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Generating Instant Income For Your Fitness Business

February 22, 2012 By admin 6 Comments

A Post On Fitness Business Income Generation By Pat Rigsby

dreamstime xs 23272249 Generating Instant Income For Your Fitness Business

Since I’ve been on the business coaching and franchising side of things for fitness business owners, nothing has surprised me more than the number of business owners who fail to maximize the value of their personal network and their client base.

This is amazing to me because those same fitness business owners will spend piles of money to market to people that they have no prior relationship with.

The truth is, the biggest opportunity for an influx of income into your fitness business is right in your own database. When you make an offer to members of your personal network or existing and past clients, it’s not only easier to sell them something (versus new prospects off the street), but your business actually become more profitable because you don’t have nearly the cost of client acquisition.

The other benefit to this is that it really is providing a better, more complete solution for your existing clients and it’s helping those people in your network achieve their health and fitness goals.

Step Out Of Your Comfort Zone

February 19, 2012 By admin 4 Comments

This week was the 10th Anniversary of me leaving my first career as a college baseball coach and starting down the path in fitness that led me to where I am today so I decided I’d share some thoughts on building the business / life you want.

Career #1

My entire life I’d wanted to be a baseball player or baseball coach. Baseball was what had initially peaked my interest in strength & conditioning as I was undersized for the position I played – catcher. So when I became the youngest head coach in the country at the age of 23 I thought I was on the fast track to a Hall of Fame coaching career.

My first couple of seasons as a coach I tried to be something I wasn’t. I tried to model a successful coach I admired in spite of the fact that we didn’t have a lot in common when it came to strengths or personality traits. I tried to do things in the same way our competition was doing them in spite of the fact that I had lesser resources and a fraction of the experience they had.

We still made progress – but by the end of year two it became clear that the program would never get where I wanted it to go with the ‘me too’ approach.

So I decided then and there to be different.

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What You Say vs What You Do

February 15, 2012 By admin 16 Comments

A Post On The Right Way To Build A Business By Pat Rigsby

We live in a society that has made an art out of overpromising and under delivering.

Politicians stump on campaign promises that they have little if any intention of delivering on. It’s marketing at it’s worst. Leaders or prospective leaders telling people what they want to hear through every medium possible in order to get their vote.

Whatever it takes to get them elected.

In the fitness world, every health club on the planet advertises how they’re the solution to give you the body that you’ve always wanted – knowing good and well that once they have your name on the contract they’ll essentially forget about you and be on to chasing the next naïve prospect.

This ‘art’ of overpromising and under delivering certainly isn’t exclusive two politics and fitness – it goes on everywhere. I just happen to see more of it there because it’s so well publicized in politics and I’m immersed in the fitness industry.

The Truth… And The Opportunity

The amazing thing about this trend is that it’s actually presented you with a marketing opportunity – or perhaps a better way of putting it – a position in the market.

If you’re willing to deliver on what you promise… or better yet – OVERDELIVER – you can become that trusted solution in your market that clients love, stay with forever and refer their friends, family members and co-workers to.
It sounds simple – and almost a little ridiculous that simply telling the truth and doing what you say you’re going to do (and hopefully a little more) can actually be a marketing strategy – but it is.

See, everyone says they’re great with service and care about their clients or members.

They say that results for the people they serve are their priority.

But saying and doing are vastly different things.

And now there’s this new trend in the business world where it seems every business out there has followed Zappos lead and identified their ‘Core Values’ (we’re no exception.)

And regardless of how much the want to celebrate it – 99% of the time those are nothing more than hollow words on paper.

It’s not what you say – it’s what you do.

A Case Study: Fitness Revolution

By now you’ve probably seen me write about Fitness Revolution, our personal training franchise (and now also internationally licensed offering).

We launched Fitness Revolution in early 2011, and while most business opportunities in the fitness industry were out there marketing and selling at all costs – we were building our infrastructure. Sure, we were bringing on new franchisees – but they were virtually all members of our network who we knew would be a good fit for what we wanted Fitness Revolution to represent.

Our focus was simply on providing the best systems, tools, resources and support in the entire fitness industry – bar none. We felt that if we did that, we’d carve out a place in the market that would be competition resistant – because it’s a lot tougher to actually deliver systems and support than it is to promise them. Just to give you an example of what I’m talking about – here’s the Table of Contents for one of our FR Blueprints, the Administrative Operations Manual:

Administrative Operations Manual

Section 1: New Leads Protocol

1.1 Walk-Ins- Overview

Greeting, Scheduling, and Tour Script
How to file an “Adult Profile” form- Completion Plan
How to Add a Prospect to Your Client Management Software- Completion Plan
How to Create a File Folder for a Client Appointment- Completion Plan
How to Set Scheduling Notifications- Completion Plan
How to Add Person to an Email List- Completion Plan
Sending a Personal Email to Prospect- Email Script
Confirmation Call, Email, and Text Message Script

1.2 Phone Inquiries- Overview

Phone Inquiry Script and Missed Call/Call Back Script
Taking Phone Call Notes- Completion Plan
How to File an “Adult Profile” form- Completion Plan
How to Add a Prospect to Your Client Management Software- Completion Plan
How to Create a File Folder for a Client Appointment- Completion Plan
How to Set Scheduling Notifications- Completion Plan
Sending a Personal Email to Prospect- Email Script
Confirmation Call, Email, and Text Message Script

1.3 Website Opt-In- Overview

How to file an “Adult Training Profile” form from a website opt-in- Completion Plan
How to Add a Prospect to Your Client Management Software- Completion Plan
Email Script- Free Gift Opt-in
Phone Script- 2 Week Trial Opt-in
Email Script- Confirm Orientation or Appointment (If scheduled by phone)
Email Script- 2 Week Trial Opt-in
How to Schedule- Completion Plan
How to Create a File Folder for a Client Appointment- Completion Plan
Confirmation Call, Email, and Text Message Script

1.4 Inquiry Email- Overview

Frequently Asked Email Questions and Answers
How to file an “Adult Training Profile” form from an inquiry email- Completion Plan
How to Add a Prospect to Your Client Management Software- Completion Plan
How to Set Notification for Non-Responsive Email Leads- Completion Plan
Follow Up Email Script for Unresponsive Leads
How to Schedule- Completion Plan
How to Create a File Folder for a Client Appointment- Completion Plan
Confirmation Call, Email, and Text Message Script

1.5 Client Referral- Overview

How to Add a Prospect to Your Client Management Software- Completion Plan
How to file an “Adult Training Profile” form from a Referral- Completion Plan
How to Add a Prospect to Your Client Management Software- Completion Plan
Referral Call Script
Referral Email Script
How to Set Notification for Non-Responsive Referral Leads- Completion Plan
Follow Up Voicemail Script for Non-responders
Follow Up Email Script for Non-responders
How to Schedule- Completion Plan
How to Create a File Folder for a Client Appointment- Completion Plan
Confirmation Call, Email, and Text Message Script

1.6 External Leads- Overview

How to file an “Adult Training Profile” form from an external source- Completion Plan
How to Add a Prospect to Your Client Management Software- Completion Plan
How to Add Person to Email List- Completion Plan
Phone Call Follow-up Script
Email Follow-up Script
How to Schedule – Completion Plan
How to Create a File Folder for a Client Appointment- Completion Plan
Confirmation Call, Email, and Text Message Script

1.7 New Leads- Missed Appointment

Missed Appointment Phone Script
Missed Appointment Voicemail Script
How to Set a Notification for a Non-Responsive Missed Appointment Lead
No response phone call script
No response voicemail script
No response email template
How to Schedule an Appointment- Completion Plan
Confirmation Call Script
Confirmation Email Template
Confirmation Text Message

Section 2: Front End Clientele Protocol

2.1 Front End Clientele- Overview

How to Add a Prospect to Your Client Management Software- Completion Plan
How to update client information in CMS software- Completion Plan
How to complete a sale in CMS software (if applicable)- Completion Plan
How to add client to email list- Completion Plan
How to file new front end client documentation- Completion Plan
How to schedule notifications for new client- Completion Plan
Confirmation call script for next appointment
Confirmation Email Template
Confirmation Text Message

2.2 Front End Clientele- Supplemental

Post Card on the Run- Completion Plan
Send Out Cards- Completion Plan

Section 3: New Members Protocol

3.1 New Members- Overview

How to update client information in CMS- Completion Plan
How to complete the membership sale in your CMS- Completion Plan
How to add client to email list- Completion Plan
How to remove client from “prospects” email list- Completion Plan
How to file new client documentation- Completion Plan
How to schedule check-in/follow-up calls with client- Completion Plan
“Thank you” Email Script or Card Script for Referrers

That’s one resource – there are dozens. This FR Blueprint has over 111 pages of actionable information, scripts and templates for one specific area of our Franchisees’ businesses. Sad to say – there are franchises out there whose entire collection of support manuals or resources probably don’t amount to 111 pages.

And that was an obvious benefit to taking the position we’ve taken as a support-focused franchise.

Not only did this approach help us still add 106 franchisees in 2011 with very minimal marketing (we’re at around 120 now) – but it really allowed us to build a strong foundation to facilitate the success of those 120 franchisees and the ones who will come on board in the future.

And that’s what franchising – at least in our world – is about.

In fact, we were just recognized by Franchise Business Review in their Annual Franchisee Satisfaction Awards as:

The #1 Fitness Franchise Overall

The #1 Franchisee Overall (Midsize Category)

Here’ a screenshot:

Every franchise in North America is eligible for these awards and they’re entirely decided by independent surveys Franchise Business Review conducts of franchisees.

So basically they’re determined by what we actually do for our franchisees – not simply what we say we’re going to do.

How You Can Make This All Work For Your Business

Though I couldn’t be prouder of what our business team has accomplished by earning these rewards (The Fitness Revolution Team is deserving of far more than a post for the incredible work they’ve done ) – that’s not the main point of this post.
The main point is this:

If you want to become the premier fitness business in your area – you need to do the things that everyone else won’t do.

You need to truly care about your clients – not just say you do.

You need to put in the work to become the best at your craft – not just proclaim yourself the best.

You need to deliver an extraordinary experience – not just pay lip service to it.

You need to live your Core Values – not just put them in a frame on the wall or on your website.

You simply need to make sure that you’re doing everything you say… and more.

Do that and your competition will become irrelevant because – I can promise you that while they’ll all say they’re going to do the same – 99% of them never will.

Dedicated to Your Success,

Pat

Filed Under: fitness business, Fitness Business Success, Fitness Entrepreneur Tagged With: Business Owner, Entrepreneur, Fitness Business Marketing, Fitness Professional, personal training business

Hiring Personal Trainers & Other Staff Members

February 8, 2012 By admin 8 Comments

A Post On Hiring Personal Trainers by Pat Rigsby

dreamstime xs 21602224 Hiring Personal Trainers & Other Staff Members

In our live meetings we get a lot of questions about hiring personal trainers and other staff members so I thought I’d share some thoughts on the topic.

Hiring is tough. I’ve been hiring people for almost 17 years now and also spent about 8 years recruiting college athletes – which I’ve found is almost exactly the same.

The first person I ever hired was a guy that I’d be comfortable calling my boyhood idol.

I fired him 3 months later.

I’ve also fired one of the guys that I’d consider among my 5-6 closest friends.

I’ve probably recruited over 1000 athletes and actually brought about 200 on to my teams. I’ve personally hired roughly 100 employees. I couldn’t tell you how many I fired (a lot) – but in every case I agonized about it.

But what I have found is that the strategy that helped me enjoy success as a college baseball coach in large part through recruiting has the same type of success when hiring employees.

How To Launch a Fitness Information Marketing Business

February 5, 2012 By admin 2 Comments

Fitness Information Marketing Tips From Pat Rigsby

dreamstime xs 19497884 How To Launch a Fitness Information Marketing Business

I have some pretty strong opinions about infomarketing. I believe that if you’ve never actually done something, you probably shouldn’t be creating a product talking about how to be successful doing it. If you haven’t run a bootcamp – no products on bootcamps. If you haven’t trained or coached people – you probably shouldn’t be offering training programs for people online.

Again – this is my opinion. Disagree if you like. Some people will tell you to simply find a hot market and go after it. Doesn’t matter if you’re a subject matter expert there or not. The market offers some opportunity so go get it.

But that’s just not the way that we prefer to do things.

In the past I haven’t written much about this topic because I felt that there were more important topics to cover for the fitness pros that we serve. But knowing that there is a lot of mixed information out there on the topic, I figured that if I had some insight to share that has helped us build a consistent 7 figure information marketing business and I wasn’t sharing it – I was adding to the problem, not providing a solution.

So here’s the first post on a topic that I’ll write about from time to time.

The Basis Of A Fitness Information Marketing Business

The whole point of info marketing is to leverage your expertise and multiply the money you can make without multiplying the manual labor. Don’t miss the part about ‘expertise’ – if you don’t have expertise in a particular topic, you shouldn’t be creating a product about it.

Factors When Choosing A Market

Here are the things I’d consider:

What clients have you consistently helped get incredible results?
Are you/were you one of them? Do you have a story to tell that they’ll be interested in?
Size. Is it big enough to be worthwhile, but not big enough to lose specificity and the average prospect becomes fuzzy. You should be able to market to a specific demographic.
Do you LOVE this market and want to commit a significant amount of time to it?
Competition. Lots of good competition should make you hesitate and ask yourself: “Can I bring anything new or unique to the table?”

I know that for my wife’s business – Fit Yummy Mummy – those were answered like this:

What clients have you consistently helped get incredible results?

She had a very sizable following of clients in our training business who she worked with that were moms. She had great success with this group and eventually had a waiting list of moms wanting to join her programs.

Are you/were you one of them? Do you have a story to tell that they’ll be interested in?

She’s a mom and that’s her real edge in her market. There are plenty of fat loss products – but she’s the only mom out there really speaking their language.

Size. Is it big enough to be worthwhile, but not big enough to lose specificity and the average prospect becomes fuzzy. You should be able to market to a specific demographic.

There are lots of moms

Do you LOVE this market and want to commit a significant amount of time to it?

I’m sure Holly would be good at any number of careers – but she loves what she does and the people she works with in this one.

Competition. Lots of good competition should make you hesitate and ask yourself: “Can I bring anything new or unique to the table?”

Most of the fat loss people in the information marketing world are men. This pretty much excludes them from being moms. That allowed her to offer something unique and attract a specific segment of the market.

What You Need To Know About The Market

Here are some questions you should know the answers to before you enter a specific market”

What keeps them awake at night?
What are they scared of?
What are they mad about or at?
What are their top 3 daily frustrations?
You need to know what their normal daily experience is like, a day in their life.
What trends are occurring?
What do they secretly desire most?
Do you know their ‘language?’
Who else is selling something similar to them and how?
What’s your advantage? What justifies you being there? What gives you the edge? You need a compelling reason.

Developing Fitness Information Marketing Products

Basically there are what I consider front end products and back end products. Front end products should address the big problem that your target market faces. Using Holly’s business as an example – her initial ebook provided a 16 week fat loss program specifically for moms.

By attacking the most common problem your target market faces or biggest goal they have you can reach the broadest segment of that market.

Typical front end products are:

Ebooks
DVDs
Digital packages – written and video

Most of the consumer based front end products that I’ve seen enjoy success cost between $27-97. The exceptions are when the market is more specialized (you can charge more) or when the product creator is aggressive about getting buyers so they can segment their list and focus more on back end sales to that group (they will often sell lower cost items.)

Our rule of thumb is this: whatever we sell should provide 10X the value of the purchase price. If we sell a product for $97 – it better be worth at least $970 to that fitness pros business – if not much more.

In my mind, the real opportunity in fitness information marketing lies in the back end.

The back end is where you can sell higher priced products, continuity programs, complimentary solutions and live events.

Basically, my way of looking at the back end is this: back end offerings solve all the products the front end product doesn’t.

I’ll use Holly’s business as an example:

Holly’s front end product doesn’t offer the social support on programs beyond that initial 16 weeks. It doesn’t offer any real personal coaching or interaction with her. Because of that she has a Membership site called Club FYM where members get the social support they are looking for. They get new workouts each month and they get some personal interaction with Holly to answer their questions.
Many moms want follow along DVDs so they can see Holly perform the workouts in action, learn the proper technique and the pace of the workout – so she created follow along monthly DVDs and DVD bundles.
While Holly’s ebook addresses supportive nutrition, it doesn’t actually provide recipes for supportive foods so she created and began offering a cookbook.

She has a variety of other back end offerings – but they all follow that same format. They provide more of what the customers of the front end product want.

There is still plenty of ground to cover – copywriting, lead generation, affiliate marketing and about a dozen other things. I’ll share some thoughts on them in future posts.

But basically, our approach is pretty simple and could be boiled down to these components:

1. Focus on value creation rather than value extraction.
2. Identify where we can provide real value to a market.
3. Begin by offering value at no cost (newsletter / blogs).
4. Deliver so much value for free that people are compelled to invest in our front end products.
5. Deliver so much value in that front end product that the customer is compelled to invest in our back end offerings.
6. Provide the most complete set of solutions possible to that respective market – which results in multiple streams of income.

There isn’t anything tricky or ninja about it – but it works for us and it works pretty well. I’ll look forward to sharing more insight on fitness information marketing in the near future. If you have anything specific you want me to cover – let me know below.

Also – along with Pat Beith (one of the most successful sports / fitness industry information marketers on the planet) I’ll be hosting a One Day Intensive Workshop addressing how to build your own successful infomarketing business the right way on Thursday, March 29th here in Louisville (the day before the IYCA Summit). If you’ve ever wanted to create your own successful info product or complete infobusiness – here’s your chance to learn everything you need to know. Go here for details:

http://iycasummit.com/product-creation

Dedicated to Your Success,

Pat

Filed Under: Fitness Marketing, Online Fitness Business Tagged With: Entrepreneur, Fitness Business, Fitness Business Marketing, Success

Fitness Business Multipliers

January 30, 2012 By admin 3 Comments

A Post On Building Your Fitness Business By Pat Rigsby

onlybusinessbook1 Fitness Business Multipliers

Recently Nick Berry and I were asked to contribute a chapter to a book called “The Only Business Book You’ll Ever Need.” This was an incredible honor as a few of the other authors were Brian Tracy, Robert Allen and Harvey McKay, all New York Times Best Selling Authors. This book won’t be on the shelves for a couple more months, but I wanted to share an adaptation of our chapter with you as it definitely can help you build your business. Enjoy this sneak peek.

As an fitness business owner, you essentially accept the fact that you’re trading the security that comes with a steady job for the opportunity that comes with owning your own business. But what if we told you that security and opportunity don’t have to be mutually exclusive? Our experience is that not only can you have the best of both worlds, but you can do it more quickly and easily than you probably imagine by creating multiple streams of income within your fitness business.

Fitness Business Owner Of The Month – January 2012

January 29, 2012 By admin 6 Comments

A fitness business owner success story by Pat Rigsby

greg Fitness Business Owner Of The Month – January 2012

Each month here at FBI we’re going to start recognizing a Fitness Business Owner of the Month. We hope to not only recognize fitness entrepreneurs for their successes but also to inspire other fitness pros to move forward in their business endeavors.

The winner will not only get a public ‘pat on the back’ in the form of a post like this, but they’ll also receive a 1 hour coaching call, free admission to the live event of their choice and a product of their choice from what we offer here at FBI.

Marketing Your Fitness Business With Cards

January 23, 2012 By admin 10 Comments

A post on marketing your fitness business by Pat Rigsby

dreamstime xs 5425419 Marketing Your Fitness Business With Cards

One of the most underutilized ways to market your fitness business is through using handwritten notes or sending cards. In a time where everyone defaults to email you can stand out from the crowd by doing a little more and sending cards or notes though the mail. Marketing your fitness business this way isn’t very expensive as you’re only mailing a very targeted list and the return on investment is typically outstanding.

Here are a few ideas and examples you can use:

Grow Your Fitness Business In 5 Simple Steps

January 18, 2012 By admin 8 Comments

A post on how to grow your fitness business by Pat Rigsby

There are hundreds of ways to grow your fitness business and we touch on plenty of them here at the Fit Business Insider. But sometimes when you want to get more clients, generate more referrals or increase your income it really boils down to taking action instead of just knowing what to do.

So with that in mind I wanted to help you grow your fitness business today by getting you to take action.

The Baddest (And Most Bastardized) Exercise on the Planet

January 16, 2012 By admin 1 Comment

I recently wrote an article about the burpee, possibly the most popular and bastardized exercise on the planet.

Since Pat, Nick, and Fitness Business Insider are all about promoting good coaching, I though this article might be useful with regards to how to properly teach, perform and progress the burpee.

At the end of the day, there’s no better exercise to assess total body fitness and the better your clients and campers can perform it through a full range of motion without joint pain the better their overall results will be.

Enjoy the article!

BJ Gaddour, CSCS
CEO of StreamFIT.com

There was a time when Mike Tyson was the baddest man on the planet. Everything about the former heavyweight champion of the world was intimidating: the way he dressed in all black shorts without the traditional robe of his competitors, the way he used to rock his head side to side back and forth like he had mental problems, and the way he came into the ring all sweaty and lathered up like a caged beast ready for battle. Without a doubt, Iron Mike used to win his fights before they even started.

Look no further than his world famous ring entrance to the Tyson vs. Spinks fight, arguably the most intimidating entrance in Boxing history:

[Read more...]

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