No matter what industry you’re in – problems create opportunities. Even in the fitness industry.
Walt Disney developed Disneyland in response to the fact that amusement parks left a lot to be desired.
Wal-Mart grew like crazy because retailers ignored markets outside the big cities.
If most of the fitness industry is going to ignore the problems at hand – that equates to opportunities for you. Here are the most obvious opportunities as I see them:
Become ‘The Solution’ For a Targeted Group of People In Your Area – In Boston baseball players seek out Eric Cressey’s gym. In Edison, NJ wrestlers flock to Zach Even-Esh’s Underground Gym. If you’re in Santa Clarita and want to lose fat, you go to the Cosgrove’s gym. If you want sports performance training in Watchung, NJ, Jason Ferruggia’s Renegade Gym is the go to solution. In Pembroke, MA young athletes seek out Dave & Andrea Gleason’s Athletic Revolution.
Determine who you want to serve and become the ‘Go To Solution’ for that group. While I’ve never asked Jason about how he decided who he’d work with (I’d assume it’s the same for him from reading his blog) – I know the others all built businesses by becoming passionate about helping a certain group and putting in the time to become the best solution for that audience.
If you take this approach, as a businessperson everything becomes easier. You know what you have to focus on. What to study. Who to market to. What your identity is.
I really think that the fitness industry is poised to move this way – targeted solutions for specific audiences. It’s up to you whether you’ll be one of the leaders.
Build a Community – All the gyms I just mentioned have their own community. Starbucks coined the idea of becoming their customers’ 3rd place – that place people wanted to be outside of home and work.
Great fitness businesses become that 3rd place for their clients.
I mentioned it in the previous post – I don’t care if you love or hate CrossFit – they’ve built a community. Their members are posting pics and videos all over their Facebook pages, communicating with other ‘CrossFitters’ outside of the gym and making their experience viral.
Think that stuff happens at Ballys?
Find ways to connect your clients with one another. Encourage them to support each other. Instead of each client only being ‘your client’ – they also become part of ‘your team’ or ‘your family.’
Do that and you’ll be amazed at the impact on your business and you’ll separate yourself from all the other trainers and gyms in your area.
Be The Anti-Health Club – Even if you are a health club. Make everything personal. Know your clients. Not just their names. As about their work, their family and their hobbies. Even if you run a bootcamp, at least spend some one-on-one time with clients in the beginning to build a relationship and learn about them – then make it a priority to have periodic one-on-one contact with them regularly.
If clubs want to try to be Wal Mart (it won’t work) – you be the boutique location that everyone raves about.
Deliver Results or Find a Different Career – If you aren’t focused on making the people you work with better, move on.
I’ve spent a LOT of time in health club settings and most trainers there don’t work to improve at their craft, don’t do assessments, don’t design programs and don’t really care about their clients.
They just sell training and give workouts.
Take the complete opposite approach.
Study like crazy. Become a great trainer or coach – and accept that it will require a BIG investment (time and money) on your part to get there.
Do assessments, design programs, care about your clients’ success – focus on delivering results.
And if you happen to work in a big gym – do this and you’ll quickly set yourself apart from 99% of the other trainers there.
Run A Business That’s Tough To Beat – If you’re going to be part of the solution in the fitness industry as an entrepreneur that means you are going to have to run a sound business that’s poised to compete successfully with the big box health clubs. Here are the components I think give you the best chance for success:
- A low overhead, primarily open floorplan facility without expensive cardio & selectorized equipment.
- A model primarily based around group training.
- A specific target market (or two) that you’re trying to serve.
- The utilization of EFT billing.
- A dedication to creating a community atmosphere.
- A focus on client results instead of client volume.
- Several different revenue streams.
All the businesses that I mentioned previously utilize most if not all of these components. Our new youth fitness & athletic performance franchise – Athletic Revolution – incorporates all of these components.
They give you the best chance for success.
So where do bootcamps fall into this plan? Other than the facility they fit the bill to a ‘T.’ It’s beyond the scope of this post to compare bootcamps where the owner has their own space versus ones where the owner uses someone else’s space – but I will say that controlling your own space certainly has advantages over being at someone else’s mercy.
So there you have it – my formula for taking advantage of the problems the fitness industry currently faces. What do you think? Are you one of the leaders ready to step up and take advantage of the opportunities I’ve mentioned? Do you see other ways to take advantage of the problems I and so many others on the previous posts alluded to? Let me know below.
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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Awesome!
Absolutely brilliant post. More than just one nail got hit on the head there. The 2 keys for me is to study hard and actually care about the people you’re working with. Too many trainers see clients as walking pay cheques and forget what the client deserves.
Fantastic pat,
I’m all over it.
Started my business of the month campaign to day and got 3 people to sign up on the spot.
Magic.
AWESOME post Pat, keep up the great work
crank it!
BJ
Good advice for those that haven’t nailed down their niche. Listen to this post folks, find out what you’re passionate–good at—and desire to be the best—-and nail it. I love training strength athletes, but not enough in my area to make a living so I have a small studio for that–but I also am great with women losing weight and getting fit so I also have a 6,000 sq. ft facility attatched for women only bootcamps. We are the state’s only dedicated facility for women only fitcamps. The go to people for women. But I also get my fix of strength in my private studio with the athletes I do have. I live a great life when I went this route. My building, my rules, my hours. Praise God.
Randy Woody
Brilliant post!. Anyone can talk about what is wrong but it takes true undestanding to explain what the solutions are. Thanks Pat!
Thank you for helping me keep on track. I’ve just decided to move to a bigger location so I can implement all the things you’ve mentioned.
I’m definitively going to change something in my area about the fitness idea.
Just one question – because I’m Dutch and not quite familiair with English abbreviations : what does EFT billing mean ?
Thanks again,
Got a question in this regards. I’m designing my club around the bodybuilding/powerlifting niche strictly. Basically an atmosphere for those hardcore bodybuilders and/or powerlifters. For this specific niche I would imagine that things like boot camps, group fitness and personal training would not apply.
To cater more for this group I have thought of 3 crucial add-ons: tanning, smoothie bar and supplements. My question is if on a budget which equipment would you centre on initially
Right on the Money with this one
I used to owna smll market full service gym, the I wnet into sports nutrition retail.
For the last 6 months I have been emptying out my 3200 sq ft store (no more fitness equipment sales)
Now its Conditioing classes
Supplements and accessories
I am also doing more Bench Press Seminars as I am a 20 year + drug free Bencher.
At 41 I have never been more motivated in business and training groups!!
Thx for all you great Info
Curd “Hostyle” Hos
Great thoughts as always Pat! We are glad to be a part of the solution with our software. Streamlining the billing and automating it is a critical part of giving you the time to focus on your clients.
Way to make things happen Steven!
Yep Nikki, all fitness professionals will be using EFT in time.
Actually, 15 or 20 years from now most of the problems we face in the industry may very well be gone.
We’ll have new ones by then.
In fact, I suspect there will be a disappearance of extremes in the industry as it evolves.
Stephen Jay Gould, a Harvard paleontologist (and really smart guy), suggests that the disappearance of extremes happens with the evolution of any species.
While his application of this typically refers to the evolution of animal species – it happens in sports, business and with various professions as well.
Think about it…
Today pretty much all commercial pilots follow the same flight checklists to fly planes. This wasn’t the case 50 years ago.
Virtually all medical professionals follow the same procedures to treat various ailments.
In major league baseball (argue if you want but it’s true), the difference between the best player and the worst player is smaller now than ever before. (As a baseball junkie I can explain in more detail via email.)
Over time best practices are adopted industry / field wide.
Would anyone dare go into retail and not study what Wal-Mart and Target have done?
Would anyone go into fast food and not study what McDonalds has done?
The main reason that many of the problems the fitness industry faces exist is simple – we’re a young industry.
A guy that’s still living opened the first commercial heath club (Jack LaLanne.)
I don’t know if any retired personal trainers.
So sorry for the the scattered comment but I guess what I’m getting at are these 2 things:
1. The industry will evolve and self-correct.
2. If you take advantage of the opportunities I mentioned now and beat the rest of the industry to it – you’ll be a huge success.
OK – no more comments with references to McDonalds, paleontology and baseball all together;)
Pat,
You have really challenged me to take a look at a model like CrossFit and TRX and find out how they built a national brand and cult like following/community… This is my short term goal for my Fit Moms For Life DVDs program… Have support groups all over the country!
Thanks,
Dustin
Very positive way to look at it.
How do you think will do on the topic of credibility over a broad spectrum?
Especially now that just about every PT has some type of ebook or at least one in the works.
Great stuff as always Pat.
I’m psyched to dive into my goals and project ideas next Friday with you!!!
Hey Rees – I *think* that in the short term things will proceed like they have and it will be up to each of us individually to establish our own credibility because the industry as a whole certainly won’t.
Over time I’m sure there will be some inherent credibility with the title ‘fitness professional’, ‘personal trainer’ or ‘fitness coach’ – whatever becomes the accepted term.
That will likely come with some form of standard minimum education requirement – but we’ll see.
I don’t think that point is coming soon though so I would strongly suggest that each fitness pro take it upon themselves to work hard at carving out their own desired identity or brand and use the shortcomings of the fitness industry masses to even better separate themselves.
And as a side note – I don’t think that fitness pros writing e-books are a problem. Of the people I mentioned in the beginning of the post – all of them have their own product or membership site.
The problem is when people that haven’t proven they can deliver results time and time again write e-books and tout themselves as experts.
Very much like the guys that write Get Rich Quick books and have never ‘gotten rich.’
My first criteria for writing an e-book would be: If the demand for your services has exceeded the time in which you can personally provide that service then you should consider creating an additional offering (e-book, DVD, additional staff delivering service) to allow you to share your knowledge / skill / program with the people you can’t personally serve.
Not everyone can personally work with the Cosgroves that want to – either due to their limited time or proximity to their location.
So the solution is to offer a staff delivering their programs locally and products for those people that aren’t local.
Make sense?
Yep Justin – One Day Coaching will be great!
Pat, in your email you mentioned getting a master mind group started in my area. How do I do that exactly?
Thanks
as usual Pat great post… in creating a family a community we are seeing all of our clients get results and come together as a whole and do great things… our next outing is rock climbing…
Pat thanks for all of your awesome postings!!
I am just starting put the pieces together to start a bootcamp in my area so all of these points are greatly appreciated. I definitely will be adding them as a focus as I bring everything together.
Thanks again for all that you do in the fitness industry
Kim