Fit Business Insider

When I evaluate a business, the first thing I look for is the bottlenecks that prevent the business from jumping from one level to the next.

In golf, they talk about fixing one aspect of your game and shaving a handful of strokes off of your score all at once.  If you get better at putting, all of the sudden those 90′s that you’re shooting become 85′s.  If you get better at pitching and chipping those 85′s become 80′s. 

I think that same approach will work for improving your business numbers too.  I’m going to use bootcamps as an example, but this approach works for any fitness business. Here are some areas for improvement and some simple steps to make that happen.

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There are so many ways that you can make your fitness business better that it would be impossible to list them all – but I wanted to give you several that are easy to implement and all yield BIG results.  Here are 14 you can start using today:

1. Increase Your Prices – Just do it, add 5% to all your prices today. A small percentage of clients will object but the extra profit from the other clients that don’t care and are happy to pay the slight increase will more than cover this. Sell by adding value and selling the benefits. Making your service unique so by doing this there is no other product or service to compare it to.

You have very little to lose and a massive amount to gain… so increase your prices by 5% today.

2. Offer Package Deals – Like McDonald’s (and you wonder why our county is fat) offering the customer a #1, #2 or #3 (and probably a half-dozen other package options), how about having a package deal where everything your client needs to be successful is included for a discount of $X.

You can offer training, nutritional coaching, supplements and even a foam roller and training journal – a complete package to guarantee the client’s success. Even if the client starts thinking that they don’t really need everything, the package deal is so good they’ll take it.

This is a great strategy to get clients to try things they might not normally have been interested in – like supplements or nutritional coaching.

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A couple weeks ago our Mastermind Members Jeff & Tiffany Larson held a Smoothie 101 Workshop to generate Prograde sales and help their clients.

They took $928 worth of orders on the spot.  That’s over $300 in RECURRING monthly commission.

So I asked Tiffany if I could share the approach they took with you. Here it is:

Step 1: They sent out an email to all of their clients inviting them to a free Smoothie 101 class that they held at their local Whole Foods Culinary Center.

Here’s an example email you can use:

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A Ready To Use Publicity Blueprint You Can Follow To Become The Trusted Fitness Expert In Your Area

Things have been crazy here lately.  Between Tyler heading back to school, lots of travel for workshops and franchise training, Holly being 8 months pregnant, 4 different BIG projects finally wrapping up and the recent growth of Athletic Revolution (we’re up to 17 franchisees and expect to be the biggest Youth Fitness & Sports Performance franchise in the world by mid-2011), I’ve barely had a moment to spare.

That seemed pretty overwhelming just typing it

Actually, the last part of that is really what really led to this post.  One of our franchisees – well two: Dave and Andrea Gleason – have positioned their Athletic Revolution location as the ‘Go To’ youth training and sports performance facility in the area and got the equivalent of thousands of dollars of advertising by leveraging the media through press releasing.

I’ve told you a number of times how powerful press releasing can be, but thought it might be better if you got a first-hand look at the exact releases Dave sent to the local paper and the articles they resulted in.

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If you want to accomplish anything, basically it boils down to this simple formula:

1. Set A Target

2. Break Down Reaching That Target Into Simple Steps

Let’s use getting more clients as an example.

Target: Get 10 New Clients In August

Step 1: Ask every current client for the names and contact information of 3 prospects in exchange for a branded T-shirt.

Step 2: Contact each of those prospects and offer them a free sample of what you do.

Step 3: Contact all former clients and offer them an incentive to start back with you.

Step 4: Attend at least 4 networking events in August and add at least 3 people to your network at each.

Step 5: Offer those 12 people a free sample of what you do.

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I’m off to Long Beach to speak at Perform Better where I’ll be sharing how to find the hidden opportunity in your fitness business.  Hopefully I’ll see you there – but if not I wanted to give you some of my best tips for building a bulletproof fitness business.

I don’t know if these are actually the 21 best tips of all-time, but they’re pretty darn good.

1. Break out of the fitness industry norms – the majority is almost always wrong and are always behind.

2. Recycle what you do. Deliver the same content in different formats. Fitness coaching programs, infoproducts, Bootcamps to Go – they’re all the same stuff packages in different formats.

3. Small hinges swing big doors. A few small, but strategic changes can make big differences to the bottom line.

4. A different way to look at your market is to find price gaps instead of pricing the way everyone else does.  If you can get a health club membership for $39, a bootcamp membership for $199 and 1 on 1 personal training for $500 – the gaps are $99 and $299-399.  What can you offer there?

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If you really want to know the thing that allows some people to enjoy success while others settle for mediocrity – it’s really pretty simple.

Drive.

If one of your clients wants to lose weight, it’s more about their want, desire and willingness to stick to your program than it is about having any magic system.

If you want to build a six or seven figure business, it’s more about your hunger and willingness to do what most won’t than it is about the latest greatest marketing fad or client getting system.

The truth is – a lot of different approaches will work…

…If you will.

I can look back and see this clearly hold true in pretty much any success I’ve ever had and for all the successful people I’ve known.

When I became a Baseball Coach, the two previous coaches at that University had been a former Major League All-Star and a legendary high school coach that had made the jump to coaching at the collegiate level.

Both struggled in the job I was about to take – and both had tons more experience, credentials and resources.

I was 23 and I can look back and count on one hand the number of people that expected me to be even modestly successful – and that’s including myself.

But the fear of failure drove me tirelessly.  With less experience, worse facilities and poorer resources than virtually everyone we competed against – I was able to be successful because I was willing to do what others wouldn’t.

When other coaches were vacationing during the summer, I was working.

When they were home, I was recruiting.

While they were comfortable, I was hungry.

Really, I was just unwilling to fail and it drove me constantly.

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After sharing a handful of referral strategies with you Tuesday, I wanted to pass along 3 more that you can use:

Physician Referrals

Description: If you want to set yourself apart from other fitness pros in your community – send a health & fitness report to the client’s physician. This professional courtesy is designed to create a line of communication between the doctor and you – and as a bonus, it positions you as a credible resource for the doctor when he / she is making recommendations to their patients. The report might include the following: Read the rest…

As far as I’m concerned, referrals should be at the core of any good fitness pro’s marketing system.  The only problem is that using the same referral strategy over and over can get stale fast – so here are five ways you can keep the referrals coming in without sounding like a broken record.

Fitness Referral Strategy #1: Make it a Condition of Doing Business

Description: Make it a mandatory part of being your client. I know – it sounds easier said than done – but hear me out. This is especially effective if you have an in-demand service. State from the onset, as a condition of working with you, clients each need to refer 2 friends. Obviously, you have to be tactful about it.

Here’s an example of what you could say:

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By: Eric Cressey
In Part 1, I talked about the importance of having an extensive set of effective cues to use with clients to get the ball rolling on a great training experience.  However, cueing was just one piece of the coaching puzzle.  It’s these other pieces that, in my eyes, make or break someone in the semi-private model.  Here are a few of the factors you need to be successful as a semi-private coach:

1. Knowledge and Programming – As the adage goes, “failing to plan is planning to fail.”  You need to have done your homework in order to not only write effective programming, but also know how to modify it based on individual needs.  For this reason, I think that a lot of up-and-comers are actually smart to start off with some one-on-one training because it allows them to program specifically for a small number of clients and meticulously monitor the responses to those programs. And, it forces them to think through any modifications they need to make on those programs.

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