statement
• Differentiators

If you’re having trouble makeing profits with your current offerings or your prospects are choosing the wrong program for themselves it’s time to look at your Core Offer.  The Core Offer must be the ONE THING you are best at doing, fit the needs of your Ideal Client and be the economic driver for your business.

Don’t make the mistake of having too many offerings and not focusing on building one true Core Offer.  You want this to be the thing that you are known for in your community.  It can be 1-1 training, boot camps, large group training, small group training or semi private training, but you need to pick one and master it.

Next, it’s time to dig into your Ideal Client Profile.  This allows you to focus your marketing on a very specific person (one you’ve made up) and hone in on their pains, challenges, goals and values.  Being able to get inside the head and understand the emotions of your Ideal Client will help you steer your marketing and craft your message.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is creating a profile that describes a client after they have already joined your program.  You want to think about an Ideal Client and what they need when they are searching for a solution to their problems, hence the term Perfect Prospect.

What makes you different?

Most business owners can’t really answer that question.  They will spew out a list of features or bland, boring statements that just about every trainer would use in their marketing.   If your differentiators can be easily replicated or knocked off they put you at a big risk.

A great example is having certain equipment in your gym like MyZone or Inbody.   That certianly helps you and is likely a great thing for your clients but the trainer down the street can easily go buy those things and instantly take away your differentiation.

Instead, a differentiator would be that you use the latest technology to better results for your clients in less time.

Now you can filter decisions like investing in new technology or equipment for your gym to help you stay ahead of the competition.  You’ll have to stay on top of the new products, but for the right type of client this could be a huge differentiator.

Consider what makes you different.  Do you have an advanced degree, deliver results in a unique way, have statistics that help you stand out?

Being able to clearly communicate why what you do is different, in a way that matters to your prospects, is the ultimate marketing weapon.

Once you know who your marketing is aimed at, what you are marketing and how you are different craft up a quick positioning statment that clearly communicates it to your audience.   Test it out on your clients, friends, and people in your network to see if it resonates with them.  Ask them how they would describe what you do and what makes you different to get a good sense of the language and terms to use in your marketing.

What’s Your Marketing Plan?

You should apply the same diligent planning and preparation for your marketing activies as you do when preparing a client’s training program.  This is the driver for growth in your business.

A great marketing plan uses your marketing strategy to help guide what marketing you will do, the message you’ll communicate and the places you will need to market your programs.

Your marketing plan should leverage 3 marketing channels:

• Internal
• Offline
• Online

This ensures you have a diverse marketing plan and reduces your risk if something happens to one of the channels.  Your message will spread much faster and reach more people when you take this approach.

Focusing on the Triple A Marketing Method to find your marketing activities and then adding them to your marketing calendar completes your plan.

Once you know what you are doing for your marketing it’s all about implementation!

Where Do Your Leads Come From?

Once you’ve mastered the basics with a great strategy and plan it’s time to dig in a bit deeper.  Do you know where most of your leads are coming from and which lead channel is producing the highest conversion rates?

This all starts with tracking your leads.  You need to one place to compile your data, keep track of your lead follow up and evaluate your marketing performance.  Without a high powered, expensive CRM or software the best way to do this is by using a spreadsheet.

Using a Lead Tracker you’ll be able to get detailed insight into your marketing and learn where to invest more of your time, energy and money to produce the results you want…

GET MORE CLIENTS!

This is only effective with discipline.  You must track every lead that comes your way and update your Lead Tracker frequently.  This ensures your data is accurate and clean.  Once you start inputting your leads into your Lead Tracker you’ll assign them a lead channel and keep track of them as they go through your follow up processes.

Now you’ll have a clear look at your bottlenecks in the marketing or sales process as well as best performing lead channels.

Implementing high level, but simple, activities like Lead Tracking into your business is what will eventually allow you to grow and scale quickly.  Without it you’re simply guessing!

The Marketing Game Never Ends

You’ll never perfect your marketing.  It’s a constantly evolving skill that you will need to develop and hone as you become a High Performing Business Owner.  You’ll improve your messaging, targeting, copywriting, and conversions as you grow.

Marketing is like oxygen for your business.  Without it you can’t survive long!

If you need a bit of help to improve your marketing make sure to grab our FREE Marketing Calendar and BONUS Video Training now!

Experts are paid more and get clients easier.

I’m pretty comfortable making that statement, but there is one catch…

People have to see you as an expert.  You can be the absolute best at what you do, be the most educated or deliver the best results but if no one knows about it or percieves you as an expert then it’s not going to help you grow your business.

What is Expert Status?

You know the Instagram fitness celeb that can persuade your clients to do ridiculous exercises and try stupid diets?  They have expert status.

Expert is defined as a person who has a comprehensive and authorative knowledge of a skill in a particluar area.

Being an expert is one thing, have that status and perception is another.   There’s good news though!  It’s easier than ever to establish yourself as an expert, as proven by the Instagram fitness celebrity.

How to build Your Expert Status

There are a few key ways to build your expert status, but before we dig into the how I think it’s important to recognize that you don’t need to be seen as an expert by the entire world.  As a fitness business owner your focus should be on your community.   Be the most well known personal trainer in your area and business will be good!

Even more important than being an expert is being an influential expert.  You want to be able to persuade people to take action and follow your advice.

This all starts with know what sets you apart!

Digging in and establishing your Local Marketing Positioning™ is going to be critical for your success, especially at first.  While everyone else is chasing every type of client and branding themselves as a personal trainer you can focus on branding yourself as a stand out fitness professional.

You need to determine what makes you different, why that matters to your prospective clients and how you will convey that message to them.

Once you have a clear picture of your position in the market it’s time to secure it and be the GO-TO fitness pro for it.

Sharing Your Message

Workshops, seminars, blog posts, videos, media appearances and social media can all be used to build up your local expert status.  If you’re just getting started I recommend that you focus on one key area, especially if time is limited.

Blog posts, videos and social media require you to market those items to ensure people see them.  If no one is reading or watching your message it’s going to be tough to be thought of as the expert.

Launching workshops or networking your way to media appearances can be a quick jump start to gaining expert status.  And because you have a clear list of differnetiators and a positioning statement it’s going to be easy to show people why you are the one they should listen to or highlight.

To run workshops it’s usually best to partner up with other local businesses or organizations at first.  Perfect your presentation, perfect your pitch at the end and do it for free to get some experience.  By partning with these other organizations you can put the burden of filling the workshops on them.

As you gain experience it will be easier to figure out how to run your own workshops at your studio or at other locations in your community.  You’ll figure out the marketing and be able to fill them up and get lots of new leads that see you as THE EXPERT.

Don’t get to caught up if only a few people show up for your events in the first few months.  Be consistent and treat every workshop you run like there are 100 people in the audience.

Creating content and sharing it online is another great way to build up your expert status.  It can take more time to build an audience but it’s still possible.  If you’re going to use online channels like Youtube, your blog, and social media to create content and build up an audience that sees you as an expert also take the time to build up an email list so that you can communicate with them and share your content with them as you create it.

Tips For Success

Be consistent, keep your Ideal Client in mind, and go to work.  It’s not difficult to outperform your local competition and be seen as an expert.  However, it will take discipline to get it done.  You’ve got to be willing to put yourself out there at workshops when no one may show up, write blogs every week when no one is reading them or get on camera and feel like a fool for a while.

It’s all part of the process.  You’ll get better at delivering workshops, writing and video overtime.  Consistently putting out the content (and some of it will suck) is going to be the key to your success.

Your abililty to reach a lot of people in your local community has never been better.   It’s time you start sharing your expertise with them!

Need help growing your business?

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Maximize Fitness Business Growth Through Joint Ventures

Imagine having a team of other businesses and organizations out there promoting your offers and programs to their clients.  Sounds pretty amazing right?

That’s one of the methods I used to grow my fitness studio and extend my reach in the community without having to spend money on advertising.  Building up a list of Joint Ventures, basically Referral Partners, that are willing to promote you and your business is one of the fastest ways to gain traction.  But, there’s a trick to making it work and most fitness business owners approach this the wrong way and kill the relationships before they start.

You may be more familiar with the terms strategic relationships or strategic partnerships.   For now, assume these are all the same but we’ll be using Joint Ventures to refer to any business or organization that you will work with to help promote each other.

Finding A Common Interest

Many fitness business owners look to physical therapists, chiropractors, and other health professionals to establish these Joint Venture relationships.  While this seems like an obvious partnership, most of the time it produces very few clients for the fitness professional.  It’s not top of mind for these individuals to refer you clients and even if they do most of the time the patients or clients they work with are just trying to get out of pain.  There’s a gap in their needs.

You can, however, greatly benefit these individuals businesses as your clients are often seeking solutions to enhance their performance in the gym.  Getting them feeling and moving great helps you out.   Don’t rely solely on these relationships to grow your business, but don’t disregard them either.

As you being planning your Joint Venture strategy the best place to look is with your current clients.  Find out what businesses or organizations they current frequent.  A simple question you can ask is “Hey [First Name], I’m looking to partner with a few other businesses or organizations in the community to help more clients.  Who do you think would be a good fit for us?”

It’s funny how you’re clients will tell you exactly where to go if you want to find more people like them…but, you have to ask!

Dream 100

Chet Holmes, author of the Ultimate Sales Machine, recommends that business owners and sales people create a list of 100 other businesses or people they want to work with, no matter how outrageous.  It’s called your Dream 100 and it’s your hot list for Joint Ventures.

Take a look at your community and make a list, even if you can’t get to 100, of the businesses, organizations or people you want to create Joint Ventures with to help each other.

Define Your Offers

Just like we have you define your Core Offer to help you plan your marketing it’s important to create a basic list of offerings for your Joint Venture partners.  Now, you shouldn’t go and create new programs specific for them.  You should create a promotional plan that you both can agree to following so that the relationship is beneficial.

One of the things that derails a Joint Venture partnership is a lack of clarity on what is supposed to be done and what the expectations are for each business or partner.  If you go into a meeting trying to come up with a plan on the spot you’ll likely overcommit or leave things too vague to deliver a consistent result.

Create a few templates of a promotional schedule or Joint Venture agreements that you can present to the possible partner.  This makes you look experienced and creates a respect from the other business owner or partner.  Having a couple options for a Joint Venture agreement gives the impression you’ve done this before and removes the thinking for the possible partner.

Now, if the opportunity presents itself to get more creative you still have the option to add in terms to the agreement.  It’s much easier to start with a foundation than create something from scratch.

This also leads into our bigger picture… THE STRATEGY!

Using Joint Ventures To Grow Your Business

Having a few partners to promote your offers is great, but having a Joint Venture Strategy that fits into your overall Marketing Strategy and that allows you to hit your business goals is even better.

If you are going to use Joint Ventures in your marketing put the time and effort into creating a strategy for it.

The first part of your strategy should be “how will I get these Joint Venture partners?”

You can start by mining your network, asking for introductions to your clients or even cold calling businesses from groups like BNI or the Chamber of Commerce.  Set a goal for the number of new Joint Venture partners you will reach out to each week.  The goal is to set a meeting to learn about their needs and present your agreement to them.

For example if you reach out to 5 new Joint Venture partners each week there’s a good chance you’ll set at least 1 meeting.  If you hvae 1 meeting per week it’s likely you’ll get 1 new agreement and Joint Venture partner each month.

Working this system week after week will build up your bench of Joint Venture partners.

That’s a strategy at work!  Now all you have to do is track the leads you get from Joint Ventures and optimize your marketing.

Value Exchange For Long Term Success

There must be a value exchange for this partnership to work!  If you ask, ask, ask and never give back to your Joint Venture partners then the relationship won’t last long.  Take time to do a lot of the front end work such as building out the promtoion schedule, creating cotnent and delivering ready-to-use, easy marketing materials.

Hey, I never said this was easy…

When you’re creating your agreement terms make sure you put something in of value for the Joint Venture partner.

Here are a few ideas:

• Exclusivity
• Challenge/Content Sponsorships
• Email Promotions
• Social Media Promotions
• Special Promotions

There are endless ways to get creative with your offers.  Figure out what will get the best results and max exposure without disrupting your own marketing calendar.

What now?

If you read through all this and your stomach turned a little bit thinking of all the work and connections with other business owners then this probably isn’t for you!  Find another offline marketing channel that is better suited to your skills and assets in your business.

When used correctly and the plan followed diligently Joint Ventures can be a very productive marketing method for a fitness business.

If you are excited by the idea of creating partnerships with other businesses then set your target for new contacts each week and start working the system!

Download A FREE Marketing Calendar To Get You Started

What’s Going To Help You Grow Your Fitness Business, Get More Clients & Bring In More Revenue…

Every business and every industry evolves and adapts over time.  The fitness industry is quickly evolving with an increase in competition and leveling up of the business owners involved.  More money is being put into franchises which makes things a bit more challenging for the small business owner and private studio owner who want to make a real difference.

How can you out market your competition and clearly show your community why you are the best?

Here’s a few ideas for marketing your business in the coming year.

Paid Facebook Marketing

You can’t get away with throwing a few bucks into a boosted post or hoping to put $10 into a FB ad and get a good return on your investment any more.  The good news is that there is still time to have a big impact in your local community through paid advertising on social media platforms.

However, it’s now costing between $7-10 to get a lead!

For most fitness business owners taking the time to learn Facebook marketing strategy and create the marketing that is required to make it successful takes too much time.  It’s why many fail when they try to run FB ads or other paid social media marketing.

Instead of trying it yourself, outsource! Invest in someone to run your ads and create your funnels for you.  Take the time you save and put it back into your business by focusing on converting the leads that get delivered to you.

If you want a simple solution check out Lead Enginge Marketing.

Strategic Partnerships

Joint ventures and other strategic partnership attempts fail for many fitness business owners.  The biggest reason is a lack of clarity on the purpose and plan of each relationship!

You go in and hope that the other party will promote you and bring in a flood of new clients.  That rarely happens.  Typically the other business owner isn’t great at marketing and they are busy running their own business.   These ideas sound great at first, but then fizzle out.

Instead of relying on hope to build your business create a plan…

Invest a few hours to map out a few levels of strategic partnerships with your business.  Brainstorm all the ways that you can add value to a business and how they may be able to provide you leads.

Here’s a few examples:

• Basic Partnership:   Each party sends out 1 email per quarter to their respective email list and social media audiences.
• Premium Partnership:  Sponsorship opportunities for challenges,  discounts provided to all new clients, 1 sponsored email or video per month
• Exclusive VIP Partnership: Exclusivity (no other related business will partner with you), Premier sponsorship of all challenges, Ads or banners in gym/business,  1 sponsored email and social media post per month to audience.

There’s obviously more details to be hashed out to make this work, but that gives you a good start.   If you treat this like a true partnership and invest time to building these relationships and managing them they can provide you a lot of exposure and leads.

Seminars

If you love to educate your target market and position yourself as a subject matter expert in your community there’s no better way than getting in front of people.

This idea takes a bit more work to get right, but it can pay off big time for you and your business.   You have to be able to market and fill the seminars or workshops you do and then be able to conver those individuals into prospects for your business.

Using seminars to generate leads is the equivalent of online marketers using webinars.  You have a captive audience that is invested (with their time) in listening to you present on a topic you are the expert in and that they need to solve a problem for themselves.   The hardest part is usually finding the right topic to attract lots of people and then filling the seats.

Start small, even 5-10 people in a seminar is a great start.

Use your joint ventures, paid marketing and your email list to promote the seminars.  I’d recommend hosting this for free at first to get more leads.  After you get registrations put a system in place to follow up with each lead and confirm their post.  You can expect a few to not show up after registering for free, but if you market well and keep them engaged between registration and the seminar you should get a good turn out.

The conversion strategy at the seminar isn’t to sell a higher ticket item or even your Front End Offer to the audience.  Instead, offer a free Success Session to everyone in the audience and provide a special incentive to them for booking it right then and there.

Now you’ll have qualified prospects committed to sitting with you 1-1 where you can conver them to clients.

Content Marketing

This is a longer term play, especially if you aren’t going to spend a lot of time and money to really promote your content.  However, putting out amazing and helpful content that benefits your audience is a great way to establish yourself as an expert and be the go to when someone needs help reaching their goals.

The best part about this is 99% of business owners won’t do this consistently enough to make a real difference.  If you can be that 1% and commit to a year of content creation on a consistent schedule you can absolutely stand out.

Content can be video (a really good choice right now), written or audio.  A combination is even better!   Think about how many podcasts are also on YouTube.  When you have video content it’s easy to get it transcribed and turn into a blog, add to multiple platforms to share and audio can be pulled and put into a pdocast.

Commit to putting out at least 1 peice of great content each week for a year and track the results.  Again, this is a long term play, but those that can accomplish it will have a leg up on the competition.

Do a quick brain dump of the questions you get asked in session or by prospects and you’ll have  great start to your content.    Don’t worry about impressing your peers and other business owners, this is about helping your target market and potential clients solve a problem.

Planning, Tracking and Optimizing

The number of business owners that I speak with who aren’t using any type of marketing calendar or tracking system for their business is amazing.  How can you possibly expect to identify what’s working or systemize your business if you arne’t planning, tracking and optimizing your marketing?

Successful fitness business, those with High Performing Fitness Businesses, are going to be planning out a content marketing schedule, promtional plan and tracking their marketing activities consistently.  They will also take the time and see the value in tracking their leads and creating some accountability around themselves for the follow up needed to convert those leads.

When you track the right things and plan appropriately optimization is easy.  You simply look at the data and it will tell you what’s working.

If you’re not planning, tracking and optimizing your marketing each quarter then there’s a good chance you’ll not hit your growth goals and all of these other marketing ideas are worthless.

Your Marketing Systems Are Here…

Inside The Academy we’ve worked hard to put together modules, courses, curriculum and tools that help you become a better marketer and business owner.  If you want to ramp up your marketing and grow your business in the coming year and aren’t in the The Academy you better hope that your competition isn’t either…

Check it out for a full 30 days for fust $1!

The Skills You Need To Go From Struggling Start-Up To High Performing Entrepreneur

One of the scariest parts of being a business owner is the unknown.  There’s nothing guaranteed when you make the courageous, often times scary leap to running your own fitness business.  

Do you ever find yourself wondering what’s next in your journey as a fitness business owner?

What should I be focused on?

What should my business look like?

What should I focus on to get to the next stage of my business?

You’re not alone!  After working with hundreds of fitness businesses we laid out what your business will look like at each stage, the challenges you are going to face, common reasons for failure and what success looks like, including the skills you need to develop at each stage to prepare for what’s next.

The Business Owner’s Journey

We’re going to take a deep dive into each of the 5 Stages through this article, but first let’s do a quick overview of each.

You may find it valuable to read through each of the stages, or if you’d rather skip right to the stage you are in now and figure out how to get to the next stage of your journey that’s cool too.  This article is a lot like a choose your own adventure. Read it and use it however you see fit to help you.

Stage 1: Sell, Sell, Sell

Facility Type/Space:  Independent Contractor

Gross Revenue (monthly):  $0-$2,000

Major Earnings Benchmark: Make enough to pay the bills

Values: Being a great technician

Stage 2: Marketing Machine

Facility Type/Space:  Independent Contractor

Gross Revenue (monthly):  $2,000-$12,000

Major Earnings Benchmark: Income is 50% of revenue, paid on a regular basis

Values:  Going from technician to marketing and sales

Stage 3: System-wise

Facility Type/Space:  Leased space

Gross Revenue (monthly):  $10,000-$25,000

Major Earnings Benchmark: Income is 30-45% of the revenue, start earning market based wage

Values:  Going from marketing/sales to business

Stage 4: Manager-Leader

Facility Type/Space:  Leased space

Gross Revenue (monthly):  $25,000-$50,000

Major Earnings Benchmark: Six figure icome 

Values: Going from creating results to getting results through others

Stage 5: Entrepreneur

Facility Type/Space:  Leased space or property ownership as investment

Gross Revenue (monthly):  $50,000+

Major Earnings Benchmark: >50% income from profits, working less and making more, getting paid your highest dollar per hour amount 

Values: Opportunity, balance, family, experience, retirement

Take an honest assessment of where you are and let’s dive in and look at what each stage looks like and how to get from one to the next.

Stage 1: Sell, Sell, Sell

When you are first getting started one of the most valuable skills you can develop is sales, outside of being a great trainer/coach…of course.

You won’t last long in this industry if you can’t get people to pay you for your services. Many fitness business owners are forced out of business quickly because they never learn to sell their services.  It’s an easily avoidable fate.

The Challenges

At this point you’re asking questions like:

• What should I be doing each day? 
• Who do I listen to?
• I need clients…where are they?

These questions along with overcoming your internal fears about sales will need to be addressed as you continue to grow your business.  As you gain new clients you’ll also build your credibility.  

Common Causes of Failure

If you never learn to sell it will be impossible to stay in business.  Not developing sales skills and utilizing a system that will get you predictable results will leave you clientless and penniless.  

This is a stage where you are most vulnerable to bad advice.  You are working diligently to make your business work and open to taking advice or coaching from just about anyone.  This advice could be detrimental to your growth.

A bad lease at any stage can put the strain on a business, but when you’re just starting out and trying to generate (and keep) as much revenue as you it can put you out of business.   

Many times Word of Mouth marketing drives a Stage 1 business, if that doesn’t take off because your clients aren’t willing to talk about you or you can’t deliver results worthy of referrals it’s going to be a long, tough uphill battle.

What Does Success Look Like?

You’ll know you’re having success in this stage when you have happy clients and you’re seeing steady, continuous growth.  

This success is built on the foundation of you acquiring the proper credentials to deliver training services and have a big focus on getting better at delivering results.

To support your growth you’ll need a polished and consistent sales process in place that allows you to hit your daily and weekly goals.   

Congratulations if you can check off all these boxes…

YOU’VE PROVEN YOU CAN SURVIVE!  

What Competencies and Resources Will You Need?

Getting out of this stage isn’t going to happen by accident.  You’ll need to focus on developing certain competencies that will be the foundation for future success.  It’s also important that you seek out resources to make success a little easier.

Here are a list of competencies:

• Closing sales
• Setting short term goals
• Delivering results

The resources to support you:

• The Triple A Marketing Method
• Priority Tracker
• Training Systems (Program design templates, etc)
• Certifications

Your Support Systems

Very few, if anyone can do this alone.  The road to success in the fitness industry is too challenging to have to figure it all out.  Learn from those who have been there before and build a support system that will help you when you get stuck.

At this stage you’ll find this support in:

• Online Forums/Groups
• Your Personal Network
• A Business Coach  

Understanding the value of a business coach at this stage will give you a distinct advantage!  They will help you implement systems faster, avoid the mistakes that put many fitness businesses out of business and get results quickly.  

By having a coach early you will build a solid foundation for your future success.   

Key Performance Indicators

With sales being the biggest factor to success in Stage 1 your KPIs are tied directly to your ability to add new clients.  Focus on New Core Offer (new clients) and New Front End Offers (trials, etc) during this stage.  

The faster you can bring in new clients the quicker you’ll be able to move to the next stage.

Stage 2: Marketing Machine

Congratulations!  If you’re in Stage 2 you’ve got your business off the ground and are making a bit of money.  Many fitness pros never get to this stage, you should be proud of yourself.

But, there’s more work to do…

In Stage 2 you’re going to need to ramp up your marketing.  It’s critical that you develop a plan to attract and acquire new potential clients for your business.   By learning how to predictably bring in new leads you will be able to support your business through the future growth stages.  

Without the ability to market you will be vulnerable.  

The Challenges

You’re getting busier now and there’s a good chance that you’ve said ‘yes’ to every opportunity that came your way to get to this point.  That’s going to be a risk for you.  You’ll have to learn to assess the right opportunities so that you have a focused plan for growth and aren’t chasing the idea of ‘busy for busy’s sake’.

You’re now more comfortable selling, but are starting to wonder how this whole trading dollars for time thing is going to work for you in the future.  There’s a good chance you’re starting to ask the question “how much should I be charging”.

It’s easy to be a victim of your own success in this stage.  If you continue to sell it means you’ll have more clients to train.  That’s great, but if you are spending all your time training you can’t sell any more.  Your revenue growth stops!  

Marketing can be tricky, especially in a competitive industry like fitness.  You’ll need to hone in on your target market and learn how to create a plan that gets you in front of the right people.  Spreading your message and attracting more leads is crucial if you want to grow.  

There’s a good chance you’d train people for free, because you love it.  But, that’s not a great business model… A huge challenge for many fitness pros as they go through this stage in their journey is overcoming their own issues with money, self worth and fear of success.   

You are great at what you do!  If you earn it, you deserve success.

Common Causes of Failure

As you grow and move through the stages of your journey the risks become greater.  They continue to evolve with you and your business.  If you know what trips up many business owners you can take the steps to avoid the causes of failure

In Stage 2 common causes are:

• Not tracking performance of the business
• Not saving, frivolously spending
• Thinking “What got me here will get me there”
• Time management issues/Lack of clear priorities

What Does Success Look Like?

Success in Stage 2 is all about being able to control your marketing.  You must be able to bring in new leads when you need them, be consistent with your marketing activities and these activities allowing you to hit your quarterly goals.

As you grow and time becomes an issue it’s also key that you bring on your first new hire for your business, likely an administrative assistant to help with some of the office work tasks that are keeping you from revenue producing activities.

A successful Stage 2 business owner will also begin manage their time and priorities well.  They have a system in place and structure to create time in their day instead of hoping they can make time.

What Competencies and Resources Will You Need?

Getting out of this stage isn’t going to happen by accident.  You’ll need to focus on developing certain competencies that will be the foundation for future success.  It’s also important that you seek out resources to make success a little easier.

Here are a list of competencies:

• Marketing Strategy
  • Core Offer Defined
  • Prospect Profiles
  • Local Market Positioning

The resources to support you:

• Quarterly Marketing Calendar
• Annual and Quarterly Goals/Rocks
• Lead Tracker
• Follow Up Systems
• CRM Software (client management and EFT billing)

Your Support Systems

Very few, if anyone can do this alone.  The road to success in the fitness industry is too challenging to have to figure it all out.  Learn from those who have been there before and build a support system that will help you when you get stuck.

At this stage you’ll find this support in:

• A Business Coach
• Community
• Workshops
• Mentorship Programs

These require a bit of explaining…

The community that you’ll find the most support in is a network of your peers.  You want to find a group of fitness business owners who have been or are going through the same journey you’re on.  This allows you to feel connected and eliminate the feeling that you’re the only one experiencing the challenges and problems that arise in your business.

A community of your peers can lift you up and provide you support when you need it most.  

It’s also critical that you seek out and attend skill development workshops and mentorship programs.  These can be in person or online programs that are focused on helping you develop specific skills and competencies needed to move forward in your business.  

Key Performance Indicators

We’ll take a small shift in Stage 2 and start looking at the front end of your marketing funnel when evaluating performance metrics in your business.  

In Stage 2 you should be tracking and reviewing:

• New Leads
• Core Offer Conversion Rate (Lead to New Client)
• Expenses

Stage 3: Systems-wise

Things have really taken off for you!  It may have taken you 12 months to get to this stage in your journey or several years.  No matter the time it took, you’re here now and have proven that you want to create a successful, High Performing business.  

This is a pivotal stage for most fitness business owners.  It’s where you have to begin thinking of your business as an actual business!  You have to replicate the results you can get yourself through systems and structure.

The Challenges

In Stage 3 you’re going to be thinking…

• Not all of my customers are awesome…
• Is this the best use of my time?
• How can I get other people to do this well?
• I need a break!
• What’s important?  What are my priorities?
• How am I doing?

Things are going well in the business at this stage but you’re realizing not all opportunities are created equal and it’s quickly becoming evident that you’re going to have to develop a new set of competencies.

It’s critical that you begin to make the mindset shift from being a great trainer who can market and sell to a great business owner.

Common Causes of Failure

As you grow and move through the stages in your journey the risks become greater.  They continue to evolve with you and your business.  If you know what trips up many business owners you can take the steps to avoid the causes of failure.

In Stage 3 common causes are:

• You stop marketing because you are too busy
• You stay in this stage too long and never progress
• Open another location too quickly
• Hire reactively (too fast), fire too slow
• Disorganization/lack of priorities
• Burn out
• Can’t adapt to the business to shifts in the market
• Thinking a system is a checklist
• Bring on a partner or realize a current partnership is bad

What Does Success Look Like?

This stage is often the toughest for a fitness business owner to go through because what is required for success may not come naturally.  

When you’re in this Stage look for the signs of progress and success by recognizing the following:

• You have a budget and are using it
• An Annual Marketing Calendar is in place
• You are investing in services to outsource tasks
• You avoid saying “yes” to everything
• You’ve taken your first vacation in ______
• You are tracking and measuring performance
• Hitting frequent PRs in your business
• You are setting and accomplishing your goals
• You collect your first distribution check from your business (profits are there!!!!)
• Your staff is accountable for the outcomes they are responsible for

You can see there is a lot that goes into success in Stage 3.  There’s a reason many never make it out of this stage and it’s often the stage that sends good people packing in our industry.

This is where the hard work starts for your business.  But, if you can get through this you’ll have a solid foundation for growth and an ability to scale your business.

What Competencies and Resources Will You Need?

Getting out of this stage isn’t going to happen by accident.  You’ll need to focus on developing certain competencies that will be the foundation for future success.  It’s also important that you seek out resources to make success a little easier.

Here are a list of competencies:

• Budgeting/Basic Understanding of Finance
• Delegation
• Hiring
• Management
• Prioritization

The resources to support you:

• Budget Tools/System
• Annual Marketing Calendar
• Human Resources Processes
• Organizational Chart
• Meeting Cycle
• Marketing Services for Paid Advertising
• DDV List of Systems
• Scorecard
• High Performance Mastermind

Your Support Systems

Very few, if anyone can do this alone.  The road to success in the fitness industry is too challenging to have to figure it all out.  Learn from those who have been there before and build a support system that will help you when you get stuck.

At this stage you’ll find this support in:

• A Business Coach
• Peer Group
• Workshops
• Conferences

You’ll notice that a close knit peer group or High Performance Mastermind makes its first appearance in this stage. Now, more than ever, it’s critical that you have a close group of peers to help you develop as a business owner and speed up your results.  High Performers don’t want to stay in a stage longer than needed, and a good peer group will help hold you accountable and get you results quicker.

Stage 4: Manager-Leader

You’ve made the shift and now you have a business you are proud of and that you love running.  Congrats on your success thus far, but there’s still work to be done.  

It’s time to learn how to get results through other people. There’s a good chance you’ve built up a small team to get to this point and they are responsible for driving certain areas of your business.  How will you keep making progress and get the results through your team?

The Challenges

In Stage 4 you’re going to be facing things like:

• How do we perpetuate improvement?
• Early decisions to ‘bootstrap it’ are catching up to you
• Figuring out what investments you can afford to make
• What is your culture, really?
• What’s next for you as the business owner?
• Should you open a second location?

You’re now beginning to think forward and start realizing the decisions you make today greatly impact the direction of your business for the future.  You may also get a sense of dissatisfaction, or uneasiness from your team doing a lot of the work.  

Common Causes of Failure

Yes, even at this stage it’s possible to fail!  Many businesses take a step back when they attempt to transition to this stage.  Sometimes it’s because they didn’t take the time to develop the foundation in their previous stages or it could be because they resist the need to develop new competencies.  

In Stage 4 common causes are:

• Not evolving as a manager
• Trying to leave this stage too soon
• Not letting go of the technical work
• Getting in the way of your team
• Letting your ego keep you from being transparent about the real issues

If you refuse to allow others to help you grow your business it’s going to be difficult to move on to the final stage in your business journey.  You’ll have to set your ego aside and help others improve at their job to truly have success in this stage.

What Does Success Look Like?

Another big shift happens in Stage 4, you are now more focused on the people in your business than dominating tasks or mastering technical skills.  You’re undergoing the transformation into a High Performing Business Owner!

When you experience the following you’ll start to notice success:

• You are comfortable asking the tough questions
• Your focus is on people and building a Leadership Team
• You say ‘no’ more than you say ‘yes’
• You’re investing in solutions to fix any issues in your business
• You’re spending more time as a manager than a technician
• You have the opportunity to take multiple vacations per year
• You have the ability to calculate when you can afford to make investments
• You are honing in on your “Hedgehog Concept”
• Everyone in your business has a number their performance is assessed on
• You have identified your unique ability and focus you work on it

What Competencies and Resources Will You Need?

Getting out of this stage isn’t going to happen by accident.  You’ll need to focus on developing certain competencies that will be the foundation for future success.  It’s also important that you seek out resources to make success a little easier.

Here are a list of competencies:

• Long Term Vision
• Sustaining Your Culture
• Communication
• Performance Management and Development
• Improvement of Processes

The resources to support you:

• Performance Based Compensation (if applicable)

You’ll quickly notice this stage requires a lot of development for the business owner.  It’s a time where you will be required to develop your own competencies to support your team.   

Your Support Systems

Very few, if anyone can do this alone.  The road to success in the fitness industry is too challenging to have to figure it all out.  Learn from those who have been there before and build a support system that will help you when you get stuck.

At this stage you’ll find this support in:

• A Business Coach
• Peer Group
• Workshops
• Conferences

During this stage relying on a great business coach to help you develop the required competencies and uncover your blind spots will be critical.   Paired with a peer group, like the High Performance Mastermind, you’ll have the support you need to continue you journey.  

Stage 5: Entrepreneur

Finally, the coveted entrepreneur stage!  You’ve worked hard and and done the required work to get here.  Celebrate a little 🙂

All your hard work has it’s rewards if you stay focused on the right things.  But, you’re still not immune to failure or falling back into old habits that could set you back.  

A High Performer is constantly seeking to learn and develop as a business owner.  

The Challenges

In Stage 5 you’re going to be facing things like:

• How do I let go?
• What defines me?
• What can I break? Do they really not need me?
• What’s my job?

It can be tough when the entrepreneur to realizes their team is functioning well and they aren’t needed in the day to day operations for the business to be successful.  If you aren’t careful you will be your own worst enemy and sabotage your success.  You’ll find ways to break things your business so that you can jump back in and be the hero.  

You’ll need to focus on your new identity as a the entrepreneur.  

Common Causes of Failure

Yes, even at this stage it’s possible to fail!  Many business owners take a step back when they attempt to transition to this stage.  Sometimes it’s because they didn’t take the time to develop the foundation in their previous stages or it could be because they resist the need to develop new competencies.  

In Stage 5 common causes are:

• Not managing/holding the General Manager or Leadership Team accountable
• Not shifting management techniques used in Stage 4
• Not letting go

This stage requires that you have someone or a group of people in place in the business where the ‘buck stops’.  They have the final say in the day to day operations.  Learning how to manage them and letting go of the responsibilities  you have given them will be key for your success.

What Does Success Look Like?

Once you’ve got to this stage you’ve afforded yourself the opportunity to focus back on some balance in your life and meeting your bigger life goals.  It’s time where you can take on passion projects or pursue things that you’ve always been interested in because of the foundation you’ve built in your fitness business.

Here’s what you’ll need for success:

• You have a General Manager or Manager in place to make decisions on day to day operations, including hiring/firing
• An exit strategy is in place
• A gatekeeper says ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for you
• You are investing in inspiration
• Life goals are being met 

What Competencies and Resources Will You Need?

Your focus at this point may be to extending your impact and helping others.  That may mean mentoring other fitness business owners and or giving back to your community.  To be effective at this you’ll need to develop competencies that help you (and help your team).

Here are a list of competencies:

• Mentorship
• Social Responsibility

The resources to support you:

• Continuity Plan (what happens if something bad happens to you?)
• New Business Development Plans

This stage is about you ensuring you leave something behind that you are proud of and that can be sustained without you there.  

Your Support Systems

Very few, if anyone can do this alone.  The road to success in the fitness industry is too challenging to have to figure it all out.  Learn from those who have been there before and build a support system that will help you when you get stuck.

At this stage you’ll find this support in:

• A Business Coach
• Peer Group
• Conferences

What do I do with this info?

There’s a lot of information here, especially if you read from start to finish.  In fact, it’s over 4000 words on what it takes to be successful on your journey as a fitness business owner.

Using this to help you is easy…

1. Identify the stage you are in
2. Learn what it’s going to take to have success
3. Implement those things
4. Look ahead to the next stage so you know what to expect

Skipping stages will only result in you failing.  Looking too far ahead won’t give you a big benefit because you’re taking your eye off the ball.  It’s okay to know where you are going, but focus the majority of your precious time and energy on mastering the stage you’re in currently and building a solid foundation for success.

If you need a little help complete the application below and we’ll jump on a call to figure out how to get you unstuck or speed up your progress.

There are a variety of measurements that studio owners can and do use as indicators of success and, not surprisingly, these key performance indicators (KPIs) range from the obvious and simple to the more complex.  Each is important in its own way, revealing benchmarks for your business.

Each year, AFS measures KPI usage via its Fitness Studio Operating & Financial Benchmarks research study.  Many of those findings are reflected below, topically segmented.

Utilization

How your fitness studio is being utilized is an important consideration.  It is the intersection of your physical space and how many people are using it.  Is it being utilized as you imagined and planned?  

Square Feet per Client

Square Feet per Client tells you how effective your business is at generating clients/ customers based on the space your studio has available.  It is a measure of how well you address your businesses capacity.  For example, a 2,500 sq. ft. studio won’t have the capacity of a larger studio, likely meaning the Square Feet per Client will need to be a lower number to achieve the desired results.

To calculate your Square Feet per Client, divide the square footage of your facility by the number of clients at any given time.  If you have 250 clients in a 2,500 sq. ft. studio, your Square Feet per Client equals 10.

Marketing

There are three marketing adages that ring true in business yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  

Here they are:

• “Plan your work and work your plan”  – variously attributed to author Victor Hugo, legendary football coach Vince Lombardi, and Proverbs 21:5

• “He who fails to plan is planning to fail” – Winston Churchill

• “He who has a thing to sell and goes and whispers in a well, Is not so apt to get the dollars as he who climbs a tree and hollers” – Anonymous

You may know how many clients you need, you may have the best training available, your location is ideal, and you offer what nobody else has.  Great.  How do you get the word out?  How do you communicate your value proposition to your target market?  How can you ensure you don’t end up trying to sell shampoo to a bald man?  

The answer is Marketing.  If you’re not a marketing pro, go buy one.  It’s worth it.

Marketing Costs

One of the variables that can impact a studio’s marketing performance is the allocation of capital, typically falling between 3%-5% of revenue. According to AFS research, studios spend between 3-8% of revenue, usually depending on studio size and geographic location.

Translated to average annual studio revenues of roughly $300,000 – that’s a marketing budget between 3% ($9,000/year, $750/month) and 8% ($24,000/year, $2,000/month).

When you consider that one new client is worth $1,000 a year, if your marketing results in only one or two new clients each month – it more than pays for itself.

Cost to Acquire Clients

The thought of marketing costs – along with the unknown impact they will have – can be an intimidating concept, especially for studio owners untrained in Marketing, meaning the vast majority.

Some marketing strategies work better than others.  Some are obviously based on your target market. Your job is to try as many as possible to find the most cost effective ways to acquire new clients. Try everything (within budgetary constraints), accumulate the data, and let the numbers speak for themselves.

Retention

Retention – the percentage of clients you retain – is critical to long term profitability.  In many ways, it’s the most important KPI of all because it measures how well you’re delivering on your brand promise.  And as hard as it is to break through the marketing clutter to acquire clients, how painful it is to watch them go out the “back door.”

Client Retention Rate

The typical Client Retention Rate for the studio industry is roughly 76%.   Further data indicates that there’s nothing you can do with 8% of your loss – the reality is that some people relocate, and others have life experiences that take them out of the market.  And while that leaves a narrower band, it’s still 20%, which means (if we continue with the 300 client example above) 60 people that have to be replaced just to get you where you were a year ago).

Hello to marketing strategies, tactics, messaging, time, and expenditure along with the ongoing sales effort.  Better to keep them by:

• Delivering what you promised.  
• Making sure those who work in your studio (whether employee or independent contractor) have embraced your vision and generate the enthusiasm behind it.
• Understanding why they’re leaving.  Do exit interviews, call them, talk to them.  Let them know you value their opinion.  

Client Retention Rate is a strong, analytical KPI.  Keep measuring it.

Conclusion

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When it comes to KPIs there’s no one size fits all.  The most important thing is that you are in the habit of measuring something and once that becomes ingrained in your business, you can try different KPIs to determine which ones work best for you.  As best selling business author Tom Peters famously said, “what gets measured gets done.”

About the author:

Chuck Leve is a 40-year veteran of the fitness industry and proven successful developer of fitness industry associations. Currently he serves as the Executive Vice President of Business Development for the Association of Fitness Studios (AFS). He’s been involved in the creation and development of some of the most successful trade associations in the history of the fitness industry.

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“Ryan’s one of those people that makes business, sales and marketing interesting…”

That’s literally what Rafal Matuszewski,the host of the Cut The S#!t, Get Fit Podcast, said about an interview we did recently.

On this podcast we talk everything from business to training to transformations.  There’s something in here for every fitness pro or business owner.

Here’s a few things we covered:

• Why I started my first fitness business and the mistakes I made
• Tips for having success with your own facility
• Finding your own path in the fitness industry
• The wild world of business partnerships and how to navigate them
• Why most fitness pros struggle with business
• The path for success in the fitness industry
• The biggest problems with Online Training and how to make it work for you
• How to leverage social media to create your own brand in the fitness industry

And a ton more!

Nearly every business owner lists word of mouth and/or referrals at the top of their list for lead generation activities.

Would you do the same?

Then key to figuring out how successful this business is the answer to “How do you get referrals?”

The common answers include point of sale referral programs and sometimes referral rewards.  However, the business owner is usually taking a very passive approach to promoting the programs and getting referrals.

A Simple Personal Training Referral Program

If you want to maximize referrals in your business you need to implement a plan to market the program to your members and keep it in front of them at all times.

Your first step is creating the referral reward you will give out.  Discounts are rarely effective.  Instead, aim to hand out $25-50 in cash or gift cards to the client that produced the referral.  The impact lies in the act of recognition not the dollar amount of the reward.

After you’ve got your rewards program in place you must avoid theses common mistakes…

Referral Program Mistake #1

The biggest mistake that personal trainers make with their referral program is a lack of marketing.  They might mention it to their clients when they sign up or here and there, but an active marketing plan is not implemented.

Here’s how you should do it:

• Mention the rewards system and ask for referrals at the point of sale
• Integrate referral requests and reminders of the program in your new client follow up or onboarding
• Prepare a checklist for where you’ll announce and share images or mentions of referral rewards you are handing out

This allows you to reinforce the referral program early in the client/trainer relationship and also keep it in front of them throughout the year.

Referral Program Mistake #2

Do you clients know how to identify someone that would be a good fit?

Most trainers simply ask for a referral and don’t guide the client or give them any idea of who they should refer.  It’s best to be very specific in who you are asking a client to send your way.

“Hey Jane, I’m looking to help more women that want to lose 15lbs and just can’t seem to get it off or keep it off.  Do you know anyone like that?”

The above example is a great way to let your client know exactly who you are wanting them to refer into your program. It helps them eliminate a majority of the people they know and allows them to focus in on one type of person.

Referral Program Mistake #3

The final piece of a referral program and mistake to avoid is being crystal clear in how your clients can refer clients to you.  Most of your clients have no idea how to tell someone to connect with you or how to explain what you do for them.

Make referring business to you easy by providing your clients a simple way to refer their friends or family.  It may be $100 VIP Gift Cards, marketing material on your Front End Offer or something as simple as a referral sheet.

You don’t have to get overly creative here but you want to make it easy for clients to refer and keep the process simple.

Give Your Referral Program A Lift

Make sure you avoid these key personal training referral prorgram mistakes if you want to maximize the high quality leads it could produce for your business.  By implementing just a few simple steps in your program and making sure you give it the attention it deserves you’ll be able to see an increase in new clients quickly.

Launch Your Referral Program Quickly

If you want some help navigating the steps to launching or relaunching your referral program join The Academy today and get instant access to our training module that will walk you step by step through creating, launching and marketing a referral program that brings you new clients.