Are You Too Busy To Be A Successful Fitness Pro?

May 21, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

How To Be A Successful Fitness Pro. A Post By Pat Rigsby

We all have the same 24 hours in a day and the same 7 days in a week. So why is it that some top producers seem to get mountains of things accomplished while others seem to never move closer to their goals?

Well, first I’d suggest that those high achievers have a clear picture of what they are trying to get done.

Secondly, I’d say that they value their time more than most and make sure that they are getting a significant return on the time they invest in activities.

And finally I believe that the successful plan their day to make sure they move closer to their goals.

While this isn’t specifically a goal achievement program, I strongly suggest that you spend some time deciding exactly how you want your business to look in 6, 12, 24 and 36 months. Once you have that clear picture of your future, then making decisions on how to spend your time becomes much easier. It essentially boils down to this:

Is this going to move me closer to or further away from my goals?

If the activity is going to move you closer to your goals, then you should do it. If it’s going to move you farther away, then don’t do it.

As you evolve in your fitness business endeavors you’re choices on activities will often be:

Which activity will move me to my goal more quickly?

But you need to know what your goals are. Do you?

Once you’ve decided what your goals are, achieving them becomes easier.

You essentially need to find the fastest and most direct route to the goals that you want to achieve.

This seems pretty simple, right?

Then why don’t most people live their lives this way?

Well, most of us are bombarded with so many distractions every day that the direct route is no longer obvious. So much of our attention gets diverted and so many people promise us the quick fix that keeps us on the right path that we’re usually prevented from achieving our goals.

The other problem is that we see the latest ‘fad’ and soon have a different goal that takes all of our focus away from our initial goal.

So here’s what I suggest that you do: Get very clear on what you want. Once you’re clear, work backward from where you want to be to where you are. If you are not sure of the steps in between, the easiest way to develop a path to follow is to model someone who’s achieved what you want to achieve. Learn the steps that they took and build them in to your plan.

The approach that I’ve had the most success in using backward planning is to set 3 types of goals:

Long Term Goals (12-36 months away)
Medium Term Goals (3-12 months away)
Short Term Goals (1 Day to 3 months away)

The short term goals all lead to the medium term goals and the medium term goals lead to the long term goals. Everything is interconnected.

With this approach daily planning becomes simple. I need to perform activities that move me closer to my short term goals. If they don’t move me closer to those goals I need to try to eliminate those activities.

So here exactly how I suggest that you do your daily planning:

On Sunday identify the tasks that you need to accomplish during the upcoming week to keep you on track to achieve you short term goals.

Each night spend 10 minutes planning the upcoming day. This will allow you to ‘sleep easy’ knowing that you are going to accomplish what you need to. Make sure that you have at least one ‘core task’ that no matter what, you will get accomplished in the upcoming day that will move you toward your goal. At the same time you should evaluate what you were able to accomplish during the day that’s coming to a close and whether the decisions you made moved you closer to your goals or took you farther away.

In the morning review your task list for the day. Allocate all your energies to accomplishing at least one ‘core’ task that will move you closer to your short term goal. If you’re booked with clients or designing programs all morning, get up a bit earlier or block off 30 minutes to make sure that you can accomplish a high return activity.

Review your goals and task list at least once during the day to make sure that you stay on track. By reviewing your goals too (and not just your tasks) you’ll be more likely to stay motivated.

A few tips to make sure that you get the most from your planning:

Always do your planning the night before.

Accept the fact that you’re not going to get everything that you want to done each day. That’s not an excuse so you don’t do anything.

Pledge to accomplish at least one task that moves you closer to your goals each day. Small, incremental improvements add up quickly.

Recognize that all actions move you closer to or farther from your goals as a fitness pro. Make note each evening of the activities that are moving you farther from your goals and track to see if patterns become apparent. If you’re spending 2 hours a day on e-mail but don’t have time to market, then you’ve seen a pattern that you need to change.

Dedicated to your success,

Pat Rigsby

Filed Under: Fitness Business Success, Fitness Entrepreneur, Personal Training Success Tagged With: Business Owner, Entrepreneur, Fitness Business, fitness business success, fitness entrepreneurs, fitness pro, pat rigsby, Success

25 Minutes For Fitness Pros To Get Things Done

May 14, 2012 By admin 1 Comment

Efficiency For Fitness Pros. A Post By Pat Rigsby

timer 25 Minutes For Fitness Pros To Get Things Done

Like you, I have a lot of responsibilities. A number of business obligations including lots of phone calls, managing projects, writing, travel and any number of other things that go into building several businesses simultaneously. So below I’ve shared 4 steps I use and a few other random tips for fitness pros that I think can also help you get more done. Here you go:

Step One: Evaluate - Each night before I go to bed, I evaluate the day that is coming to a close before planning the next day. I wait as late as possible so my mind is clear when I go to bed. I look over the task list I created the evening before and see what I got done.

Did I miss or fail to complete anything important?

Do I need to follow up on anything?

Does anything need to carry over to the next day?

Is there anything that can be eliminated or delegated?

(This takes about 2-3 minutes total.)

Step Two: Plan - As soon as I’ve reviewed the previous day, I start planning the next day. I check out my Google Calendar and add any commitments listed there to my task list. Then I look at anything from the previous day that needs to be carried over and any task or activity that I know I need to get done the next day.

Once everything is listed, I’ll review my goals ( I keep a list of goals and I’d recommend you do too) briefly and then ‘star’ the top three tasks that aren’t just scheduled calls or appointments that I’m committed to. These might be something like writing sales copy or a blog post, creating a module for a program or contacting someone about a project idea.

With the 3 starred items I will block off time on my calendar to get those tasks completed.

(This takes about 2-3 minutes total.)

Step Three: Review - Each morning take 1-2 minutes to review the day ahead. This helps me prepare for the day ahead and get in the right frame of mind. For example:

If I know that I will be writing copy, I’ll make sure I have my notes on my desktop to review or any other sales letters I want to review available. Basically, when the time comes to be able to jump right into the task and not spend 15 minutes getting focused.

(Like I said – 1 or 2 minutes maximum for this.)

Step Four: Execute 25 On / 5 Off - My workday is blocked of in 30 minute increments. Most calls are scheduled for 30 minutes and if there is a chance one will take longer, it’s scheduled for an hour.

Ideally, calls will be done in 25 minutes so I have 5 minutes to catch up or prep for the next block of time.

For writing, work on projects, etc. – same thing. They get 30 minute blocks of time.

But 30 minutes is actually 25 minutes of uninterrupted work and 5 minutes of either getting out of my chair & stretching / moving or some quick stuff like responding to an email or two. No heavy mental lifting. I’ll set the timer for 25 minutes and when the buzzer goes off, set it for another 5.

It’s incredible how much you can get done in 25 minutes if you have no interruptions. I can often write an entire blog post or 2 newsletters in that time frame. But that’s the key – no interruptions.

No checking email.
No checking Facebook or Twitter.
No unscheduled phone calls.
No surfing the internet.
No interrupting yourself to go get a drink, use the bathroom or anything else that will pull your focus away from the task at hand.

Over time you’re going to get a great idea of exactly how much you can get done in this amount of time. Once you have a rough idea of this, that’s when things get easy.

Then you can break up the stuff you need to get done into 25 minute blocks and big projects no longer seem overwhelming.

For me, it’s almost a contest – a race against time to see how much I can get done in 25 minutes.

Maybe for you making 10 Business of the Week calls takes 1 Block but writing a client email newsletter takes 3 Blocks. Just break it down and schedule it.

This approach has been great for me and I think it will be great for fitness pros too.

With that in mind, here are a couple of other tips to get more done:

The first hire any fitness professional should make is a personal assistant. You should try to delegate the $10 tasks that are taking up some of your time and spend your time on the high return stuff. Besides – hiring an assistant is easier than hiring someone to train or coach. You can use your network or Craigslist and find a number of solid prospects for an Admin. Asst. position and free up a lot of your time to do the higher return stuff.

Schedule everything. As far as I’m concerned, if it’s not scheduled – it’s not important. Block off time to spend with your family. Time to read or study. Time for your own training. If you schedule time for clients, then you should be scheduling time for you too.

Hold yourself accountable. Our Franchisees and Mastermind members do a Friday Check-In to the group to share what they got done during the past week and believe me, no one wants to be the slacker. You can list things out on Sunday of each week and review them the following Sunday, find an accountability partner or if you can join one of our programs or franchises and work with us for your accountability?

Set specific goals and be accountable. This is big for me. I want a target to shoot for at all times.

Alright – there you go: my simple solution for Fitness Pros to get more done.

Filed Under: fitness business, Fitness Entrepreneur, Personal Training Career Tagged With: Entrepreneur, Fitness Business, fitness pro, Fitness Professionals, fitness pros, Mindset, pat rigsby, Success

Personal Training Sales: The Value Capture Solution

April 15, 2012 By admin 3 Comments

A Post on Personal Training Sales By Pat Rigsby

dreamstime xs 20291426 300x199 Personal Training Sales: The Value Capture Solution

For the typical entrepreneurial personal trainer sales is a hot topic.

They want to know how to sell more.

How to close more deals.

But in my mind, this view is a small part of a much bigger picture.

The Client Value Capture picture.

So I wanted to explain my take on Client Value Capture and how it can explode your personal training sales.

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

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.

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.

24 Productivity Tips For The Fitness Business Owner

January 9, 2012 By admin 4 Comments

A Post On Productivity For a Fitness Business Owner by Pat Rigsby

Like you, I’ve got a lot going on. We’ve got a number of rapidly growing businesses that I play a significant role in. I have a wonderful family that I am committed to spending quality time with. I have personal goals and things I enjoy that I need to have time for.

Because of those things I’m always looking for ways to be more efficient, more productive, and to make my time more valuable. So here are 24 productivity tips for the Fitness Business Owner that I think you’ll get al lot out of.

Plan your day ahead – I prefer planning it the night before.

Always work from a list. You should actually have different lists for different purposes. A ‘Goals’ list is for your big picture objectives. Your monthly list is a list you make at the end of the month for the month ahead. Your weekly list is for the upcoming week and your daily list is your weekly list broken down into daily tasks.

Planning a project will likely cut the time spent on the project by at least half. List every step from start to finish, organize by priority and sequence.

By now you know the 80/20 rule- 20% of actions account for 80% of results. With that in mind, get your most important stuff done first.

Think long term. Before starting a task or activity – determine what the long term benefits / consequences will be.

Set big goals. Be clear on them. It will make all your short term decisions much easier. Things either line up with your goals or not. If they do – act. If they don’t – omit.

Be willing to delay gratification and make short term sacrifices so you can enjoy greater rewards in the long term. Every successful person I know has taken that approach.

Average people do what gives them short term gratification. Great ones do what it takes to achieve long term goals even if it’s not as easy or fun in the short term.

Time is going to pass whether you use it to move closer to your goals or farther away. Only you get to decide how you use that time and where you want to be in the future.

Think about the consequences of your actions and behaviors. If you do that you’ll usually take the steps necessary to get where you want to go while those who ignore the ramifications of what they do won’t.

Review your list of tasks and projects regularly.

There will never be enough time to do everything you have to do. – What are my highest value activities? What can you and only you do, that if done well, will make a real difference? What is the most valuable use of your time, right now?

The things that matter most must never be skipped over for the things that matter least.

Continuous learning is a must for success. Make time for it. The need to grow and improve never ends.

Take responsibility and know that you and only you are the deciding factor in achieving your goals.

There is never the perfect time to get started, so start now.

Challenges are there to weed out the average. Keep that in mind when you encounter them.

One of the most powerful words in time management is NO! – You have no spare time, say no early and often to everything that isn’t high value.

If you don’t schedule it – that means you don’t see value in it.

Adding something new to your plate requires you to stop doing something old.

Do the most difficult task first, start it first thing in the morning.

Use time blocks. 25-50 minutes of no email, no phone, no distractions will get you to your goals faster than 8 hours of a normal workday.

Make every minute count. – Create a sense of urgency, an impatience that motivates you to get started.

Focus on getting things done now. Successful people get more done – and as you know…You Get Paid For Done!

There are 24 tips that have helped me and that I think will help you or any fitness business owner. If you have more to share – please add them below.

Filed Under: fitness business, Fitness Business Success, Fitness Entrepreneur, Personal Training Success Tagged With: Business Owner, Entrepreneur, Fitness Business, fitness entrepreneur, pat rigsby, productivity, time

My Best Fitness Business Building Tip

January 4, 2012 By admin 2 Comments

Fitness Business Building By Pat Rigsby

I had a coaching call with a fitness pro the other day and I gave him some advice that I consider to be the best advice that I can give someone – but it comes with a disclaimer: it is also advice that I’m hesitant to give because it could potentially give someone the idea that they don’t have to ‘do the work’ – which obviously goes against everything that we teach.
So the advice that I gave him and that I’m going to give you now is this:

Determine your strengths – then build your fitness business around them.

So let me back up for a minute…

The fitness pro I was talking with already runs a strong business and has enjoyed some success in his marketing efforts. He told me that he knew that I was a fan of public speaking and networking but he hadn’t really done much with either of those marketing tactics. Instead of telling him that he needed to dive right into those two – because they are two of the most powerful ways available to any fitness pro to grow their business…I surprised him and told him not to do either of them.

Did my thoughts about public speaking or networking change? Of course not.

But after talking with him a bit and discovering that he had some other real strengths that he could leverage to generate more clients – and would clearly enjoy more – it was obvious that the best solution for him wasn’t going the networking and public speaking route.

He needed to play to his strengths.

So why is this scary for me to give this advice?

Because given to the wrong person, it can be misconstrued as a free pass to be lazy.

This particular fitness pro has already used social media and his writing skills successfully to grow his business. Suggesting more ways for him to leverage his use of social media and his writing talents even more makes sense – because he’s already proven that it has success for him.

But put that same advice in the wrong hands and you get a situation where someone who’s never proven that they can write worth a damn and haven’t had any success with social media now think they don’t have to ever get out from behind their computer to build a six-figure business.

In fact, back in our old Personal Trainer U. days there was a guy on the forum that did just that…he got on the forum and whined about how he’d written 3 articles and submitted them to article directories, put up a couple blog posts – and he didn’t have any clients to show for it. The economy was to blame. There was no way that trainers could be successful right now.

My response was simple: “How many prospects are in your home office right now? If the answer is *zero* – then get off your ass and go where they are.”

Needless to say – he didn’t post anymore.

But that’s my fear when dispensing this advice – people mistaking their strengths for what’s just easiest.

But I’ve believed that this approach was the best way to go for quite a while.

When I was coaching baseball, it took me a couple years to quit trying to be a clone of the coach that I admired most. My strengths were different than his. Once I realized that, I became a much better coach and our teams got much better.

I followed this same approach when it came to dealing with our opponents too – instead of worrying about detailed scouting reports and trying to exploit opponents weaknesses, I wanted our players to focus exclusively on playing to their strengths.

Heck – we’ve built an entire franchise around this approach. Allowing fitness professionals to play to their own individual strengths instead of trying to churn out cookie cutter businesses.

Now you may not think that this advice is anything special – but here’s why it is…

Once you determine your strengths, buy going all in and leveraging them to the maximum you’ve done 3 things:

You’ve separated yourself from everyone else because you’re playing to your unique talents, assets, passions and skills.
You just made running your business a lot more fun because you can focus more on doing what you’re best at – and feel confident that it’s a good choice.
You just set out on the fastest route I know to build a powerhouse business.

Another way of putting this is ‘doing more of what’s working.’ Seems simple, right?

Well, most people don’t do it. They jump from one thing they’ve had some success with to something else that requires completely different talents or skills instead of finding more ways to utilize the strengths that led to the successes they’ve had.

To use our business as an example – one of our strengths is relationships. Really, everything that we’ve built has been founded on building relationships with fitness professionals and trying to provide the best solutions they need to build the Fitness Business they want.

So one we recognized that relationships were at the core of our business, we started to do things like:

Hold more live events to spend more time in person with the fitness pros we serve.
Do more coaching calls so we can learn more about the people we work with and how we can most effectively help them.
Create a Customer Experience position on our team so we could make sure that we’re providing the best possible service to the people who trust us to help them grow their business.
Build franchises so we could have a family-like relationship with a select group of fitness pros who shared the same values we do and what to work with us as closely as possible.

There are plenty of other examples, but you get the picture.

So how can you leverage your strengths to build your fitness business?

If you’re a relationship person, do more networking. Focus more on referrals. Create more complete solutions for the people that you already work with. Build a community in your business so strong that it attracts the type of clients you want more of.

If you’re great at writing, make sure you’ve got great copy on your site. Blog like crazy. Guest blog for local bloggers. Write a column for the local paper. Build out dozens of autoresponders. Send press releases every week. Send a great weekly newsletter. Write free special reports that you can get in the hands of prospects. Write direct mail sequences to send out in your area.

And that’s not even beginning to touch on how you can leverage your strengths as a coach to own a particular niche market.

So your goal should be this:

Figure out what your real strengths are. The things that you’ve proven that you’re better than the rest at – the things you’ve done well to grow your business. The things that you not only enjoy doing – but that produce results.

Once you’ve determined those strengths – figure out as many ways as you can to start leveraging them to build the business you want…and start implementing those ideas.

That’s how you can build a great fitness business that you’ll love owning.