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:

• Weight
• Bodyfat Percentage
• LBM / Fat Mass
• Resting Heart Rate
• Blood Pressure
• Muscular Strength Assessment
• Flexibility / Mobility Assessment

You can add other assessments or statistics based on what your assessment process consists of.

You can send this report each time you update your assessment. This single approach can set you apart from other fitness pros and fitness providers in the eyes of your community’s medical professionals.

Referral Stimulator Email

Description: Very simple to do – just send a personal email to clients and ask for referrals. Here’s an example:

Subj: I Need Your Help!

Dear Ms. Jones,

I think you can help me with a problem I have. I don’t know if you realize it or not, but marketing for new clients can be pretty expensive. And after I spend all that money on marketing, I’m still not guaranteed to get one single new client.

“Word of Mouth” marketing is still the best type of marketing. And frankly, I’d rather reward you for sending me new clients than spend all my money on radio or newspaper. Many happy clients have mentioned that their friends, acquaintances, and family members have expressed an interest in improving their health and fitness. With this in mind, I came up with my new…

Referral Reward Program!

Here’s how it works:

For every referral that you send me who becomes a client, I’ll give you 20% off of your monthly rate for the next 3 months.

So if you refer just 5 people you’ll get your next 3 months of training FREE!

I know that I don’t have to offer rewards for referring friends, but I think it’s important to show that I value you as a client and appreciate your referrals.

When you think about people that you might refer, keep these ideas in mind:

• People you work with
• Friends listed in your phone or email address book
• Neighbors
• People you know from your hobbies and other interest
• Family members
• People you do business with
• People who attend your church

Hopefully, that will jog your memory a little. If you just spend a few minutes thinking about it, I’m sure you’ll come up with quite a few people you know who would like to experience all the benefits that you’ve experienced from working with me.

All you need to do is reply with the people you think of who might be interested in finding out more about my services and their contact information.  I’ll contact them and offer them a free gift of 2 week weeks of my fitness bootcamp as a gift from you.

Thanks for your help and I look forward to rewarding you soon!

Pat

“Bring a Friend” Sessions

Description: If you run bootcamps, this is the most simple referral system you can put in place. Just announce a “Bring A Friend Week” in which all of your clients can bring a guest free of charge to participate in a week of workouts.

Announce the event about a week prior to the actual day and continue to promote it leading up to the event. You can combine this with another referral system and offer incentives for any guest that becomes a client or offer the guests a preferred rate. Have a way to capture the contact information of each guest and continue to market to them via a newsletter or promotional material. Have a free report and a special offer for upcoming events available to them at the conclusion of the session.

This works almost as well with standard one-on-one or semi-private training, it just takes a little more preparation for the actual sessions. You can develop a standardized entry-level program for the guests to follow for their workout.

If you want to really take this to the next level – hold a contest with prizes for the camper or client that brings the most friends during the week where you give them their next month free.

Now you’ve got 8 easy to use referral strategies at your disposal.  Pick 2 and plug them into your business by Monday so you can start the referrals rolling in for all of August.

Dedicated to your success,

Pat

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.

As a frame of reference, when we hire a new employee, it takes approximately 6-12 months of education before I’m truly comfortable with them writing programs without me reviewing every one of them before the client sees the program.

2. Friendship – Here’s a straightforward one: if you’re a dork, loser, pain-in-the-ass, arrogant prick, or you smell bad, people aren’t going to want to be your friend.  If they don’t want to be your friend, they certainly aren’t going to want to become your client – regardless of how good your programs and cues are.

As an example, I’ve started a tradition of asking for reviews of interns at the six-week mark of their internship from some of our trusted clients.  We just hand them a slip of paper with each intern’s name on it, and ask for the first two sentences that come to mind.  One recent intern was not a popular one, as he received several negative responses, most notably “Kind of a douche.  Not a good fit for CP.”  Here was a kid who was enthusiastic, proactive, well-read, and had a strong resume – but none of it mattered because he sucked at making friends.

This is a more crucial success factor in the semi-private model than one-on-one training, too.  In personal training, you have time to cultivate very solid individual friendships with clients from the get-go because you have 2-4 hours of complete one-on-one time with them each week.  You can ask about their kids, their vacation, their hemorrhoids, their stock portfolio, and their divorce settlement.  When you have 3-6 other clients rolling at the same time, though, they chat with one another and not you – because you need to be busting your butt to keep things rolling on the training front.

Don’t get me wrong; you’ll learn a ton about your clients over time and cultivate awesome friendships.  In semi-private training, though, they’ll make a lot more friends beside you, too – and get results more affordably while you enjoy your job more.

3. Continuity – Semi-private models give rise to larger clienteles.   A personal trainer might only be able to keep 20-30 clients at most, while in the semi-private model, coaches see a lot more people than that.  As such, in businesses with more than one employee, you can’t expect to be present for every single training session.  To keep the right flow, you have to hire and educate great people who you know will keep the trains running on time in your absence – whether it is with respect to programming, coaching, answering the phones, or just maintaining an unconditionally positive and energetic training environment.

As a funny little example, I went on a quick trip to Orlando back in January after a speaking engagement in Tampa – so my business partners, Pete and Tony, were “manning the CP ship.”  My fiancé and I were at Sea World, and I got a text message from CP client Kevin Youkilis of the Boston Red Sox:

“Tony is fantastic.  He really got the most out of me today.  And Pete’s vert is legit.”

I, of course, knew that Youk was screwing with me, and my business partners were laughing hysterically in the background because

a)     I am a workaholic and worry too much when I’m out of the office

b)     Pete’s vertical jump (37”) is slightly higher than mine (36”), and he doesn’t let me forget it.

Truth be told, I was happy to be the target of the joke, as it meant that my staff was executing the exact program I’d written to a “T,” and they were joking around in the office (a sign that the place wasn’t in chaos, and they were keeping things fun and entertaining with the clients).

At the same time, as much as you want continuity, it’s important to have employees with different abilities and unique traits that complement your own.  For instance, Chris Howard, our newest employee, is a licensed massage therapist and has a master’s degree in nutrition.  And, on a funnier note, the running joke among clients is that the second I leave, Tony puts techno music on the stereo.  The clients get continuity with some variety, and Tony gets just a bit more feminine!

4. The Individual Touch – While it can be hard to completely make every client’s day when you might see 60-80 people over the course of a day, that doesn’t mean that you can’t go out of your way “after hours” to find ways to put smiles on their faces.  One example: in our case (predominantly baseball players), we follow all our players – from middle school all the way to the pros – in the papers and email/text guys whenever they get some love in the press.  I also make a ton of introductions between our high school players and college coaches from my extensive network on that front, or I make a phone call to find a place for our pro guys to train or get soft tissue work when they’re on the road in a city where I have a contact.  Sometimes, it’s as simple as just going out there to watch a game and cheer for them.

Other examples include sending thank you notes for referrals or merely connecting a client with a practitioner (e.g., manual therapy, sport-specific coach) in a related field.  You may only see them five hours a week, but that gives you another 163 hours each week to be a valuable resource and friend to them.

5. Organization – My general rule of thumb is that every hour of training requires at least one hour of planning.  Here are Cressey Performance’s hours:

Mo: 12-7:30PM
Tu: 8-9:30AM, 12-7:30PM
We: 12-7:30PM
Th: 12-7:30PM
Fr: 8-9:30AM, 12-7:30PM
Sa: 9AM-2PM

That’s 45.5 hours (closer to 50 during busy seasons).  My business partner, Pete, puts in about 40 hours a week on his own just handling billing, scheduling, phone duties, website maintenance, the CP blog, and other behind-the-scenes organizational tasks.  I can tell you that both Tony and I spend about 6-8 hours per week on programming in addition to our coaching responsibilities, and I handle a lot of the phone calls and inquiries from agents and teams, plus the more complex questions that aren’t in Pete’s scope of expertise (exercise science).  Chris Howard puts in a few hours a week on programming.  There is always a staff in-service on Monday morning of at least 30 minutes.

None of this includes the reading/continuing education we all do on our own, or the work Tony and I put in with our personal blogs, which are undoubtedly very influential in driving clients to Cressey Performance.  And, it doesn’t cover any of the “after-hours tech support” from phone calls/text messages and Facebook/email messages that I think really separates us as a business.  We are here to set the clients up for success, not just punch the clock and unlock/lock the doors.

Wrap-up

These are only five factors that quickly came to mind, and there are certainly many more that could have made this post much longer.  Many of them will be influenced by your niche, business model, client-to-coach ratio, facility size and “flow,” hours of operation, amenities, and a host of other factors.  Just make sure you’re looking past just the cues; there is much more to being a successful coach in a semi-private model.

Eric Cressey, MA, CSCS is the President of Cressey Performance, just west of Boston, MA.  He publishes a free daily blog and weekly newsletter at www.EricCressey.com

But maybe you’ve heard of some of these companies that offer their own premium brands of sunglasses:

Ray-Ban

Oakley

Bulgari

Dolce & Gabbana

Salvatore Ferragamo

Prada

Burberry

Chanel

Polo Ralph Lauren

Tiffany

Versace

Luxottica makes all of them and about a dozen others.  They own Ray-Ban and Oakley and work under license with the rest.

But if that wasn’t’ enough, they also own LensCrafters, Pearle Vision and Sunglass Hut. So their eye doctors are the ones telling you that you need a new pair of glasses, their sales people are ones helping you choose them, and their factories are the ones making the glasses.

Basically, if there’s money to be made in the sunglasses market – they’re getting a piece of the action.

So how can you apply this in your business – here are a few ideas:

Niche Programs – Each of the different brands that Luxottica owns or manufactures for has their own audience.  You could create different programs that each target a different group of people.  Women’s only camps, mom specific programs, youth programs and corporate programs are just a few of the different options you could offer.

Different Packaging – The common approach is run 2, 3 or 4 day per week programs.  What about these 4 ways you could be packaging your expertise:

• Fitness Coaching Programs – I’ve talked about these in previous posts, but basically you’re meeting with a group once per week for 4-8 weeks teaching them exercise and nutritional strategies they can do at home.  This type of program is a great downsell from semi-private training or bootcamps.
• Workshops – You could run a workshop once every month or two that would appeal to both your clients and non-clients.  Everything from nutrition to kettlebells are great topics for workshops and can bring you in thousands (or tens of thousands) in additional revenue each year.
• Bootcamp To Go – B.J. Gaddour just did a great module teaching Bootcamp Blueprint members how to take what they’re currently doing in their camps and packaging it as a ‘home study’ program for people that either can’t afford the cost of camp or live too far away to attend regularly.
• Weekend Camps - This is something we’ve primarily taught in the youth fitness and sports performance market, but it can work for adult programming too.  Here’s an easy way to do it: Pick something that would be a great workshop – training with bands or kettlebells are great examples.  Turn it into a six week camp and sell it for $99-129.  The camp meets for one hour each Saturday or Sunday for six weeks and you teach them a more in depth version of what they’d learn in a one day workshop.

Co-Branded Programs – Other organizations ranging from YMCA’s to Homeowner’s Associations are great targets to create a co-branded program with.  You provide the services and give them part of the proceeds for providing a location and marketing it to their audience.  I’ve run several camps with YMCAs where they did everything other than me providing the service and kept between 25-40%. I coached and took home 60-75%.

Corporate Programs – I won’t go into them too much as Corporate Guru Greg Justice will be sharing some strategies on running successful corporate programs next week – but this is a great way to add another profit center leveraging your network and expertise.

Information Products – There’s a right way to do this and a wrong way.  The right way is how my buddies Eric Cressey and Mike Robertson do it.  They simply take the things they’re doing effectively in their businesses and packaging them so people that can’t come work with them in Boston or Indy can still benefit.

I’ve just scratched the surface, but you’re getting the picture.  When Luxottica produces sunglasses they are constantly looking for other ways to distribute them, other markets that want what they offer and other ways to add revenue.

When it comes to fitness, fat loss or sports performance – you should do the same.

By the way – if you can think of any ways to get a piece of the action that I missed, do me a favor and share them below.

Dedicated to your success,

Pat

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Perform Better Functional Training Summit in Chicago.  It was the 2nd of three Functional Training Summits they hold throughout the summer, with the 1st being in Providence, RI and the third still to come this August 6th-8th in Long Beach, CA. While I was at the event I thought about how much fitness professionals could learn from Perform Better the company – so I decided to share some lessons I’ve taken away from doing business with them which could benefit all of our businesses:

• Deliver Value To Grow Your Business – I’ve attended about 10 Perform Better events and made numerous purchases from them and every time I’ve felt like I’ve gotten more than my money’s worth.  In fact, to this point I’ve yet to come across someone who didn’t feel like they’ve received their money’s worth (or more) at any of the Perform Better events.

  This kind of consistent value that they deliver is the foundation of their success and should be the foundation of any businesses success.  It’s as simple as this: In every transaction you have with a customer or client provide them with an experience that makes them want to do business with you again.

• Educate and the Sales Will Come – The Perform Better Summits, the Functional Movement Screen Workshops and all the other Perform Better events are all incredible sales vehicles without ever really ‘pitching’ anything.  The key is simple – each of these events educates fitness professionals on how they can do a better job serving their clients.  This is a great way to generate sales in two ways:

  1. Any of the tools or resources used in the presentations are made available by Perform Better so if fitness professionals want to implement what they’ve learned, Perform Better offers solutions so they can.

  2. The fitness industry is notorious for turnover so by educating fitness professionals, Perform Better is essentially helping people stay in the industry, become more successful and in turn potentially become a long term customer.

How can you apply this?  The more informed your clients are – the more successful they will be.  If you educate them on nutrition, supplements and a supportive lifestyle, they’ll be more likely to reach their goals and more likely to stay with you as a client. Not to mention that if you provide some of the solutions like supplements or nutrition education – you can offer them to your clients as a profit center.
  

• Make Everything A Win / Win – This is similar to my first point but since we deal with Perform Better on a bit of a different level than most consumers since we offer a pre-conference IYCA Certification Workshop and have done a few other things with them outside of simply attending events or making purchases. 

  What I’ve consistently seen from them is that in every transaction, every project and in every working relationship – they work to make sure that both parties come out ahead.

  This sounds simple – but in business and especially in the fitness industry – it’s not as common as it should be.   

  They’ve worked diligently to make sure we benefit at every turn when we deal with them – and you should be doing the same in all of your business relationships.  You should make it a goal that every client, prospect, JV partner or member of your network feels like when they deal with you – they benefit.

• Keep Evolving – Every year Perform Better Summits keep changing and improving.  Each year there are new presentations highlighting the latest successful industry trends in training and equipment. In fact, the Summits are often the vehicle to educate fitness pros on the latest industry developments – so they’re usually the people setting the tone for a lot of what successful trainers and coaches are doing with their clients.

• Use Relationships As Your Foundation – We talk about it over and over and Perform Better is a perfect example of it – relationships are crucial to business success.

When I attend Perform Better events it feels kind of like a big family reunion – but more fun

This isn’t an accident.  Their team is incredible and takes a personal interest in everyone they do business with.  In fact, it’s pretty apparent in everything that they do from consistently looking for ways for you (or us) to save money when making purchases to little things like Chris Poirier – taking a couple minutes out from running the event – to have an I-Phone Lightsaber battle with Tyler.

In fact, the Rep that we work with, Jennie Rohde had a baby gift for Holly and me when we showed up.  How thoughtful is that?

All of this is stuff you can do to.  Take a person interest in your clients.  Be nice (and attentive) to their kids.  Go out of your way to help them be more successful. 

There you go – 5 big lessons you can take away from the equipment company I consider to be far and away the leader in serving the fitness professional market.

By the way – if you’re going to be making any orders with Perform Better soon, give Jennie  Rohde a call at 888-556-7464 ext. 114 and tell her you read this blog and she’ll make sure you get our discount  

Dedicated to your success,

Pat Rigsby

Recently one of our Elite Mastermind Members, Tyler English, wanted to generate some cash to fund a facility expansion and the purchase of an Athletic Revolution franchise.  He decided to do a Birthday Promo, so I’ll let him go into the details…

_________________________________________________________________________

I knew I wanted to do something BIG for my upcoming 28th Birthday on June 18th. The end goal was to create a good amount of capital for expansion and growth plans.

The goal was 20K…

For my bro Robert’s 26th Birthday on May 13th we did a 3 day promo for an upsell of our Recovery Week Open Gym Access to all our Members of Farmington Valley Fitness Boot Camp and had 28 people upgrade their memberships.

We generated close to 3k with that promo.

So I wanted something bigger.

As you know I am looking to expand our facility and bring in an Athletic Revolution. Boot Camps are slammed and I want to expand our offerings with Semi Private Coaching, Kettlebell Classes and build on our month old Youth Program that already has 15 children.

Well a few weeks ago the warehouse/office space 2 doors down became available and currently right next door to us is a Dance Studio. Well, both these locations are 1,400 sq ft. which would be a great addition to our 2,600 sq ft. The only problem is that we would need to move the Dance Studio over and incur some of those costs of moving them.

I also didn’t want to have to go to a bank for a loan or take on some other form of debt to invest in opening an Athletic Revolution or for the additional cost of expanding into the space next door.

I knew many of our members wanted more “direction” with nutrition and accountability so this is what I came up with:

I put together a 3 Day, Limited participant, Limited time Birthday promotion using 2 of our higher priced membership offerings (both have different levels of personal coaching with me) using my Birthday numbers of 18 and 28. I initially even limited it to “11″ people because that is my old jersey number from baseball and soccer.

I sent the email out on my Birthday June 18th (Friday night) from Boot Camp Boot Camp in Louisville. I put the expiration being Monday night at 8pm.

I offered 2 separate options at $1818 paid in full and a Combo option of the 2 at $2828:
Platinum Package to Farmington Valley Fitness Boot Camp (A $397 per month value)

Included:

• UNLIMITED Boot Camps
• An Initial 30 Minute Nutritional Consult
• 12 Weeks of Maximize Your Metabolism
• Recovery Week Gym Access
• One 30 Minute Phone Coaching Call Per Month
• Continued monthly E-Coaching

They got it at one time paid in full price of $1818.

A savings of $2,946.

Or

12 Months of One on One Nutritional Coaching: (A program I only “invite” members into) which is a $297 per month cost for a paid in full cost of $1,818, a savings of $1,746 over the next year.

They got:

• Initial 30 Minute Nutritional Consultation
• Personal 1 Time Grocery Trip, Kitchen Makeover and Supplementation Guide
• An Individual Monthly Meal Plan (Meals, Times, etc)
• Grocery List
• Proper Calories, Protein, Carbs and Fats
• Daily Summary Calorie and Macronutrient Tracking Sheets
• Weekly Summary Reports (To Send To Me For Accountability and Support)
• 30 Minute Coaching Call Per Month

Or they could combine the 2 for a one-time cost of $2828.

The final results:

Here are the final numbers

Total Platinum – $39,356.00
Platinum, 1 on 1 Combination - $ 14,862.16

Grand Total:   – $56,036.16

The Coaching, E-Coaching and reoccurring contact with them is easy to manage as I already have a system with those who I work with via our Maximize Your Metabolism Class and Nutritional Coaching clients.

The $4K of reoccurring revenue we “lost” has already been replaced by last month’s trial members and some $1500 we closed on the first day of our new phase of Farmington Valley Fitness Boot Camp.

Meeting with my Landlord this week to take the next steps!

______________________________________________________________

There you have it!  Tyler created a huge WIN/WIN.  His clients received an incredible value on some of Tyler’s services and Tyler was able to generate a substantial amount of cash to fund his gym expansion and addition of an Athletic Revolution Franchise.

I think it’s awesome – but I’d love to hear what you think.  Tell me below…

Dedicated to your success,

Pat Rigsby

Zach did.

Check out this killer video of Zach Even-Esh talking about overcoming fear and turning his passions into profits.  Plus there are even guidos and groundhogs thrown in for good measure because nothing is ever boring with Zach

And if you’re ready to take the leap and make it happen for yourself, Zach and my other buddy Paul Reddick are throwing a seminar over on the Jersey Shore this October 1^st & 2^nd where they’re going to cover building offline and online businesses that will provide you the money and lifestyle your want.

I can’t go since my wife is due in October – but otherwise I’d be there.  And you should be too.

You can learn more about this must attend event a http://www.howtokickassseminar.com/

Dedicated to your success,

Pat Rigsby

Over 100 of the most successful bootcamp owners from around the globe (Travis Sawyer was the attendee who traveled the farthest – from Perth, Australia) all dialed in on building their businesses and networking with fellow fitness entrepreneurs.

Great stuff…

One of the things we do at our events is ask the people having success to share what’s working for them.  We put them on the spot without scripted presentations or time to prepare– heck, they often don’t know they’re even going to be called on to contribute.

I wanted to give you a distilled overview of what the camp owners that are enjoying the most business success offered up that they are all doing.

So while there are differences in some of what they do – there are a few key concepts that they *all* do.

Here are the big 4:

1. Give A LOT Away To Get Things Rolling – They top camp owners all give away a ton of value to get people in the door.  They use one week free trials, two week free trials, fundraisers, Groupon and any number of other strategies to initially get people to try out camp for no or little financial risk and deliver an extraordinary experience to get people to stay and pay.

2.  Deliver An Extraordinary Camp – Our top camp owners all treat bootcamps like group personal training – not like group exercise.  They do orientations to acclimate new campers, they do assessments to make sure they’re integrating any corrective work that’s needed into the program and to set the stage for long term camper success, they give as much personal attention as possible and consistently recognize their campers successes.

On top of that – they ‘bring it’ each and every day.  High energy, great programming – they make sure every day is an experience for the campers.

3.  Turn Happy Campers Into Referrals – Without exception, all of our top performers generate a lot of their new business from referrals.  They gave away as much as they could to get people in before they had a base of clients – but once they hit the 40-50 camper mark, they all were generating much of their new business by getting their Raving Fans to spread the word through referral promotions, bring a friend offerings and just simple word of mouth.  This can’t happen without paying a LOT of attention to #2.

4. Multiple Streams of Income – Every top performer we asked had several streams of revenue.  On Sunday, 12 of the most successful camp owners were asked what their #2 revenue stream was and 10 said selling Prograde Supplements while the other 3 said semi-private training.  Here were the top 5 responses for secondary revenue streams:

• Prograde Supplements
• Semi-Private Training
• Youth Fitness / Sports Performance Programs
• Weight Management Programs
• Corporate Fitness Programs

So there it is – the core concepts that ALL of the most successful bootcamp owners we work with are implementing.  Make sure you’re implementing them too!

On a different note – I want to also give a special Thank You to all of our presenters:

• Nick Berry
• B.J. Gaddour
• Curtis Mock
• Nick Nanton
• Dave Schmitz
• Mike Robertson
• Pamela MacElree
• Jason Brown
• A.J. Roberts
• Greg Justice

And all of our camp ‘superstars’ that shared what’s working in their businesses.  You all made Bootcamp Bootcamp a HUGE success!

Dedicated to your success,

Pat Rigsby

Pat Rigsby is a Co-Owner of the International Youth Conditioning Association & the youth fitness franchise Athletic Revolution as well as a fitness industry consultant serving thousands of personal trainers and fitness entrepreneurs. Sign up for his fitness business free newsletter to discover proven marketing, sales and business strategies, along with blog updates, news, and more! While you’re at it, follow him on Twitter.

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I wanted to share something with you that hopefully will remind you of the possibilities that are out there if you’re willing to thing big and take action.

I’ve told the story of attending the first Ryan Lee Bootcamp and leaving having changed my mind (actually Nick and I both decided on the spot) about how we were going to grow our business.

Instead of being a local business that would expand by adding a few new locations, we were going to expand globally through a variety of different channels.

That was the first real turning point for our business(es) and it has worked out better than I could have ever imagined.

But the second turning point was when we started sketching out the concept for what would eventually become Athletic Revolution.

Nick and I both were ‘sports guys’ and always wanted to get back to that side of the industry, and we saw a need for a better model of a sports performance facility.

At the same time Brain Grasso had been working though his own concept of a youth fitness and athletic performance model.

We all collectively came together and started talking about our ‘dreams.’

We saw that most youth fitness or athletic performance coaches were passionate about the coaching side of what they did, but didn’t embrace the business side.

The need for something that could provide business systems & structure was obvious.

The impact that we could have by providing a business model for these coaches was enormous.  They could now have a lucrative career with a business that could not only grow beyond just them, but also be building a saleable (and valuable) commodity when they wanted to retire or move.

And the opportunity was there because none of the franchises that tried to address the youth fitness & sports performance market did much to help the individual coach or trainer.

They all catered to club owners or investment groups that would open 50,000 square foot facilities.

We could create something that individual trainers and coaches would be able to open.

So we sketched out a ‘plan’ and went to work.

That was January of 2008.

Well, if you don’t know much about franchising, it’s a long, expensive and tedious process.

It’s nothing like creating an information product or even a coaching program.  It’s so involved for good reason.  The franchisee’s livelihood is at stake, so every detail is crucial.

Finally, in mid-2009 we could start slowly bringing a handful of franchisees in and get them started. We got the first locations open in the fall of 2009.

Right now we’re up to nine locations.

But what really hit home for me was last weekend when we visited Dave & Andrea Gleason’s location in Massachusetts.  It was exactly what we’d dreamed of building and it was having the exact type of impact we’d hoped for.

We’re now at the next stage with Athletic Revolution where we’re going to start ‘ramping things up’ and helping more and more coaches build the type of business and career they’ve always wanted.  I suspect that we’ll have several hundred locations open in the next few years.

And it’s all because we’ve followed a few basic steps.

So if you’ve ever dreamed of doing something big – take it from me, you can make it happen if you’re willing to do the work.

Are you?

Dedicated to your success,

Pat Rigsby

Pat Rigsby is a Co-Owner of the International Youth Conditioning Association & the youth fitness franchise Athletic Revolution as well as a fitness industry consultant serving thousands of personal trainers and fitness entrepreneurs. Sign up for his fitness business free newsletter to discover proven marketing, sales and business strategies, along with blog updates, news, and more! While you’re at it, follow him on Twitter.

If you want to generate new business now – what would you do?

I don’t mean new clients next week or next month.  I mean you need new clients immediately to pay the bills.

Would you sit at home and submit articles and press releases?

Would you make blog posts or phone calls?

There are dozens of things you could do if you had to generate new clients, but which ones would pay off fastest?

With that in mind I created a simple Hierarchy of Client Getting Activities to get you started.

Level One Activities – If you need new clients TODAY, these should be the focal point of your marketing efforts.

• Talking to members of your network face to face
• Doing public speaking
• Meeting new people through networking events and personal networking activities
• Visiting local businesses and marketing to employees or creating JV’s
• Asking for referrals

As you probably noticed, these all involve face-to-face contact.

Level Two Activities – These activities are almost as effective as Level One Activities, however they are a little less effective as nothing is as powerful as ‘Belly to Belly’ marketing.

• Personally calling members of your network
• Making business – to – business calls
• Sending press releases to the local media
• Personally E-mailing members of your network
• Asking for referrals via mailings to your clients
• Doing reactivation calls

Why are these not as effective as Level One activities? First off, a significant percentage of the time phone calls end up as voicemails and messages and emails get lost in the volume of other calls and emails the recipient receives.  Secondly – it’s much harder to say ‘no’ in person.

Level Three Activities – These activities are valuable, but often take a while to pay off or need to be done in volume to yield big results. However, once they hit critical mass they can drive a business.

• Submitting SEO Press Releases
• Submitting articles
• Blogging
• Doing direct mailings to your network
• Sending an email newsletter
• Doing reactivation mailings
• Lead Bowls or Boxes
• Craigslist ads
• Facebook Groups & Fan Pages
• Door hangers

These are all great activities that are low cost and potentially can have a huge impact on your business, but if you’re running a bootcamp with 5 campers and are looking to reach 25 campers within the next 30 days – it’s unlikely that these activities will get you there.

If you can outsource these and ramp them up fast that will almost always be the best approach you can take because you can focus on Levels 1 & 2 but not miss out on the benefits of Level 3.

Level Four Activities – Only do these activities after you’ve really worked the first three levels.

• Newspaper ads
• Radio ads
• Direct mail to cold lists
• Billboards
• TV ads

These can be effective – in fact we’ve used them all for our businesses at one time or another, but they’re expensive and not going to provide you with your best ROI.

So are you getting the idea yet?

When we have coaching clients that aren’t generating enough new business, 98% of the time it’s because they’ve gotten comfortable working on Level Three activities and ignoring the Level One and Two activities.

Let me try to drive this home with an analogy for you:

If you needed someone to lend you $1000, which would you do:

A. Post a request on your blog?

B. Send someone an email to ask?

C. Send someone a letter to ask?

D. Call them and personally ask?

E. Visit them face to face and ask?

OK – that’s not a perfect analogy – but you get the picture.  The most powerful way to persuade someone is to do it ‘in person’ or as close to ‘in person’ as you possibly can.

So spend 30 minutes evaluating what percentage of your marketing time is spent on Level One and Level Two activities.  Then make an effort to increase it by at least 50%.  Then send me a testimonial telling me about all the new business you generated

Dedicated to your success,

Pat Rigsby

Pat Rigsby is a Co-Owner of the International Youth Conditioning Association & the youth fitness franchise Athletic Revolution as well as a fitness industry consultant serving thousands of personal trainers and fitness entrepreneurs. Sign up for his fitness business free newsletter to discover proven marketing, sales and business strategies, along with blog updates, news, and more! While you’re at it, follow him on Twitter.