The Truth About Running A Fitness Bootcamp Business

May 26, 2011 By Pat Rigsby 14 Comments

The one thing needed in this day and age for fitness bootcamp business success

Yesterday I received an email from a customer saying:

“There are too many fitness bootcamp businesses out there – what can I do that’s different?”

I gave him a quick response, but I’m going to elaborate here…

Most Fitness Bootcamps Suck!

I will agree with him to a point: There are a LOT of fitness bootcamps now. A whole lot. 3 Years ago you could open a bootcamp business up and win by default. They were the new thing in fitness and if you were first mover you were almost automatically assured of success.

No more.

Now we’re past that stage and we’re on to the time where you actually need to be able to deliver a good product to succeed.

What You Can Expect From The Fitness Industry in 2011

December 23, 2010 By Pat Rigsby 19 Comments

Fitness Industry Predictions. A Post By Pat Rigsby

2011 What You Can Expect From The Fitness Industry in 2011

Predictions are popular this time of year. I give mine every year and many other people with a blog do the same.

What I’m about to share with you is knowledge that you can take to the bank. I have to good fortune of seeing what thousands of fitness industry businesses are doing and access to ‘insider’ information that will give you a decided advantage if you take it to heart and act on it.

Bottom line – there will be changes and those who are on the front end of them will be the ones to reap the rewards, so here’s what you can expect in 2011:

Fitness Bootcamps Are In For Some BIG Changes. There are already several thousand fitness bootcamps in North America and with organizations like ACE saying that Bootcamps are a ‘hot trend’ for 2011, every business in our industry is going to take a stab at running a bootcamp.

While this is great for the popularity of bootcamps, it all will lead to things like health clubs offering ‘Unlimited Bootcamp’ for $39 a month or more idiots in the park running bootcamps telling folks to ‘go run around a tree and come back and do 100 jumping jacks. Then we’ll figure out what’s next…’

The Future of Your Fitness Business

December 16, 2010 By admin 13 Comments

Fitness Business Success Tips From One of the best

A Guest Post by Tyler English

“The future has a way of arriving unannounced.”

Those words were spoken by one of America’s most powerful journalists, George Will. Now I don’t know if it’s because of my background as a writer or because I just am a complete dork when it comes to quotes.

But you and your fitness business can learn a lot from that single line.

Ask yourself this.

What happens if your fitness boot camp stopped generating revenue?

Facility Pic from back 1 The Future of Your Fitness Business

I mean think about this for a second. Let’s just say, hypothetically, that the fitness boot camp craze died out.

Now what do you do?

You see when I first started my fitness business in January of 2009 all I thought about was growing my program, Farmington Valley Fitness Boot Camp, and at the time that was of the utmost importance. Without the growth of that program I would not be where I am today.

Yet, as I’ve grown as a business owner it’s become more and more apparent to me that the longevity and continued growth of your business is dependent on much more than just growing your boot camp.

Back in November of 2008, when I first started working with Pat Rigsby, I had no idea what multiple streams of revenue even looked like, let alone what it meant in the business world. I was living paycheck to paycheck and absolutely miserable with my existence in the fitness industry.

Pat helped me change this almost immediately after starting my business and growing Farmington Valley Fitness Boot Camp to what it is today.

The BEST 21 Fitness Business Tips Of All-Time

August 4, 2010 By admin 22 Comments

A Post on The Best Fitness Business Tips By Pat Rigsby

21 Fitness Business Tips.

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

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

Break out of the fitness industry norms – the majority is almost always wrong and are always behind.
Recycle what you do. Deliver the same content in different formats. Fitness coaching programs, infoproducts, Bootcamps to Go – they’re all the same stuff packages in different formats.
Small hinges swing big doors. A few small, but strategic changes can make big differences to the bottom line.
A different way to look at your market is to find price gaps instead of pricing the way everyone else does. If you can get a health club membership for $39, a bootcamp membership for $199 and 1 on 1 personal training for $500 – the gaps are $99 and $299-399. What can you offer there?

Do You Know What You Want As A Fitness Professional?

April 27, 2010 By admin 21 Comments

A Post on Fitness Professional Mindset By Pat Rigsby

I wonder if most fitness professionals really know what they want.

Dan Kennedy talks about being certain that you don’t create a success that you hate.

Do you know what you want?

When I first began coaching baseball I dreamed of winning 30 games in a season and earning $30,000 a year. Considering that the team I was taking over had never won more than 19 games in a season and the job paid $3000 – those seemed like success to me.

We eventually won as many as 48 games in a season and averaged well over 30 wins for my time as a coach – and during my last couple of years I even earned a bit more than $30,000.

But what I never considered was that being a small college baseball coach meant more time fundraising than on baseball fundamentals and hundreds of hours riding on vans and eating at McDonalds because our budget didn’t allow for anything else.

Tell Me Your Fitness Industry Story

February 15, 2010 By admin 51 Comments

I love stories.

That’s a big part of why I prefer to meet with people in person or talk on the phone over sending emails.

It’s easier to share stories.

Sharing stories are one of the easiest ways to get to know someone – and if you’re selling, they’re one of the easiest ways to build rapport.

This weekend at the IYCA Summit I shared my personal story with the audience so they could better understand where I was coming from when I offered fitness business advice.

Based on the feedback I received, it was the best thing I could have possibly done.

Fitness Industry Problems: An Opportunity For You

February 9, 2010 By admin 20 Comments

A Post On Fitness Industry Problems By Pat Rigsby

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.

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Filed Under: Fitness Business Success Tagged With: Fitness Business, fitness entrepreneur, Fitness Industry

What I Think Is Wrong With The Fitness Industry

February 6, 2010 By admin 31 Comments

Fitness Industry Problems. A post by Pat Rigsby.

Following up on the previous post “What’s Wrong With The Fitness Industry”, I wanted to share my thoughts since so many of you we’re good enough to share your take on the problems our industry has.

wrongway What I Think Is Wrong With The Fitness Industry

First off, I think there are a variety of problems within the fitness industry, not just one or two. So here’s my list:

A Focus On Everything But Results – If you go to the mechanic, you go to get your car fixed…not just worked on, right? It’s pretty much that way for any service.

If I drop my clothes of at the dry cleaner, it’s because I want them clean and pressed.

In fact, if my car isn’t fixed or my clothes aren’t cleaned – the service provider didn’t do their job.

The fitness industry’s job is to get people results. Not just ‘work them out’.

These are far from perfect analogies because they deal with objects like cars and clothes – not people – but the point remains.

If gyms and personal trainers were graded on the outcomes they deliver to their clients – most would get an ‘F.’

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Filed Under: Fitness Business Success Tagged With: Fitness Industry, Fitness Professional

What’s the problem with the Fitness Industry?

February 1, 2010 By admin 52 Comments

The fitness industry is broken.

Plain and simple.

Only about 16% of people belong to a fitness facility or program in the U.S.

Of the ones that belong to health clubs, only about 30% are active users.

The average personal trainer makes under $30,000 per year.

Most people who enter the personal training profession depart soon after to get a ‘real job.’

I’ve got my own opinions on why things are the way they are – opinions about the consumers, the commercial clubs and the personal trainers.

I suspect you do too.

I’ll share mine soon enough – but tell me yours first.
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Filed Under: Fitness Business Success Tagged With: Fitness Industry

Do This, Not That: The Personal Trainer Survival Guide – Part 1

January 12, 2010 By sara 17 Comments

Personal Trainer Success Strategies By Pat Rigsby

With the popularity of the Eat This, Not That series of books, I thought I might apply the same premise to the personal training industry for a post.

With Eat This, Not That, the idea is pretty simple – trade something less supportive if your goals for something more supportive.

Same thing applies here.